Ana Roxanne
Poem 1
kranky
Fans of Ana Roxanne’s quasi-devotional 2019 masterpiece for Leaving Records, ~~~, which saw the LA-based musician uncork a soft stream of cathedral-sized reverb, babbling synths and choral-inspired vocals, may find Poem 1 an altogether different proposition—but it’s a transcendent one nonetheless.
Poem 1 is by all accounts a break-up record, and for the most part, a singer-songwriter album that lays Roxanne’s soulful voice bare. Channeling heartache into music, she’s accompanied by little more than a piano (and sometimes strings) on standout tracks like “Berceuse in A-flat Minor, Op. 45,” “Untitled 2”—which almost feels Beth Gibbons-esque in its fierce fragility—and the startlingly beautiful “Keepsake.” Yet Roxanne hasn’t entirely severed ties with her ambient ways. Spellbound droniness still abounds on the instrumental “X,” and the spoken-word delivery of “One Shall Sleep” directly recalls her earlier work, but it does so while doing away with that work’s haziness, replacing it with the kind of clarity that often comes after a painful rupture.
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