It didn’t take Glasser (otherwise known as Cameron Mesirow) long to come to the attention of the music industry. Her toying with the creation of soundscapes on Garageband at home in her bedroom led to the release of an US-only EP in 2009. That made the likes of Jonsi and recent Mercury Prize winners The xx prick up their ears and promptly hand her tour support slots. That, in turn, piqued the interest of labels and producers, the result of which is this, her debut album.
Freed from the shackles of bedroom-recording, Glasser has taken her penchant for employing the minimum number of instruments possible around which to build her songs and has used the studio to wring maximum effect out of them.
Featuring only a rumble of percussion here, a shimmer of synth there, the most important instrument on Glasser’s record is her voice, which she loops, layers and harmonises with, until it becomes the focal point of every track. The result is a lush, velvet blanket of a sound made with barely two instruments rubbed together.
Take opening track ‘Apply’ as a case in point. Its jungle percussion opening gives way to a single synth note and an opening lyric. Before the song is two lines old, Glasser’s voice has begun to gently drift and glide, and your focus on the lyrics is lost, the voice merely becoming part of the musical backdrop.
The trick is more or less repeated on ‘Home’, while ‘Glad’ will have the listener lulled right from the off, featuring a hypnotic, oriental melody over which she balances a soft-as-silk vocal. Imagine falling asleep in a soft, duck-down bed and dreaming deeply of a mythical land, while Bat For Lashes plays tracks in the background - that you can hear without ever really being able to make out what they are - and you’ll have some idea of the effect that listening to Ring will produce.
You might momentarily come to your senses during the intro to ‘T’, and a synthesised drum beat that sounds like it might be about to break into Ultravox’s Vienna, before Mesirow soothes you back to rest with a reassuring verse line.
All of which might sound as if Ring lacks variety, but this is not the case; it’s just that the variation is subtle. ‘Tremel’ has a more portentous feel, and shades of Florence Welch, while the cleverly-titled ‘Mirrorage’ possesses parts that could have come off a female-led Dirty Projectors record, despite its lazy electro beat. Final track ‘Clamour’, meanwhile, features the sort of “Yow” that M.I.A. would be proud of.
Attempting to concentrate on the stories Glasser is telling through these songs is like trying to watch your own eye floaters; the more you try to look directly at them, the more they drift away from your line of vision. But that’s the point. Far from being in your face, this is music to envelope you, to cushion you gently while your thoughts wander off onto another plane. If that floats your dreamboat, you’re unlikely to find many cushions more comfortable. - Paddy Burke
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