Flock

Throughout the second half of the 2010s, Jane Weaver hit her musical stride, releasing two albums that combined shimmering synths, alternately propulsive and languid tempos, and Weavers trilling vocals into something magical. 2014s Silver Globe and 2017s Modern Kosmology are both mini-masterpieces of dream-meets-synth pop and showed that she basically had mastered that style. After a digression into experimental electronics on 2017s Loops in the Secret Society and a record of avant-garde indie rock with her band Fenella, Weaver set out to make a more diverse-sounding album that reflected a wider range of her musical interests. Where her work in the 2010s flowed from song to song like a masterful DJ set, 2021s Flock comes across more like a greatest-hits album as she bounces from style to style. Thumping post-Goldfrapp electro-glam (Stages of Phases) jostles with laid-back summer jams (Sunset Dreams); loopy electro ballads (All The Things You Do) rub against future funk that sounds like Prince and Broadcast fighting it out (Pyramid Schemes); and tracks like Modern Reputation that have the wibbly, synth prog feel of Dots and Loops-era Stereolab -- right down to channeling the celestial vocal interplay of Laetitia Sadier and Mary Hansen -- nestle nicely alongside more traditionally Weaver-esque offerings (Heartlow). Only The Revolution of Super Visions stumbles just a bit due to it being a touch too naggingly catchy, but the sheer beauty of the albums closing track makes up for that. On the truly radiant Solarised, she does a one-woman Saint Etienne impression, matching a pulsing disco-house rhythm with synths warm enough to melt the ice on a bleak winter sidewalk and a melody that reaches the heights of emotion thanks to the truly lovely vocals. The song is a highlight on an album full of them; Weavers artistic progression continues to be stunning. She could have kept making the same wonderful dream pop albums over and over until the world ended and that would have been fine. For her to take the template she had perfected and apply it to slightly different styles of music is a daring move and it works out very well, to say the least. Flock is the work of a daring artist, a crafty writer and performer, and someone who is always worth following to see what kind of great things she might do in the future. ~ Tim Sendra