Claire Rousay
★★★★
A Softer Focus AMERICAN DREAMS. CD/DL/LP
Canadian electronic composer and 2020 Bandcamp sensation. Music became a means of vicarious travel in 2020. Confined to our homes it felt good to explore other environments via artists who, through their use of field recordings, ambient sound, and minimalist keyboard techniques created new landscapes to inhabit. One such musician was Texasbased Canadian composer Claire Rousay, who released nearly 10 albums to Bandcamp last year, minimalist electronics meshed with the sounds of her own domestic space, intimate iPhone notes and whispered text-to-voice prose. For this new work, a collaboration with fellow San Antonio-based artist Dani Toral and cellist Lia Kohl, Rousay attempts to capture the sound of close friendship. Typewriter keys tap, strings ebb and flow, cars pass by, black keys drone, friends laugh and Rousay’s Auto-Tuned vocals gabble against the clink and echo of a cafe kitchen, summoning up the warm, intimate glow of a special day located somewhere in the past or up ahead in our unknown future.