Joanne Robertson - Blurrr (AD93) [Ambient Pop]
- The Slow Music Movement
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
*** This blog post first appeared in TSMM's October 1st Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***
Joanne Robertson fled the bright lights of Blackpool for Glasgow many moons ago and released her first albums about ten years back, sadly to little fanfare. Since then though she’s helped out Dean Blunt, and her Blue Carr release was picked up by the keen eared taste makers at AD93, with her star steadily rising as a result. Remarkably music isn’t her only creative outlet, she’s also got a nice line in modern art which seems to take up most of her time, and according to the wilfully short liner notes, “Blurrr was written in between painting sessions and also whilst raising a child.”
From the very first uneasy notes and whispers of “ghost” - the album opener, you sense someone baring their soul, and if you care to check out her visual art then you’ll note similarly primal expression at play, although the disembodied vocals often float around the listening space on waves of reverb as if trying to float away from close scrutiny with the sometimes sweet, sometimes raw guitar work constantly looking up at the rarefied vocals.
But hold tight there’s a surprise in store. Just as you’ve filed the album under outsider bedroom pop or lo-fi singer songwriter, Oliver Coates pops up with his cello tricks to flesh out the frequencies and slip a comforting arm around the reclusive vocal and solitary guitar, elevating and warming the badly attended back room of a pub ambience of the opening cuts without diluting Robertson’s raw and real charms. Outsider lo-fi ambient pop is the new Taylor Swift, get involved.
Playlist Companion
Find Robertson in the Ambient Pop Playlist.