Loom

Loom wasnt the album Katie Gately planned to make -- it was the album she had to make. When her mother was diagnosed with a quick-moving and terminal form of cancer, Gately returned to Brooklyn to care for her, setting aside another albums worth of music to pour her grief and anger into the tracks that became her second full-length. Instead of writing songs that tell listeners about her loss, Gately uses all of her brilliance as a sound designer to engulf them in the experience. She knows exactly how to manipulate sounds -- earthquakes, rattling pill bottles, her own voice -- to embody griefs physicality as well as its emotional impact. In the process, she generates a visceral reaction that resonates on an almost cellular level. On Waltz, Gately pays homage to Take This Waltz by Leonard Cohen (her mothers favorite artist) by distorting its one-two-three beat into a heavy, sickening lurch. Bracer, a ten-minute epic Gately salvaged from her unfinished album that was her mothers favorite piece from it, provides Looms unsettled and unsettling heart. As it staggers from seismic drums to surprisingly whimsical woodwinds to glitching electronics, it captures the hallucinatory intensity of fearing, and waiting for, the inevitable implied in the albums title. Loom also suggests connections, however, and Gately expertly unites the different strands of her music over the course of the album. Ritual harks back to early works like 2013s Pipes with its massive layers of vocals, while its emotional directness recalls Colors experimental pop. On each of Looms tracks, Gately blends ancient-sounding melodies with avant-garde production, all of which she weaves together to vividly express every possible vantage point of her loss. Shes the cancer itself on Allay, singing I am running through your streets in circles in a piercing tone that sounds equally mocking and sinister; Tower is a battle song that portrays cancer-fighting medication as huge drums that marshal the bodys forces to fight. Most poignantly, on Flow Gately sings from her mothers perspective over radiant drones, delivering a beautiful vocal thats gradually swept away by echoes. Looms smaller pieces are just as impressive as its major statements: Gately draws on the nearly sacred feel thats informed her music since the beginning with the spectral vocal textures of Rite. This mood becomes more complex on the haunting Rest, which closes the album but, wisely, doesnt attempt to provide closure. A stunning achievement, with Loom Gately beautifully honors her mother as well as her commitment to uncompromising music. ~ Heather Phares