Altogether Stranger

Singer/songwriter Lael Neales output has grown more dreamlike as shes found her sound, becoming increasingly unlike other artists once she ditched more traditional studio production in favor of rougher but infinitely more character-rich home recording. Her 2021 album Acquainted with Night was a set of spare and mysterious sketch-like tracks, and its 2023 follow-up Star Eaters Delight presented each of its songs in a slightly different style, but maintained a lo-fi glow throughout. Altogether Stranger is Neales third album in this more self-divined recording style, and also her third album working with producer and accompanist Guy Blakeslee. Over the course of this trilogy, Neale switched from standard guitar-and-vocals songwriting to the more mystical sounds of the Omnichord; left Los Angeles for a time to stay at her family home in rural Virginia; and with Altogether Stranger, shes processing the emotional, social, and spiritual experience of returning once more to Los Angeles. Much like Star Eaters Delight, Neale approaches each song a bit differently but connects every idea with strands of tape hiss and reverb. Opening track "Wild Waters" is driven by an old-school rhythm-box drum machine, and Neales vocal melodies twist among multiple guitar leads and fields of droning organ. Its a fantastic kind of abstract and minimal pop, like a Nancy Sinatra tune flattened out and recast into the black-and-white ruggedness of a Jean-Luc Godard film. The album is split fairly evenly between upbeat tracks like this and spaced-out ballads. With the more lively songs, there are hints of White Album-era Beatles in "Come On," and the grooving guitar leads and bright tambourine hits of "New Ages" have the same hypnotic simplicity of the Velvet Undergrounds gentler rockers. The anxiety of feeling out of place in a city that once felt like home comes through in many of the lyrics, and this feeling touches every aspect of "Down on the Freeway." The songs repetitive rhythm and bubbling swells of guitar feedback are at first reminiscent of Neu!, but very soon Neales vocals feel more claustrophobic than lighthearted, and the song takes on an air of dread and displacement. This nebulous feeling is also present on the hushed "Tell Me How to Be Here," and Neale works towards resolving her feelings of alienation by the time of "There from Here," the beautifully spacey piano ballad that closes Altogether Stranger on a hopeful note. With this album, Neale manages to translate existential torment into strange and beautiful sounds, yet again progressing with the chimerical vision of rock & roll thats uniquely her own. ~ Fred Thomas

オールディーズやロックンロールの影響も滲ませるソングライティングに加え、ユニークなサウンドメイキングが、便宜上インディー・ポップと言われることが多い曲の数々を唯一無二のものにしている。LAのミュージシャン、ラエル・ニールが三たび組んだガイ・ブレイクスリー(a.k.a. エントランス)と作り上げた通算4枚目のアルバムはリヴァービーかつジャングリーに鳴るエレキ・ギター以上にオルガンが大活躍。そこにアンビエントなシンセやダンス・ビートも交えることで、単純にレトロとは言えないタイムレスな魅力が聴きどころに。ヴェルヴェッツ×80sニューウェイヴなんて印象もちょっとあり!?
bounce (C)山口智男