Lucy Gooch

Lucy's album Desert Window is sufficiently beautiful that I think she merits a dedicated thread.

Elsewhere NickB said:

Looking forward to this one, the debut album from Lucy Gooch, who is I think from Bristol and has put out some lovely tracks in the past couple of years. It’s ethereal looped vocal stuff, so think Julianna Barwick, Kate Bush, Virginia Astley…

That is spot on, though one of the things I love about this album is how frequently striking and memorable these songs are as songs - here she's operating as much in the lineage of Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs, Happy Rhodes, Mary Margaret O'Hara and Julie Byrne as she is in the ethereal loop lineage implied by the above artists - though I certainly don't want to understate the latter qualities. There's a cavernous, bottomless quality to the music at times, as if you're about to step off a ledge and just keep falling through more and more layers.

Loosey Gooch, on the other hand, toured with Primus back in ‘94.

this is seriously an AOTY contender for me

Great album isn't it? That trumpet bit at the end of Clouds, that really got me on first listen, what a lovely passage that is. Randomly had Gorecki by Lamb pop into my head while listening, both her voice and that feeling of surrender to a higher force. If i should die this very moment, i wouldn't fear...

And talking of surrender, I did have it on while i was doing other things but it was just commanding me the whole time to shut my eyes and have it all wash over me. Gorgeous record for just basking in the sound of it

Listened to this a couple of times this evening, sitting in the sun watching people beetling back and forth to the local shops. I think surrender is the key, too. In many ways, it reminds me of Julia Holter, but whereas Holter's defining material might be glass, Gooch constructs dense, mossy landscapes and folds herself into them; it feels like her voice is constantly trying to find itself.

I'm not sure about the unifying metaphor of the desert window as yet, but I keep thinking Winnicott's dictum that "it is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found".

holy shit

"clouds"!!!

"our relativity"!!!

anytime this gets murky and dreamy and discursive it is the best music ever

aoty for sure

kinda hard to believe music can be this beautiful

This sounds fire, looks forward to playing it

She should collaborate with Giordie Greep.

yeah i've been really enjoying this, thanks for the rec Tim! Filing it next to Lucinda Chua's YIAN for "albums to calm me down during a stressful work day"

Yeah it has a similar vibe to Lucinda.

Speaking of, are we getting a sequel to YIAN soon? Sequel to YIAN this year queen?

loving this record

This is a really striking record, trying to think of what it reminds me of. Dead Can Dance, something like that? Anyway, it really demands your foreground attention.

catching up on this finally. really loved it, seemed to escalate just when i thought it couldn't get more beautiful.

if i'm gonna put on my reductive comparison hat, i'd say it's something like...julia holter peter gabriel?