Sharon Van Etten

i'm v. late to this but i can't stop listening to this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzkr2i6Szy8

she popped up in a cameo in one of the sundance movies that i streamed the other night (how it ends, which was cute but very inessential)

Fiona covering Sharon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhXd7YvCbgE

IDLES the band doesn't do it for me in general, but "Peace Signs" is such a perfect song, their whacked-out cover works quite well.

From the new VU tribute album (w/ Angel Olsen on backing vocals)

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

I somehow didn't see the video for this until the other day, lost track of how many times I've watched it. This is the hottest video I've seen in some years. Director really knows how to capture some smoldering looks. Production on this song is a wonderful Spector Wall of Sound that never gets muddy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ibj87fwRaM

Great kitchen dancing.

Angel Olsen's haircut is my album of the year.

Song is so epic. It needs an '80s blockbuster end credits sequence to soundtrack.

new album!!! i wasn’t even aware

I wrote about it and had a chat with her

https://www.uncut.co.uk/reviews/album/sharon-van-etten-weve-been-going-about-this-all-wrong-138270/

Lovely piece that, I’ll be checking out the album!

So I think this album is mostly a slog. She reverted back to long, slow, dramatic songs and ditched the bounce of her last album. Weirdly the album kicks up the pace only in the last few songs - if almost feels like the track list is mistakenly reversed.

I'd put off listening to this because I'd given up hope that she'd given up hope - seems like she'd conquered her demons, which while wonderful for the human being had made her albums less engrossing to me. I felt bad saying that out loud, but maybe I just prefer unadorned slogs. "Anything" has what I was missing. Her records have been growers for me, so hoping more will grow soon.

Well, I think this album is a marked improvement over the last one, which sounded like crap even when the songs were good. But I prefer her doing slow and sad.

Interesting- I think her last album is by far her best. I like some of the older stuff too but I felt like she’d hit a new level with that one. But the new album is much more of a piece with her earlier output.

It's down to whether you like dreary folk shit or pop music, I guess. I mean I like both but I didn't find the poppiest moments on the last album to be very convincing (though I like seeing her play those songs live; but I felt like the performances on the album were more hesitant and the production really amped up to add energy that wasn't quite there in the studio and as a result things I like about her sounded buried).

I can’t stop listening to this album. Too short is my only complaint. There are so many beautiful songs on this.

this album is def better than the previous

Hm! I had no idea ILM didn't think much of her last album.

it’s good but it felt like a few of the new production tricks distracted from what i liked about her. i love dirgey dramatic sharon, i like feeling like her songs are gonna cover me very slowly with their big black wings

I like the new album so far and it seems to grow with each play. Especially « headspace » which is great although she might have gone a bit over the top with the repetition of the lyrics in the chorus !

Headspace is my favorite track on the album

I will say that several of the songs tend to be builds that just repeat, then grow in intensity, and then end; there is less of what you may call 'intricate songwriting' involved in something like Anything. But, at the same time, Anything is one of the best songs on the album. So it's not like it's not working. I'm sensitive to this stuff because when I write songs like this (two chords that repeat over and over for some amount of time) one of my bandmates gives me shit and says it needs 'something else'; sometimes he's right, sometimes I disagree with him. In the case of Anything, the 'something else' is really increased volume and layered overdubs. This is either a legit approach to writing a song to you, or a cop out. I think it's legit, but I do see the other side.

Anything sounds like Belinda Carlisle.

this is definitely my favorite sve album, wow

"born" very fumbling towards ecstasy

...aoty

I don’t know enough about her œuvre but I really like this album, yeah

'far away' has some very definite Cocteau Twins vibes to it once the drum and bass comes in

caught the Wildhearts tour last night (SVE, Angel Olsen, and Julien Baker), really great show though curious to have Angel Olsen take the headliner slot. I gather that SVE is a very gracious and nice person and that may have been her idea, but it is kind of unfair to Angel Olsen; a lot of people bailed during her lower-energy, half-country set (their loss, she is pretty incredible)

SVE's stage presence was A+ at the show I saw. Was she wearing her badass leather pants again?

I definitely did bail during AO, but that had more to do with sheer physical exhaustion than anything. Reaching yr mid-30s means you gotta know when to say "enough," and 3+ hours in a sun-baked 90° outdoor venue with no seating is enough.

Man, I've never been able to do that (not a fan of summer at all) - one of the main reasons I've generally avoided festivals!

I love this album.

it's her best!!!

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