Glasser: the newest LA diva

also "Mirrorage" is basically an audio orgasm

Glasser doesn't really sound anything like Warpaint, not sure why that comparison was made. Actually if you like the Glasser album the next 2010 release you should be going for is probably the School of Seven Bells album.

No, they don't sound exactly alike, but there are quite a few shared traits - the stark minimalism to some of the tracks, the gorgeous vocal melodies, I don't think its THAT much of a ridiculous comparison.

yeah there really is zero (0) reason for me not to own So7B already

Dan, have you listened to any Zola Jesus yet? It's got the minimal electronic thing going and a big voice over the top, but quite a bit more gothy than Glasser or BFL in tone. Overall the last album is kind of a drag imo, but she's got at least three songs on there that are total winners (Night, I Can't Stand, Sea Talk).

I've see the name tossed around but haven't knowingly heard; possibly as a random song on Pandora...?

i'm not really into ZJ, but it seems like she might be tailor-made for DJP

what's a good school of seven bells song? all i know of them is that they're on ghostly and that shigeto (beatmaker dude) plays drums for them live.

Glasser doesn't really sound anything like Warpaint, not sure why that comparison was made. Actually if you like the Glasser album the next 2010 release you should be going for is probably the School of Seven Bells album.

I know ilm can't stop giving SoVIIB critical handjobs and all, but people who like this type of stuff might also like Warpaint, thats all I'm trying to say!

btw "Night" by Zola Jesus is definitely making me want to investigate more

altho the youtube comment "Florence Welch meets Siouxsie Sioux!" is a little terrifying

like how much stridency can you hear before your head implodes?

Yeah, she's a pretty good fit for the 'LA diva' title.

Not to imply earlier that I don't like School of Seven Bells (its better than Glasser, but not as good as Warpaint imho), its just that I was trying to reference a band that I don't think has been getting quite as much love on ilm.

Warpaint's singer fits very well into the B4L/Glasser vibe so I get why they were mentioned

def. the least interesting of the artists listed so far but by no means bad

okay it's totally ludicrous that I don't have this So7B album

hmm, Bat For Lashes is one of those bands with a name so awful I avoid them. Think i'll just be content waiting for the next Glasser album. Clearly The Knife is the only comparison that matters.

okay so now we're just listing every female-fronted group we know

"You know what this Glasser album reminds me of? Lita Ford."

I was just going to recommend that people digging Glasser would really love Christian Mistress.

All along B4L meets the Fever Ray album has been the most obv correct reference point, why are people complicating things.

I wouldn't list The Knife/Fever Ray at all; it's Bat For Lashes sensibility expressed by an American. You've got similar sound palettes, similar tempos, similar voices... there's no real need to bring anyone else into the picture.

I don't know why I put off listening to this all year because I played it for the first time today and it is amazing. She has an amazing sense of how to harmonise with her own voice and use it to effect, and it sounded perfect on headphones walking on crunchy snow. Reminds me a lot of Planningtorock in many ways too but with a lot more space, menace and earthiness.

I don't this this album is quite as good as my excitable posting earlier made out, but it's still pretty wonderful. Can she get even better? We'll see..

so I'm the only person hearing Bjork in here? huh

I completely hear Bjork, now that you mention it. It's like Volta if that album was any good..

i stand by my sinead comparison from earlier

sort of like Nancy Sinatra on acid, right?

not really?

Fever Ray/The Knife totally off the money - Glasser very rarely treats her voice in the same way as Karin (Mirrorage aside) and the sonics are much more open and sonorous than Fever Ray in particular, which is quite claustrophobic. Also I rarely get the sense from listening to Glasser that she's coming at her music from a techno or house background, even when the music is purely electronic.

Bjork I hear totally, mostly the widescreen symphonic iciness of the sound and also the way her voice can fill the entire space available, the sound is huge even when she's just backed up with a xylophone and a couple of drums. But none of the comparisons really hit home with me - she's her own person and I think and hope she'll make even better records than this.

I think that you can hear the similarities in production to Fever Ray, the way the sounds often seem to hover on the edge between organic and electronic - whereas the arrangements are more B4L. The songwriting is different again.

Both Fever Ray and Glasser make me want to bust out the word "elemental".

Bjork has always struck me as much more humanist but then I never bothered to listen to her last two albums much.

OTM, although I would really assert the Knife/Fever Ray comparison; they have the same producer (I think) and the nuances in their respective productions may contrast, but it's still has this (very reductive description) of a bold, but witchy lady singing these little songs over dark-tinged electronic music. Compare the twisting layers of harmonies, xylophones and other percussion to some of the denser tracks on Fever Ray eg Concrete Walls, Coconut.

She's playing in Ldn in February...I've curbed my gig attendance over the past two years, but I'm tempted. Maybe I'll try to chat after the show, Marnie Stern style ;)

Gah curse my slow posting style, but good points everyone.

xp Volta is worth hearing as a fan and admirer, but I really really rate Medulla as an incredible work. Mind-goggling vocal arrangements! Some of her most beautiful music.

Checking out School Of Seven Bells on Myspace... Glasser has a MUCH more interesting sound across the board, especially the rhythms. SO7B's is fine but feels overly familiar to me whereas Glasser seems out of nowhere.

nancy sinatra comment was a joke, shakey.

oh good

but yeah I don't get the "this sounds like NOTHING ELSE" sorta comments here. this sounds like a lot of stuff! Especially Bjork! good album.

I guess it's more like "nothing else I'm overly familiar with", which means I'll have to revisit Bjork's solo albums.

didn't mean to single you out, yr hardly the only one

"learn" on the 'apply' ep actually makes the best case for the bjork comparisons i think - the rattling drum loop and the HO HA HO HA HO HA HO HA parts seem like pages from her book (in a good way)

i agree with matt - don't hear fever ray in here at all, and in fact would be tempted to say that glasser is the opposite of fever ray (within the same basic female-electronica field obv). i don't think FR's production is nearly as balanced between organic/electronic as tim says - the organic elements are far more decorative, and the claustrophobic dronier electronics are way more dominant

björk makes more sense, but is also kinda vague given how difficult it is to pin down what björk as a comparison point actually means...sonically, not much, given that björk's gone through so many production styles in her career. vocally, not really - glasser seems way more controlled and formal, even when she's doing the wordless chanting.

b4l, maybe, but b4l's music leaves so little impression on me that i can't say anything specific about it. though i don't remember ever being as surprised by anything on a b4l record as i was on virtually every glasser track though.

Hah, if you asked me to think of one track from the entire history of pop music that the word "elemental" made me think of, it would almost certainly be 'Batchelorette'.

goes without saying that glasser's similarities to B4L don't prevent her from being incomparably better on pretty much every level.

"Bachelorette" is oddly dehumanised for a Bjork song I reckon (particularly odd given how melodramatic it is) - you could probably construct a Bjork playlist that cleaves pretty closely to Glasser actually, but it would of course offer a very skewed take on Bjork.

Actually if you just whacked on most of Homogenic and Vespertine (except maybe Pluto and Alarm Call) you wouldn't be too far off.

But... so much of Vespertine in particular is so intimate and emotional, could you imagine Glasser singing a song like "Cocoon" or "Pagan Poetry"?

Those non-intimate (not a diss) aspects of Glasser that make me think of Happy Rhodes, though obviously she's less corny.

Rhythmwise, "Apply" actually reminds me of Cibo Matto ("Apple")

i'm not really into ZJ, but it seems like she might be tailor-made for DJP

i'd like to echo this ^^

dan if you've not heard "sea talk" yet, you need to get on that song. siouxsie meets fever ray in the best way possible.

picked up glasser yesterday, btw, & it's fantastic

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