Lover, Other

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  2024 Top 20

  Adam Wood

  A couple of years ago, in my write-up for Duval Timothy’s 2022 LP Meeting With a Judas Tree, I mentioned that I had made a cursory exploration of his wider oeuvre, including a dip into a collaborative album he’d put out the year before, with Rosie Lowe. That name was new to me, but her contribution to that record—Son (2021)—was intriguing: she complements Timothy’s stark arrangements with melodic, mostly sub-linguistic vocals to startling effect.

  Here, on her first solo album since I’ve been paying attention, the vocals are also the most arresting element of a wonderful sound. True opener ‘Mood to Make Love’ (after the brief prelude ‘Sundown’) is a delicate, soulful piece that channels Beth Gibbons. ‘In My Head’ has more pep in its step, with the addition of busier percussion; ‘Bezerk’ further disrupts things with both a near-staccato vocal and choppy production; ‘There Goes the Light’ is a pristine soul cut. And that’s the opening 10 minutes. The record is 15 tracks, and yet just 37 minutes, which might reasonably lead you to suspect that it would feel sketched. Lowe certainly has a lot of ideas, and potential echoes (2am electronica on ‘Something’; Imogen Heap on ‘Don’t Go’…) but I found the whole package pieces together seamlessly into something alluringly mercurial.