The second album from the one woman orchestra that is Cameron Mesirow is really quite a treat. The album isn’t so much a concept album per se as an album interested in different ideas about interior and exterior space, while investigating, as the press release puts it ‘themes of love, anxiety and the constraints of each in one’s life.’
Some clue may be given in the album’s track titles, ’Shape,’ ‘Landscape’ ‘Exposure’ and the like. What is also clear is how certain adjectives use in reviewing music are overused to the point of abuse and making records sound (on paper, so to speak) as far away as possible from what they are actually like. So yes, this is a chilled form of electronica, but a million miles away from the naff albums that are no more than background sonic wallpaper.
Yes there are hints of jazz – see ‘New Year’ – but not in the way that might suggest this is some album in the vein of a dinner party soundtrack. This has been described in some quarters as being an architecture-obsessed album, which brings to mind the idea of something grey and overly obsessed with form. Not this album.
I’ve given this several plays already, and I intend to give it many more. If you want to hear something beautiful and inventive, clever without being pseudo-intellectual, cast your ears this way and give them (and yourself) a treat.
[Rating:4]
Interiors is out now on True Panther Sounds
