Time stretching and pitch shifting depths.
Luddites best stop reading now. The sixth album from Catalan folk artist Joana Serrat is a sonic tsunami. Turbulent changes in Serrat’s personal life along with challenging times in the recording studio contributed to this avant-garde change in direction. Her lyrics remain sparse but on this album there’s some quite dark imagery condensed into Serrat’s haiku-like songwriting. ‘Big Wave’ was recorded at The Echo Lab in Texas and Redwood Studios in Barcelona. The tech sorcery came from new producer and mixer Matt Pence joining longtime collaborator and guitarist Joey McClellan. Voices and instruments are cleverly manipulated to create a big, big sound.
Opening track ‘The Cord’ sets the album’s overall soundscape. Evan Jacobs’ Moog Bass and McKenzie Smith’s drumming are a feature throughout. Distortion and turbulence ever-present. Serrat’s blunt intensity follows into ‘Feathers’ and ‘Freewheel’, the latter touching on an early mid-life crisis: “Falling into the depths of time/I’m still waiting for the silver lining/ Trying to break free from the sombre land/ There’s a big wave coming at hand/ C’mon now, C’mon on now/ Am I floating to the nothingness?”
‘Sufferer’ completes a breathless opening quartet. ‘Tight to you’ has an unsettling change of speed but continues with unquestionable angst. Serrat asks: “Will all my anger set me free?” and “Will I be reborn in your collapse?” Serrat’s telling it like it is. ‘This House’ is much more sparse with just Serrat’s vocals and grand piano accompanying her despair. ‘Are You Still Here?’ is a heartfelt remembrance. Serrat dedicated this album to her grandparents. Both tracks are powerful in different ways and a welcome variation. We dive back into the effects and melancholy on ‘Big Lagoons’, ‘Broken Hearted’ and ‘The Ocean’. The effects don’t always work. The experiment with speed at the end of ‘The Ocean‘ is perhaps meant to represent someone slowly drowning but it’s an unsatisfactory finale to a great track. Between them there’s an Enya-esque track called ‘A Dream That Can Last’.
Listen, best test the waters first before diving into this album. Listening to these eleven tracks under the stars of Catalonia or Texas must be something. At home, best played through headphones. Navel gazing can be easily forgiven when the music sounds this thrilling.
