Not For Lack Of Trying

インディ・ポップ・スーパーグループFIZZのメンバーでもあるdodieの2021年のデビュー作『Build A Problem』(およびFIZZの2023年作『The Secret To Life』)に続くセカンド・アルバム。

今年リリースになった『Chet Baker Re:imagined』でも「Old Devil Moon」のカヴァーで参加し、ジャズ・ファンにも注目を集め始めているUK出身シンガーソングライター。
YouTubeでカヴァーやオリジナル曲を披露するところからスタートし、現在彼女のYouTubeチャンネルには198万人が登録。Jacob Collierの『Djesse Vol.2』にもThe Beatlesの「Here Comes the Sun」でフィーチャーされるなどで着々と人気を広げてきた。

現在先行トラック 「I Feel Bad For You, Dave」が配信中。「これは、力不足を感じている人々のエゴについての曲。彼らは逆に逆効果になる方法で力を得ようとするのです。私たちは皆、デイヴのような人を知っています!」と説明している。「この曲は、友人が受けた人種差別的な虐待を目撃した後に書かれたものです。どうすればいいか分からなかった--彼らを引きずり下ろしたいと思ったし、彼らに返信したり、彼らについての動画を制作したりしたかった。そして『OK、それらはできないから、曲を書くことにした』と考えたのです」と現代ならではの問題を歌っているという。

British folk-pop stylist Dorothy Miranda Clark, aka Dodie, is full of delicate revelations on her artfully intimate sophomore full-length, 2025s Not for Lack of Trying. Produced with longtime collaborator Joe Rubel, the album is a finely wrought portrait of Dodies life over a three-year period, one that follows her 2021 debut LP, Build a Problem. Its also her first solo endeavor since co-launching the indie pop supergroup FIZZ with 2023s The Secret to Life. As with her debut, Not for Lack of Trying is a largely acoustic affair with Dodie framing her naturalistic, pristinely on pitch vocals in warm guitar, textured percussion, and even orchestral arrangements. Theres Baroque artfulness to her work here, where songs build with a measured drama and wind through surprising harmonic and melodic twists. Its an intriguing blend of the theatrical and the candid, evoking both the vivid conceptuality of Kate Bush and the rootsy craftsmanship of Andrew Bird. The opening "IM FINE!" smartly sets the tone as Dodie ruminates on turning 29 and finding herself in a kind of liminal grown-up space, spying on adulthood as she tries to figure things out. She sings, "Im chewing up a gummy again/To overthink and tailspin/For no one, Im listening in." Lyrically, she favors small poetic epiphanies, like dueting about her cat with FIZZ bandmate Greta Isaac on "Darling, Angel, Baby" or holding a mirror up to her anxiety and introversion on "Smart Girl." In "Tall Kids," she literally wonders, "Hey, can you hear me from my bed?" The most pointedly acidic she gets is calling out an unfortunate fellow for being an insufferable try-hard when it comes to socializing in "I Feel Bad for You, Dave." That all of these songs wouldnt sound out of place on a Harry Nilsson album from the 1960s also speaks to Dodies deep musical skills and grasp of the pop traditions shes working within. Its a blend of classical, folk, and jazz that she pushes to magical heights on "The List," dressing her journal-like lyrics in lilting piano, strings, and her own sweet clarinet accents. Not for Lack of Trying is a gorgeously subtle, often transfixing album. ~ Matt Collar