Listening to Karin Ann’s debut album ‘By way of the Telescope’, you’d be forgiven for not realising that the Slovakian singer-songwriter is simply 21-years-old. There’s a realizing darkness to this music, which brims with observations earned by way of expertise and the mystique of an creator with many tales to inform.
“All his pores and skin eaten by worms / Nothing left there / A pile of bones”, Ann sings on ‘Pile of Bones’. For all its macabre imagery – a by way of line throughout the album’s 14 tracks – the tune is delivered like a fairytale, with Ann’s mushy, ethereal vocals floating like wisps of smoke round its beating coronary heart.
Her singing voice is mild, calling to thoughts the benefit and indie droll of Faye Webster and Frankie Cosmos. All of it feeds into the album’s curious combine of sunshine and darkish, as Ann sings by way of honeyed whispers of deep emotional strife, from dropping religion to leaving childhood behind too early, embedding these darkish secrets and techniques in twinkling melodies and delicate guitar strings. “The band retains taking part in whereas I proceed to cry”, she sings softly on dollhouse-like monitor ‘The Band Retains Enjoying’. “Perhaps they gained’t see that my gown retains tearing / And it’s swallowing me”.
All of it feels paying homage to Maya Hawke’s ‘Moss’, which comes as no shock contemplating Ann’s self-described “obsession” with Hawke’s 2022 LP. As Ann informed NME for The Cowl, she requested to work with producer and Hawke collaborator Benjamin Lazar Davis on this challenge; certainly his presence is keenly felt within the album’s intricate sound, delicate as tissue paper but harbouring a razor sharp edge too.
Ann’s songwriting is at its strongest when it goes for specifics. There’s queer love tune ‘Olivia’, ‘A Track for the Moon’ – a love letter to the darker sides of herself – or ‘My Greatest Work of Artwork’, the album’s beautiful nearer that chronicles Ann’s reclamation of her personal id by way of the lens of portray and brushstrokes.
After a tricky few years combating sickness and chopping her enamel in music, Ann delivers a assured and unflinching debut album. ‘By way of The Telescope’ weaves her private struggles into stunning, potent songwriting, which she provides house to breathe amidst lush vocals and wealthy, however by no means overblown instrumentation. Dancing deftly throughout people, rock, nation and pop, and spanning emotional landscapes from lovestruck to melancholy, this can be a most precocious debut.
Particulars
- Launch date: Might 10
- Document label: PIAS
