Claire Rousay: A Softer Focus (LP, American Dreams, April 2021)

There is a strong lockdown vibe to this record, but in a sunny, blissed-out, lemonade-making kind of a way. The six tracks here take in gauzy, ambient synth sounds, strings both gently droning and elegantly melodic, field recordings that tend towards the splashing water and the passing buses and the children playing in the distance (but somehow managing to avoid the clichés you might be expecting from that), murmured snatches of conversation, absent-minded and (tastefully) autotuned vocals in a couple of places, meandering piano, undefinable clicks and pops and crackles… It’s all very calm and immaculately composed and arranged and in an unassuming way really rather uplifting and ends leaving me longing for more.

I bought this from Grooves.