Slumberland is proud to reissue the two solo albums by ex-Dolly Mixture member, Rachel Love, 2021’s Picture In Mind and 2024’s Lyra. Originally self-released as limited-edition CD-Rs, they’re lovely, gorgeous pop albums, made on a small scale but with big ambitions, rich with melody and insight, in equal measure, wise and alive to the complications of everyday life and the intensities of the heart.Picture In Mind wasn’t quite Love’s re-entry to making music – she had released a few albums with her late husband, Steve Lovell, under the name Spelt, in the 2010s, and her post-Dolly Mixture career is dotted with collaborations and unexpected appearances. But it’s certainly the first time we’ve heard Love steering her music entirely in her own direction. It’s an album that embraces the possibilities of recording at home, with the support of close family, and that radiates the beauty of intimacy, in Love’s softly sung, bossa-like vocals.
There are connections to the past through Picture In Mind, most notably on Love’s version of Dolly Mixture’s “Down The Line”, a song collaboratively written by the trio; in Love’s hands here, the song drifts downstream, a lovely, humming melody spun to gold by gentle electronic accompaniment. Both here, and across the fluid, arcing arrangements that Rachel and Steve construct throughout Picture In Mind, that we can trace other threads, too – the beautiful baroque of Dolly Mixture’s Fireside E.P.; the reflective British pop of friends, Saint Etienne; the electronic folk melodies of Broadcast.
Rachel sings with an unforced, unadorned calm, much like Trish of Broadcast. This delivery makes Lyra, written and recorded after the sad passing of her husband, and in tribute to him, even more affecting in its depth of feeling. Co-produced with care and attention by David Lovell, the sound is, in some ways, familiar – we can hear the ticking electronics of Stereolab’s quieter moments, the lovely lushness of Air, the sweet ache of Emma Anderson, some echoes of the home-spun electronics of Sukpatch. But there’s also a melancholy here that takes the breath away: the see-sawing chord changes that land two minutes into “Without You” hit like the heart in motion; the clack and fizz of “I Lost Myself” is gentle psychedelia, disorienting but wise.
Lyra was originally released with The Cat Collects, who also release music by The Cleaners From Venus, and that’s another parallel – beautifully crafted pop songs recorded on a shoestring budget, but sounding like a million dollars, full of sweetly crafted melody and arrangements that collapse pop, psych and folk in unexpected ways. It’s also a music that’s confident in simple, understated gestures, but that doesn’t deny the joy of the big pop moment. They’re two of the most unabashedly lovely, loving pop albums from the past decade – at least.
― dow, Sunday, 22 February 2026 00:38 (two months ago)