Alena Spanger prefers non-verbal communique. On her new album, Fireplace Get away, she is keen on birdsong, wind that chimes like Erik Satie, and the sound of rain hitting the roof at crack of dawn. In Tiny Danger, the experimental pop team she shaped with school classmates, she whispered, giggled, gasped, and howled over feverish guitars and jagged basslines. Her elastic vocals, which evoke the kineticism of Björk on “It’s Oh So Quiet” and Karin Dreijer on “Heartbeats,” are incessantly maximum robust as wordless interjections—a surprising “ha!” mid-verse or a maniacal cackle on the finish of a refrain. On Fireplace Get away, her solo debut, Spanger and a collective of fellow Brooklyn musicians assemble a dreamlike environment of wind tools, harps, and synths round her operatic vary.
When she does succeed in for phrases, Spanger takes inspiration from nature’s fury and splendor, slightly than extra muted human feelings. At the twinkling “Ines,” she’s no longer simply paralyzed by way of apprehension—she is each underwater and on fireplace. At the slow-moving “Agios,” “a person’s ache” isn’t merely damaging—it “hollers down the mountain, with the grace of a large.” Her family members are like “starfish,” and the sea is as a lot an existential risk (“Fireplace Get away”) as a supply of absolution (“Satie Tune”). Spanger refers to herself in self-deprecating phrases—“a fickle woman,” a “sly depraved kid”—however withholds main points, gesturing at seesaws and lavender fields as shorthands for shortcomings. She sun shades within the vagueness with sharp inhales, speechless stutters, and unmarried syllables repeated like mantras. It’s, as she sings on “All That I Sought after,” “illegible and entire,” her phrases extra deeply felt as they shapeshift and disconnect from that means.
Fireplace Get away covers a shocking quantity of flooring in simply over 40 mins—the somewhat askew dance pop of “Sinking Like,” the impressionistic, ambient textures of “Fireplace Get away” and “My Really feel,” the jittery rock of “Ines.” With Spanger’s voice on the heart, discordant transitions, like “All That I Sought after” main into the lullabye-esque, aptly named “Pass to Sleep,” really feel a part of an entire, attached by way of synth pads and the slight rasp on the corners of her vary. The encircling instrumentation expands and contracts to suit Spanger’s many modes: the mild rumble of Carmen Quill’s upright bass and Kalia Vandever’s trombone on “My Really feel” echo the elegiac solitude in her voice; the harp on “Ines,” performed by way of Kitba’s Rebecca El-Saleh, suits the fantastical components in its lyrics. However incessantly her voice wishes little or no further accompaniment—like former tourmate Adrianne Lenker, Spanger is maximum evocative at her quietest: When she dips right into a low, hushed tone on “Methuen,” the arena round her grows silent to deal with.
