claire rousay // sentiment LP [BLACK/COLOR]

This is a record released by Claire Rousay, an ambient pop artist from Los Angeles, USA, from the country's long-established label Thrill Jockey in April 2024.

Contains 10 emotional ambient pop to neoclassical ambient songs.

Mastered by Andrew Weathers.

Below is a commentary by the label.

"claire rousay is a singular artist known for challenging conventions in the forms of experimental and ambient music. rusay uses textured found sounds, lush drones, and candid field recordings to capture the mundanity of life. Her music is curatorial, detailed, and skillfully crafted to create an emotional impact. It's a meditation on the poignant emotional terrain of loneliness, nostalgia, sentimentality, guilt, and sex. The album's narrative arc is guided by delicate musical gestures and artistic vulnerability, creating disparate and unexpected influences. Boldly integrated, rousay crafts songs in various homes, bedrooms, hotels, and other private locations, giving each verse a sense of solitude and energy. A collection of poignant and poignant pop songs that explore universal emotions with great vision and passion.

rousay's vocals and guitar are central to the sentiment. Her intimate, diary-like lyrics contrast with her mechanical vocal effects, emphasizing her powerful desire for connection, deep longing, and the afterglow of separation. Her relaxed guitar playing and talkative tempo drive her songs, while at the same time giving off a sense of resignation. Her mastery of subtle nuances is rooted in her exploratory musical past, which she weaves seamlessly into adventurous textures and unique compositions with sincerity and admiration. "I want to belong to a world and a community that I respect, like playing a Fender guitar or dressing like Kurt Cobain. I emulate my heroes," Rousay says.

From math-rock duos to emo-rock, Rousay worked as a percussionist for more than a decade before shifting her focus to the solo collage work for which she is best known. She hits the drums and her chorus begins, bringing tears to her audience's eyes. I feel that way even when I'm playing my live show right now."

The album balances the poetic soul of her influences with the documentary heart, chronicling her life as she lived alone in a house across the country, learned guitar, and reconnected with pop music. Capturing the moment loosely. ``Lately, I've found myself wanting to express my feelings and thoughts as clearly as possible, and I thought pop was the way to do it,'' says Rousay. The confessional nature of the sampled conversation fragments gives her work a sense of specificity and intimacy that combines immediacy and curiosity. Rousay's innate ability to evoke pure emotion from sound comes from his willingness to embrace pop formats, the fragility of field recordings, minimalist arrangements, and innovative sonic choices. The resulting Sentiment songs are both breathtakingly personal and anthemic. Sentiment is a blissfully, achingly melancholic, and undeniably sensual listening experience. "

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Available on 12" black vinyl or 12" opaque yellow vinyl. 

tracklist:

1. 4pm 02:48
2.head 04:43
3. it could be anything 04:41
4. asking for it 01:52
5.iii 04:36
6. lover's spit plays in the background 04:02
7. sycamore skylight 05:07
8. please 5 more minutes (feat. Lala Lala) 04:50
9. w sunset blvd 01:17
10. ily2 (feat. Hand Habits) 03:33

Thrill Jockey:

"claire rousay is a singular artist, known for challenging conventions in experimental and ambient music forms. rousay masterfully incorporates textural found sounds, sumptuous drones and candid field recordings into music that celebrates the beauty in life's banalities. Her music is curatorial and granular in detail, deftly shaped into emotionally affecting pieces. sentiment is a meditation of the poignant emotional terrains of loneliness, nostalgia, sentimentality, guilt, and sex. The album's narrative arc is guided by delicate musical gestures and artistic vulnerability, audaciously synthesizing disparate and unexpected influences. rousay crafted the songs in various homes, bedrooms, hotels, and other private places, the feeling of time and energy spent alone radiating from each passage. The album is a collection of heart-rending, incisive pop songs that explore universal feelings with subtlety and remarkable vision.

rousay's vocals and guitar take center stage on sentiment. Her intimate, diaristic lyrics contrast with her mechanical-inflected vocal effects, emphasizing a powerful desire for connection, a deep yearning and a lingering sense of separation. The spare guitar playing and laconic tempo both drive the songs and exude a sense of resignation. Her delicate mastery of nuance draws on her explorative musical past that she, with sincerity and admiration, seamlessly interweaves into her adventurous textures and distinctive compositions. “I want to belong to the worlds and communities I look up to. Same as someone using a Fender guitar or dressing like Kurt Cobain. Emulate your heroes,” says rousay.

From a spreading math-rock duo, to an array of emo-inflected rock outfits to a hired hand in evangelical worship bands, rousay worked as a percussionist for over a decade before shifting her focus to the solo collage work she's known for. sentiment folds those experiences into her compositions. rousay explains, “As the drummer in an evangelical rock band, it's your job, with the singers, to manipulate the crowd. You start building on the drums and you know it's one bigger chorus and then we're out and you can see the tears, people just start crying. I still feel a version of that when playing my own shows now.”

The album balances the poetic soul of her influences with a documentarian heart, rousay capturing moments of her life while living alone in houses across the country, learning to play guitar, and reconnecting with pop music. “I have been on a quest to communicate my feelings and ideas as clearly as possible lately. Pop seemed like the way to do that this time,” says rousay. The confessional nature of sampled fragments of conversation give her pieces a specificity and sense of intimacy that is both immediate and curious. rousay's innate ability to conjure pure feeling from sound derives from her delightful embrace of pop forms, the found vulnerability in field recordings, minimalistic arrangements and innovative sound choices. The resulting songs of sentiment are as anthemic as they are breathtakingly personal. sentiment is blissfully, achingly melancholic , and an undeniably sensual listening experience.

Artist: claire rousay

Label : Thrill Jockey Records

CAT No.: THRILL 610LP