It touches on grief, suicide and transness with the intent of not letting the listener attribute the entire thing to one of those boxes exclusively. Fun House is a record charmingly drunk on the flourishes of autonomy.
The final line on their debut as Hand Habits, Wildly Idle (Humble Before the Void), was, “When I get new bones / I’m gonna grow.” Now, four years later, Duffy has made good on their promise, reckoning with how society has compartmentalized their identity in a way that no longer feels authentic. The centerpieces of Hand Habits’ last record placeholder (“yr heart,” “jessica,” “pacify”) were all fortified in the same headspace of urgency and timeliness, whereas Fun House, in its entirety, organically sprawls into songs that touch almost every inch of Duffy’s emotional carbon footprint, releasing a battlecry of complexity, while remaining stoic in articulating the human existence without withholding responsibility or romanticizing fallibility. From the muted electronica to the Neil Young-esque Americana, Meg Duffy uses the record to explore parts of songwriting they’d previously dismissed as impossible for them to achieve. Saby Reyes-Kulkarniįun House’s scope is unrelenting. It’s as close to an attention-grabbing gesture as we’re probably ever going to get from Liz Harris-but if that’s what this album is, it’s an attention grab that’s well overdue.
In its own gentle way, Shade nudges the audience to view Harris as an all-around musician, rather than as the consummate mood-setter she’s long been hailed as. From there, though, Harris takes a sharp left turn with the crisp melodicism of “Unclean mind,” an acoustic guitar-and-vocal number that, in spite of its sparse, bone-dry arrangement, evokes commercial alt-rock, with double-tracked vocal harmonies that recall ‘90s acts like Lush and Smashing Pumpkins. Shade, for example, begins with a plume of digitized ocean spray that sets the stage for “Followed the ocean,” a track that would have slotted right in with the ambience on Dragging a Dead Deer. Where her previous records pulled you into their own individual universes, casting a spell over the senses until the final notes rang out, here Harris breaks the spell over and over, seemingly on purpose. On Shade, her first album as Grouper since 2018’s Grid of Points, Liz Harris draws from recordings that span the 15-year breadth of her career. To use a phrase Korkejian herself sings in “You Never Leave Me,” her music is both “sweet and tough.” -Ana Cubas Sometimes the emotional weight of the song is completely different from how the song sounds, as if one track can become two simultaneously. Azniv Korkejian has a way of wrapping up rather heavy-hearted lyrics in a charming manner, so much so that the emotion at hand must often be extracted. Waysides is the kind of album that would back delicate daydreaming or frolicking through a field, as much as it would work for deep contemplation and nostalgia. Waysides encapsulates the artist’s coming of age, grappling with emotions and experiences that come with gaining wisdom.
But as we said, there’s zero shortage of worthwhile music out this week, so once you’re done with the list below, be sure to dig into the honorable mentions at the end-these 10 are just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve highlighted 10 excellent spots to start, including the self-titled return of My Morning Jacket, Liz Harris’ career-spanning new album as Grouper, and Bedouine’s third lovely folk LP. 22) is the effective epicenter of a stacked month for new music, with an absolute smorgasbord of albums hitting streamers, shelves, etc.
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