5 Albums for a Soothing Self-Isolation
This year, music has acted as an escape, distraction, comfort and motivator for us all. Stuck inside indefinitely, musicians did what they do best: make art to help get us through the day at a time when each day has felt more endless than the one before it. At times this year, things have felt overwhelming, hopeless and even pointless, but one thing which can never be underestimated is the magic of sitting and listening to a calming comforting album in which you feel close and connected to the lyrics, the sounds and the messages of the tracks, reminding us that we are loved, valued and all is not lost. Below are five albums for a soothing self isolation; tracks to listen to in bed with a cup of tea, on a rainy drive home from your friends, on a walk on your own, or when you just need to get out of your own head.
Lomedla, Hannah
Indie singer-songwriter Hannah Read’s 2020 album is a culmination of everything Read has done up to this point. She delivers bittersweet missives through tender songwriting and showcases her strengths as a musician through this raw, open-hearted new album. The tracks grapple with identity and render heavy personal problems with a delicate touch. In tracks such as ‘Both Mode’, the influence of artists such as Alex G and Songs: Ohia becomes clear in the noisy guitar riffs and disjointed, nonsensical, and wonderful complexities. Though they’re stylistically distinct, the songs share a commitment to perseverance and echo the idea of resolving to push on, in spite of it all. Together, they suggest that the work of self-discovery is bound up in connection to what is around us, and the album creates the sound of quintessential late-summer music, transmitting something deeply personal and important.
Kelly Lee Owens, Inner Song
After her breakthrough self-titled LP, Kelly Lee Owens’ new album presents techno-pop sounds rooted in pain and loss, with the lyrics being written in a depressive state following a trauma-release therapy session, thus allowing her to transform that cathartic expulsion of her pain into a record with healing properties of its own. Touching on topics such as escaping a toxic relationship, coming to terms with the death of her grandmother, and the decay of the environment, Inner Song allows Kelly Lee Owens to express what she feels she cannot, and to release her emotions and vulnerability into the world. With pulsing basslines, swirling synths and abstract avant garde sounds, this perfectly arranged album is club music at its most spiritual, and leaves you feeling calm and cleansed after listening.
Duster, Stratosphere
One of the most nostalgic, somber, captivating and amazing pieces of art, this 1998 album is timeless. The album brings the feeling of raw melancholy and acts as the fullest and most natural incarnation of the band’s hazy, nostalgia-drenched sound. Here, long repetitive chords and awkward, poetic vocals stumble around, soundtracking a metaphoric journey into the cosmos that is really nothing more than a drunk walk home on a rainy night. The songs on Stratosphere range from short guitar-riff driven pieces like Inside Out and Gold Dust, that aimlessly search for the setting sun, to truly sparse, enchantingly slow fills seen on Constellations and Shadow of Planes. There are also more typical indie-rock jams such as Heading for The Door and Earth Moon Transit, with the band sounding more like a full group on these recordings than something that could be the work of one man in his bedroom.
To listen to Stratosphere is to lie down on a grassy hill in the warm sunshine and get lost in the shapes of the clouds as they drift by. The slowcore album of dreams, the disorderly chaotic moments coupled with the ambient feel of the album gives it a tone that is matched by none but Duster themselves. A perfect album to accompany a reading session, a perfect album to listen to while your friends are over, a perfect album to fall asleep to, and a perfect album to reflect and reminisce on the weirdness of this year.
Perfume Genius, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately
In a year of isolation and disconnection, Perfume Genius’ Mike Hadreas saved us with the release of his fifth album, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately. The 2020 album celebrates the endless possibility and vulnerability of the body without losing sight of the fundamental absurdity of the human ordeal. Producer Blake Mills presents the tracks in a raw and untouched way, allowing the listener to understand the misery and disconnection which Hadreas sings about so openly. The songs expand and contract, bringing us into Hadreas’ own mind and then back out into our own world as he recalls his first gay love, talks of the power and importance of love on the body and soul, and effortlessly expresses himself in an unapologetic honestly so simulatenoudly heartwrenching and heartwarming.
adrianne lenker, songs
The album, written in a cabin near the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, captures the ambiance of the woods, the anguish of a breakup, and presents perfectly the feeling of listening to autumn’s soft sounds. After Big Thief cancelled their tour earlier this year, Adrianne Lenker went solo and combined her velvet vocals with brambled acoustic guitar to create an album of her own. The simple pinewood planks of the cabin’s interior in which the album was written reminded her, she said, of “the inside of an acoustic guitar,” which is to say it felt like home. Painful memories are twirling around in Lenker’s head on Songs. It’s a heartfelt album that lives up to its name by capturing the basic, natural truth of her art and reminds us that 2020 has been tough for us all, but that we’re not alone and things will get better.
