Ionnalee - Everyone Afraid to be Forgotten (2018)

Does it feel like a continuation of her previous work?

It's definitely still full of synth pop, tracks like "Gone" and "Blazing" wouldn't sound out of place on "Blue". Overall it's her longest work tho and conceptually seems the heaviest to follow a theme. LeRoo mentioned the slower songs being harder to parse at first, there's certainly some more atmospheric and new agey style tracks, but some of these build to synth pop levels again (like "dunes of sand" which is a classic Iam ballad in form like "Thin" but shifts to a synth pop rave-up in the outro).

Texture wise there's the aforementioned inclusion of digital brass which adds a more cinematic air. Certainly it's a continuation, "joy" is reminiscent of "play" from Kin, but there's also a summation of her styles here. Lyrically it seems like this might be her final album

I wonder what's prompted the name change, then? Usually when an artist re-brands it's either because they want to start again from scratch or it goes alongside a change in direction, but it seems to me that it's neither of those things?

her previous moniker was really hard to remember

artist rebranding also happens when a previous project contradicts an unbroken upward trajectory of success. new name, clean slate. (if only we all could do that.)

I think jonna took the reins of this project more, whereas IAM was a duo if I'm not mistaken. This is her return to her name, declaring independence

Also the film for this record clearly has references to past imagery used in IAM films

I love the cover art for this, Apparently the statue she made fell over and broke immediately after or something.

playing the UK in May. She never tours so any UK fans go if you can

My favourite record of 2018. Hope ilm rates it

Underrated

After the love for Kin I’m unsure why nobody gaf

Slept on for some reason? No love on Ilx for jonna Lee

nobody into this?

Own it, like it (though less than past work), but 'lectropop has lost some lustre for me, and I'm mostly listening end of the world dirges and escapist avant jazz of late.

why do y'all like it less than the past work? ask that sincerely

i would again recommend the film to anyone trying to get into this, linked above

SPOILERS below

basically it is the story of ionnalee (jonna) who wakes up abandoned, is brainwashed by a white witch radio program in the house and sets out to become part of a back-door occult society. She is rejected and kicked out of the occult club, gangs up with a bunch of drifters like her and tells them her story of being burned at the stake as a witch in the past. The drifters also betray her and eventually she ends up in a massive karate fight in the forest between the black magic witches and the white magic witches, ionna is a white magic witch. The film reaches its conclusion with her going back to the club she was ousted from, stealing the mic and blowing everyone away - onlookers bowing to her. Finally she ends up on the floor again, realizing that she never wanted this narcissistic roadshow of success, fame and the approval of secret societies. unusually ionnalee mostly plays masonic halls, so it does seem weirdly on the nose and this is all my interpretation upon several viewings.

man you all slept on this record hard, so sad

her show out here was packed

Ross's enthusiasm for this record is making me feel that I should listen to this sooner rather than later - I've been playing the iamamiwhoami stuff quite a fair bit over the last month and I'm starting to feel hungry for more of that. Ross, how does it stack up against the iamamiwhoami stuff?

There was a melancholy undercurrent to her early material as iamamiwhoami (Blue and Bounty) that speaks to me far more than what came after, alas.

Turrican - thanks for your interest

I would say thin is the shooting off point of the kind of melancholy on display here - “cat in my hands with its mangled body” is as weirdly introverted and cerebral as that track imo.

Otherwise it’s less overtly synth pop, the more up tempo numbers run in and out of the conceptual feel which is deeply in sync with the films themes of nature, paganism and isolation. The melancholy here is ionnalee disappearing entirely as in “gone” - there was a heroic quality to the earlier Iam feel. I wrote about some of this earlier in the thread, in March I mentioned how the arrangements were more orchestral, though this is synthetic in nature. There’s even a smudge of guitar.

Blazing is as good as anything on blue tho

In many ways it’s like her other work. Still deeply electronic but it’s her most impenetrable work I think. And bigger in scope