Tunes offer peaceful respite
Sometimes music transports you. It makes a bubble within your bubble, envelopes you in chords that comfort, and sounds that soothe, disconnecting you from time and place.
Rhian Sheehan makes such music. Over a 20-year career, six albums, and dozens of film soundtracks and scores, the Wellington composer has refined his sound as his repertoire has expanded.
Recollections, Vol 1 is a combination of some of his best work, unreleased recordings and live performances from his highly acclaimed 2018 A Quiet Divide tour.
It’s hard not to throw around words like majestic and cinematic, but this collection really does show terrific range.
His early works would pop up on Cafe del Mar compilations but, these days, he dwells in a more neo-classical or ambient realm, in the vein of a Max Richter, or even Hans Zimmer. (Sheehan once interviewed Zimmer on the radio, and it was marvellous).
A companion for isolation and contemplation, Recollections is a great gateway into Sheehan’s universe. An inspiring respite from the outside world, perhaps well paired with a walk in the country, or a star gaze.
Also insular by nature, but definitively more danceable, is Yaeji. A Korean-American bedroom producer, DJ and singer, her first mix-tape What We Drew draws fine lines between hip-hop and house.
It has a beautiful energy – an introvert’s kitchen party. There’s a fragile, delicate nature to her vocals that give a dreamlike quality.
But, we’re here for the beats, which switch gears in unexpected places. One minute your head nod is just getting its groove on, the next an extravagant bassline will have you full body flailing.
Turns out Yaeji (which is her given middle name) means ‘‘talented and smart’’ in Korean, which seems entirely appropriate.
Not to lockdown shame anyone, but John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats has made a whole album in isolation.
He wrote one song a day, then recorded one per night, and he’s left the record rough and raw, with snippets of chit-chat around the songs. It’s a return to the super lo-fi beginnings of the band, whose devoted fans are delighted.
Songs for Pierre Chuvin has a historical grounding, specifically the 4th-century Roman Empire, as the last of the pagans were dominated by Christianity. Despite old world imagery, the analogy of one society holding tight to what it can, rings loud and clear today.
In the final song Exegetic Chains, he gives more direct hope with words that echo in all our hearts.
‘‘The places where we met to share our secrets now and then, we will see them again. Change will come.’’