Designer
豆瓣
简介
Aldous Harding’s third album, Designer is released on 26th April and finds the New Zealander hitting her creative stride. After the sleeper success of Party (internationally lauded and crowned Rough Trade Shop’s Album of 2017), Harding came off a 200-date tour last summer and went straight into the studio with a collection of songs written on the road. Reuniting with John Parish, producer of Party, Harding spent 15 days recording and 10 days mixing at Rockfield Studios, Monmouth and Bristol’s J&J Studio and Playpen. From the bold strokes of opening track ‘Fixture Picture’, there is an overriding sense of an artist confident in their work, with contributions from Huw Evans (H. Hawkline), Stephen Black (Sweet Baboo), drummer Gwion Llewelyn and violinist Clare Mactaggart broadening and complimenting Harding’s rich and timeless songwriting.
Much critical hay is made of Aldous Harding’s artistic inscrutability, from the metaphorical mishmush of her lyrics and the theatrical voices she uses to sing them, to the exaggerated ruffs and tall hats she wears while wiggling un-sexily in her music videos. It’s all too much! What could she possibly mean by it all? On third LP Designer, the New Zealand artist answers her critics and gives the people what want while remaining true to her offbeat artistic choices, declaring her intention to “live with melody and have an honest time” on the record’s sprightly opening track “Fixture Picture.” On Designer, Harding’s tilted folk-pop is dressed up with sophisticated instrumentation, and slinky grooves that are a million miles away from by the keening vibratos and banged-out piano chords she favored on 2017’s gothic table-for-one Party. Dialing down the high drama gives Harding room to be a little more playful yet there’s the inescapable feeling that record’s carnival atmosphere is more for our benefit than hers—“It’s the greatest show on earth you shall receive,” she sings on mid-album banger “Zoo Eyes,” in as big a pop chorus as she’s ever done. Designer still leaves plenty of room for vulnerability and it’s in these quieter moments where Harding’s depth as an artist is most apparent. “I don’t know how to behave,” she admits on “Pilot,” the record’s devastating closer. Featuring only Harding’s gorgeous voice over a simple series of piano chords, it’s a song that ranks among Harding’s finest in its restrained power and sincere examination of a search for grace that never ends even when the party does.
tracks
Fixture Picture
Designer
Zoo Eyes
Treasure
The Barrel
Damn
Weight of the Planets
Heaven is Empty
Pilot