Over its crisp 32 minutes and nine songs, Altogether Stranger embraces electropop, lo-fi terrain and gothic solo contemplation. By deconstructing modern R&B, the upbeat “Come on” is as close as it gets to pop’s mainstream. The unifying factors are Lael Neale’s way with a tune – she writes a memorable song – and her penetrating yet translucent voice.
The Virginia-born, now Los Angeles-resident Neale’s third album is firmly in the art pop bag. Her main instrument is the electronic Suzuki Omnichord, which can employ pre-set rhythms, be played with buttons and strummed via a touch-sensitive plate. Effectively, it’s a rhythm-assisted analogue of an autoharp. Despite this, Altogether Stranger is not a folk-slanted album. A Mellotron seems to be in there. An amorphous sound wash suggests the use of tape loops and an awareness of Robert Fripp. When one string of a guitar is insistently plucked, there are nods to motorik. Overall, the guiding sensibility appears to be rooted in liking the music from David Lynch’s films, Spacemen 3’s third album Recurring, early Sixties uptown soul, the ballad side of The Velvet Underground and the forward motion of new wave pop.
While Altogether Stranger’s musical building blocks are ripe for scrutiny, despite drawing from the experience of living in LA its lyrics are less easy to parse. On “All Good Things Will Come to Pass,” with its country lilt, Neale – whose voice is mixed to the fore throughout in the manner of vintage French recordings – apparently reveals a fatalism. “The ocean is a trash can,” she declares. “We’re going to our maker with our heads hung in our tails.” Next, during “Down on the Freeway” she sings “I’ve seen the dawn and I know what it is to start again.” The phrases “I want what I can’t buy… I lie with my hands tied and I try to sleep at night” crop up in “Sleep Through the Long Night”. Endings, new beginnings and frustration appear to colour the arresting Altogether Stranger.
Altogether Stranger isn’t far from Weyes Blood and, with a good wind behind it, it could achieve traction. And it’s possible these high-atmosphere, high-impact, slightly creepy musical dramas will appeal to filmmakers. Indeed, any of its tracks would have fit snugly into Nicolas Winding Refn's Neon Demon.
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