Sharon Van Etten

Finally listened to her latest on the NPR stream after seeing a big Sunday Washington Post interview and reading that my local alt-weekly arts editor loves this--- eh, it's ok. Maybe I need to give it more time. On first listen I do not hear enough variety.

tramp is a very strong record. not my sort of thing, usually, but this is great and really catchy in a classy, subtle way

it's weird to me that this thread isn't drowning in hateration, her rise to prominence is prime indie-hater bait

how so

I like Tramp just fine but it's no patch on Epic.

I love Warsaw. I think the record in a whole is a grower. Anyway it's good breakup listening.

her rise to prominence is prime indie-hater bait

Well, the new one is awash in guests from Beirut, the National, Wye Oak, Walkmen, Doveman, Julianna Barwick. If you have a problem with current indie, you'd have a problem with this. Me, I thought it sounded a bit like the first Breeders record retrofitted for NPR listeners, but not necessarily in a bad way.

not sure what you are on about there, the first breeders? was that pod? this sharon van etten has nothing to do with that kind of demoish sounding indie rock. it's more of a songwriter album in the vein of joni mitchell, cat power etc. excellent stuff, great hooks esp. the first five songs, a dreamy voice which goes to the bone, i didn't dig into the lyrics yet but apparently they are very personal about her trying to survive on the roads of new york, she had no home when she recorded the album. i'd like to know if warsaw has got something to do with joy division, probably not but what hell of a song!

if you want to compare it with a first album that would be much more the first michelle shocked, the texas campfire tapes though this is much more polished and arranged, it is not her first album and it shows.

it's weird to me that this thread isn't drowning in hateration, her rise to prominence is prime indie-hater bait

it surely is but maybe she just won't be big enough to circulate outside the npr-indie enclave.

I'm a latecomer to her -- have been sort of aware of her as somebody I wanted to check out -- but noticing that she's coming to town next week prompted me to get Epic and Tramp. Enjoying both, need some time to sink in, but I'm looking forward to the show.

After going back and hearing Epic, I definitely prefer that one. The new one gets too bogged down by that Brooklyn indie approach, which I don't think suits her as well.

what would you say defines "that Brooklyn indie approach" exactly?

lol i know that was super weird and vague, i guess just the vibe of the whole album, it sounded a lot like latter-day National albums (which makes sense, given the producer) and Walkmen albums. which is fine for those bands, but i don't think the sound works as well with Sharon's voice. i think she needs something a little more gritty and raw and not so, i don't know, NPRish.

Dag, she puts on a good show. Terrific performer, great lovely voice, she's touring with a really sharp band. Nice range in the set, from quiet murmury moments to some real howling anthemic rock.

warsaw's cool

tipsy otm.
her show in manchester was spellbinding from start to finish, with a tiptop backing band to boot.

warsaw's cool

yeah i like the new album quite a bit but i also keep just playing this song over and over

did anybody hear the demos record
i wanna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv20Hlfl1Po

blorp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv20Hlfl1Po

i am listening to this & it kinda slays, fwiw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2duIAh5BbY

it's super messy & raw. i was not so crazy about the record & this is like the antidote; not in sweetly recasting the songs as lighter, whisperier sve-classic slow jams but in being boombox & drum machine recordings of someone howling their songs into shape. it's a $7 cdr from the label, also.

uuuugh, these are so, so much better. for the love of god, please never record with the national again sharon van etten. that demo version of serpents is an eye opener.

serpents was actually the song i liked on the record, i think it works, i am still trying to find the 7" because the b-side is nice, too. & iirc julianna barwick was playing on the record somewhere, so i can sorta feel the idea of SVE + group, rather than just doing her one man band thing. but then there is the guy from beirut singing & it's just, just what is this, you know. the serpents demo is killer anyway, yes. i hear she is real into leonard cohen, it's kinda like hearing this, the pre-edit jam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os_8Xpl2Jsc

some of the lyrical swaps in serpents are kinda fascinating btw

http://youtu.be/M4TCAjfGN1M --A video of Sharon covering touring mate Nick Cave's _Boatman's Call_ cut, "People They Ain't No Good", during a radio session. It's really lovely. Skip to 1:20 for the performance.

i really like the warbling aspect of her singing in "give out", where she allows her voice to drift off key in a manner reminiscent of the built to spill guy and the clap your hands say yeah guy. are there other female singers who sing in this very indie style?

Kristen Hersh?

*Kristin

also Amy Annelle. I have to say that the CYHSY guy's voice is one of my least favorite sounds in music.

yeah, you are not alone in thinking that. but you are not with me. that album came out when i was 15 or something though so i think that crackling, off-key sound, affected as it is, is a thing that works for me when it is done well. also i see it as a variation of jeff mangum's singing voice, and ITAOTS was super-formative to me.

but i can see how it would sound grating to other people, kind of like the grumbling, 90s, pearl jam voice is just the worst sound ever for me. thanks for the tips.

I heard the CYHSY album about a year after I first heard Neutral Milk Hotel, and I think I was put off by the NMH-isms of the former. It seems like they roughly copped the lo-fi kookiness of old Elephant 6 band but left out all the eerie horn arrangements and guitar fuzz and self-mythologizing lyrics and weird production choices and everything else that made NMH interesting, so in the end they were just a run-of-the-mill "quirky" indie rock band. Jess Mangum's tuneless vocal freakouts worked well within the context of his songs because he was capable of singing sweetly and tunefully when he wanted to, whereas the CYHSY's guy just grated and bleated along 100% of the time (at least to my ears) like a metal dude who doesn't know when to take his growling down a notch. I dunno, maybe I'd like the band better if I went back and listened to them now. in some ways I was a much harsher critic in 2006 than I am now.

lol, grumbling, 90s Pearl Jam stuff was just about all I listened to when I was 15.

the best place to start with Amy Annelle is The Cimarron Banks (and after that, Songs for Creeps by The Places) btw. 'Forever In-Between' is a pretty good example of the vocal trick you're looking for.

xp i see what you mean, and i agree with you that cyhsy are incapable of making an album as rich as in the aeroplane over the sea -- they are just not the same class of band -- but still, the lo-fi, warbling quirkiness seemed like a durable schtick to me in high school, and i really loved "the skin of my yellow country teeth" because it was anthemic but the singer sounded, at the same time, drunk in a vulnerable way. in general too, i am just biased toward idiosyncratic singers... dylan and nico are my favorite vocalists.

i'm listening to forever in between now and it is perfect, thanks.

I really like the backing track of "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth", actually. it would be perfect if some 90s indie guy like Steven Malkmus was singing over it. make this happen!

glad you like the Amy Annelle song. I feel like I'm the only person in the world (or ILM, anyways) who stans for her.

yeah i like it a lot, but i have a serious soft spot melancholy female singer songwriters.

I hope everyone interested in this thread has given the excellent Torres album a listen.

And yes, that Torres album is good. Don't ignore Shelby Earl either!

Anyway, for this year -- Sharon's new album is streaming:

http://www.thecurrent.org/feature/2014/05/16/first-listen-sharon-van-etten-are-we-there

Man, this is sad, heavy stuff even for an SVE record. It's great, but some of these songs are like having somebody stand on your throat.

Obviously she touched on an abusive relationship on her first couple albums, but there's an ugliness and physicality on these songs that makes those earlier accounts seem whitewashed by comparison. There's so much trauma here it hurts; it breaks my heart that she went through all of this

the previous albums really didn't do much for me, but this one is hitting the spot.

"afraid of nothing" is a showstopper

I think "are we there yet" is one of my favorite albums of the year.

That's because it's brilliant.

The arrangements on this feel really rudimentary in that aggravating US indie way, which is a shame because with a big more care I feel like some of these songs could really be incredible. Still, 'Your Love Is Killing Me' is amazing.

I feel like taking every musician that played on this aside and gently explaining that it's okay for them to play a note off the beat every now and again. Virtually every song drags as a result, especially the stripped-down piano-led one in the middle.

that seems to be a common quality of "confessional" singer-songwriter stuff, where somehow the straightlaced quality of the playing is supposed to match the confessional sincerity of the lyrics. obv there are exceptions.

I hadn't seen SVE live in quite a few years, the only time I did she was opening (solo) for nick cave at the awful bill graham auditorium; she was so good then but yes, she's easily handling the badass live performer role she's taken up (and yes she was wearing leather pants). anyway this was a great show all around, Julien Baker sounding the best I've heard her (also playing with a full band).

I saw the show on Friday in LA, they were both great and I didn't get the sense that the crowd left during Angel. Folks seemed pretty stoked on both of them. (I missed Julien Baker.)

SVE had a much tougher vibe, almost kinda goth. I was happy that she packed a good amount of the set with songs from the last album alongside the new stuff. (Angel on the other hand stuck pretty much to the new album with a few throwbacks to older songs - but almost or entirely nothing from All Mirrors).

Does she play "Tarifa"? Just curious...

Not at the show I saw

how's the new one?

Dull

Wow, not getting that at all from this album. That middle stretch from "Trouble" to "I Can't Imagine (Why You Feel This Way)" slams. I dug the way the latter toys with the coda from "Heart of Glass."

To be fair I only listened to the first three songs. It just belt dry generic; the thrill I got from Tramp and Are We There just isn’t happening. I get the same way with the last album though.

I love "Afterlife" a hauntingly beautiful song.

New video and listening for the first time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVyhon0Nw8Q

I’m not sure where I fall with the new album yet, but I definitely like it more than the last one which I thought was a snooze.

I love it.

I think it’s very good except the two last songs that don’t seem necessary. « Trouble » is great.

Yeah, I cut the final two songs from my mix.

havent listened to the new record but id like to say theres v few better songs by anyone than seventeen

Surprised by how much I’m loving the new one.

same

hadn't been drawn in by the singles, but listening to the album has really been a pleasant surprise. her best in a while.

her last album was astonishingly beautiful i thought??? and this one is great too in a different way

i like feeling like her songs are gonna cover me very slowly with their big black wings

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, May 12, 2022 9:18 AM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh but this feeling unites the whole discog. good observation, old me

This is so good!

you're welcome!

That middle stretch from "Trouble" to "I Can't Imagine (Why You Feel This Way)" slams.

This is exactly the stretch that made me perk up. The bass playing is so good!

yes!

The last two tracks do feel out of place, but I like them both a lot. I'm wondering if there's an alternate tracklist for this that opens with "I Want You Here".

idk there's a lot of stylistic variety throughout this one, can't say the last two tracks particularly stick out to me. "i want you here" is probably my favorite too

It's such a great song!

I don't know, it just felt like the back-to-back pairing undersold the album a little. But that's just my first listen thought.

I get the bass-forward Cure/Siouxsie sound is an inspiration here, and it works without getting too pastiche. But it seems kinda funny taking on the 1987 goth look so specifically.

came around to this more after more listens but I really don't like Idiot Box. I also for some reason forgot that I do love the last album; it was Remind Me Tomorrow that I didn't like as much (and this album reminds me of that one). Nothing on this is as good as Like I Used To though, that song fucking rules.

otm about "Like I Used To." But I love Remind Me Tomorrow. SVE is funny for me because I don't think to listen to her very often but when I do I remember that I like her a lot. I'm enjoying the new one, need time to let it sink in. Definitely a bit of Lost Boys soundtrack vibe to it, in a good way.

Marvelous album, top five imo

It's very good.