Glasser Announces New Album “Crux” out October 6th via One Little Independent Records
New single ‘Vine’ out now
Glasser, the elevated electronic project from Cameron Mesirow, is releasing her anticipated third album ‘crux’ via One Little Independent Records on October 6th.
‘crux’ takes Glasser’s entrancing blend of dreamy experimental pop and layered electronics to explore themes of personal identity, emotional vulnerability, and the human experience. The album maps journeys of self-discovery as she unpacks intimate experiences with a maturity and cathartic outlook. Specifically, the tracks on ‘crux’ discuss the death of an old friend, her meditations on the fragility of life and the delicacy of relationships in times of uncertainty. More than anything it’s about the importance of creativity and writing while healing, and on an individual level, looking inward and the examination of one’s grief, anxiety, and insecurities. Musically it searches outward, it includes the use of traditional folk, Celtic to communicate her Scottish roots, and Eastern-European styles, all introduced to her lush, atmospheric production, intricate vocal harmonies, and complex rhythms.
New single ‘Vine’ revels in the glitchy left-field elements of Glasser’s sound; it’s epic in scope, with ambitious, expansive synths and strings, and infectious melodies. She tells us that “‘Vine’ was written a long time ago. It was like an attempt at making something where all the parts sound like they’re very separated. I was thinking like jazz, actually. It was about getting back to writing music after feeling a bit disconnected from the machinery around making it your profession”.
crux creates this ambitious landscape, bridging organic elements with innovative electronica. The landscape slowly builds with each essential element and texture that soars through the world. A tender composition that dynamically shifts in intensity and offers this variation in sustained notes and crushing vocal harmonies. It’s a truly emotional composition that embarks on this complex journey, gathering force with the playful injection of more fierce tones, the cadence of the percussive beats keeps the motion at the forefront, whilst the affectionate vocal melodies melt with the depth of the hypnotic atmosphere.
Apart from her majestic 2022 single ‘New Scars’, ‘crux’ marks a return following her sublime ‘Sextape’ mix in 2018 and two critically acclaimed albums, ‘Ring’ and ‘Interiors’, released in 2010 and 2013 respectively. In this time Glasser performed at MoMA, PS1, The Walker Arts Center, MOCA, Coachella, Primavera, Latitude, Field Day, and she toured with the XX and Sigur Rós’ Jónsi. She’s also collaborated on remix projects with the likes of Fever Ray, Jamie XX and John Talabot.
Of the hiatus Glasser explains; “Just getting back to making songs was hard for me after the last album. When I made my first album, I didn’t have an established routine of trying and failing, it was very immediate. The second record was made after a few years of touring, which is a very unstable life, and I still didn’t establish a relationship to creating things regularly. After its release, I didn’t have a centre from which to recompose myself.”
The thing that finally brought me back to music as a positive experience was that I began taking lessons to learn Balkan singing. I wanted to try to learn all this vocal gymnastic stuff that I was listening to in the Bulgarian state television choir records. I started writing songs and working toward an album.”
The tracks on ‘crux’ weave disparate elements together into a cohesive, complimentary whole. They make up an album that seamlessly marries an eclectic array of sounds to create a complete, immersive concept piece about the search for meaning and answers through the creation of art. Coming back to the making of an album after a decade (released 10 years and 2 days after to be precise) wasn’t only therapeutic but necessary to process notions of life and death.
“I guess it’s just about the sort of inevitability of us coming to our own fate, and some of the lyrics are about my voice and the fear of my voice disappearing. Itself a kind of death – it’s a death of sorts. This record for me is texturally and thematically half heaven and half earth. ‘crux’ was a word that stuck with me always, as it’s onomatopoeic, it literally sounds like a vital aspect of intersection. It’s a cross in Latin, and it’s a horizon to me. I’m the crux of this project and I’m on the earth and heaven is inside of me. And in us all.”
Born in Boston, raised in the Bay Area by musician parents, Mesirow’s Mother was a founding member of Human Sexual Response, a queer new wave band who performed in the late 70’s into the early 80’s. She crafted GarageBand demos that pitted her delicate, swooping vocals over sparse electronic rhythms and circular melodies that evoked avant-garde music and global folk at the same time. These tracks made their way to labels True Panther and Young Turks, which released both her albums. She self-released ‘Sextape’, an intimate project that built her production around conversations on formative sexual experiences, which was praised by fans and critics alike, before signing to One Little Independent Records, marking her next creative step.
Track list
A Guide
Vine
Easy
Knave
Mass Love
Thick Waltz
All Lovers
Clipt
Undrunk
Drift
Ophrys
Choir Prayer
Production credits
All Songs Written by Glasser
Produced by Glasser and Patrick Ford
Except ‘All Lovers’ and ‘Choir Prayer’ produced by Glasser
Additional Production on Choir Prayer & Ophrys by Gabe Schuman
Recorded at Arbury Ward Studios
Recorded at Big Bad Sound
Mixed by Chris Elms
Mastered by Enyang Urbiks
Musician Credits
Bruce Carver – Percussion
Eric Emm – Guitar
Greg Fox – Percussion
Robbie Lee – Bass flute, bass harmonica, contrabass recorder, alto sax
Eleanor Oppenheim – Bass
Annie Truscott – Violin
Theo Winston – Slide guitar
Jason Yang – Violin
Art credit: Shaun MacDonald, Jessica Martin & Shrey Kathuria
No Comments