Amy O - Mirror, Reflect [Cassette]

Winspear

£14.38

Format: Cassette
Catalogue No.: WSP062CS
Barcode: 0606638763180
Release Date: 10 May 2024
Genre: Alternative

RIYL: Speedy Ortiz, Anna Burch, Mirah, Free Cake For Every Creature, Radiator Hospital, Remember Sports. Third LP with Winspear, first in five years. Past press support for Pitchfork, Stereogum, The FADER, Consequence, Brooklen Vegan, NPR, and more. Past support for Waxahatchee, Weyes Blood, Alex G, Speedy Ortiz, Durand Jones and The Indications and Deerhoof. On ‘Mirror, Reflect,’ Amy O returns to form as she documents her transition into motherhood in the early days of the pandemic. Initially conceived as a lo-fi endeavor to record songs made with friends in those days of uncertainty, ‘Mirror, Reflect’ is an intimate and exploratory work that weaves collected home and field recordings with shimmering synths and Oelsner’s playful lyricism. A stalwart presence in the indie-pop underground since 2012, Oelsner shifted her approach to record making on ‘Mirror, Reflect’ to emphasize process over product, with the resulting songs born out of a myriad of home sessions, song-a-day projects, songwriting workshops and online collaborations. This kind of patchwork, home-spun approach was familiar to Oelsner, who made her name with her sparkling, homemade pop songs before releasing three studio albums, including her most recent album, 2019’s Shell. ‘Mirror, Reflect’ gently shrugs off the sheen of those studio albums, as an early prenatal recording of Oelsner’s daughter’s heartbeat opens the record in the near-ambient instrumental prelude of “Honey”—a wonderfully nuanced dispatch from the dog days of summer that’s under-bellied by both the precarity and beauty of the early months of infancy and new motherhood. Oelsner’s knack for finding magic in the mundane is also deeply apparent on “Dribble Dribble,” where the stick-with-you nature of the playful rhyme schemes of the children’s books that became a regular part of her literary intake are worked into a lilting reflection on resilience, destruction and loss. Oelsner’s initiation into motherhood is inseparable from the poetic heart of ‘Mirror, Reflect’, but the album is also largely informed by the shifts in Oelsner’s relationship to herself. Through playful and emotionally acute observations, Amy O turns the potentially contractive experiences of motherhood, isolation, family and aging into a freewheeling work where ephemerality and humor collide over her deft lyrical phrasing, musicality and her keen observations turned poetic revelations.

01. Honey 02. Dribble Dribble 03. Reveal 04. Arc 05. Sediment 06. Early Days 07. Canyon 08. Green 09. Superbloom 10. Almost Fall 11. Three Cups 12. Casio