RISE: Strangers (ATMOSPHERIC ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

A year and a half ago, Talitha Rise's album "An Abandoned Orchid House" had enchanted more than one reviewer in the editorial staff. Behind this duo emerged the aura of the English female singer and multi-instrumentalist Jo Beth Young. The success of this first album led Jo Beth to meet many people in different parts of the world. After this experience, she decided to abandon the Talitha of her group name and identify herself only with Rise, synonymous with the emergence of an independent artist.

The bewitching magic that the listener may have felt while listening to "An Abandoned Orchid House" acts in the same way on "Strangers". The English woman has travelled extensively in recent years and has kept many sensations and impressions that fed her inspiration. The compositions all start from originally improvised drafts to be reworked and arranged. In each of the titles of "Strangers", it is as if Jo Beth is taking us by the hand to cross the places and times she loves. For example, there are the large green and misty expanses of the medieval north in 'Dark Cloud', the mysterious ambiences of the English Victorian era in 'Skysailing', the warmth of Spain through the pop 'Temples' and the moment of meditation of 'Burnt Offerings' whose recording in a Sussex manor offers a natural and ample reverberation.

Everything is only fragility, tranquility, intimacy and communion between the listener and the beautiful English girl with the velvet voice. This divine encounter, made profoundly human by the preservation of all the little parasitic noises that arise during a recording and that some strive to erase, is accompanied by subtle arrangements, often classical instrumentations with piano and violins but also in the most pop-rock passages of a rhythmic rock section and guitars ('Temples','Radio Silence'). This setting transcends Jo Beth's vocal enchantments and reverently fades into the purest ('Cry Back Moon','Strangers') and most melancholic moments ( 'The Old Sewing Woman's Song'). We inevitably think of Kate Bush for her vocal performances and transmitted emotions ('Skysailing','Burnt Offerings') although Jo Beth is less focused on theatricality, and Iamthemorning for the atmosphere of the songs.

In Jo Beth's words quoting Lamartine's sentence, music is the literature of the heart. There is no need to look for the expression of a speech or the meaning of a word since Rise's music makes sense beyond any rationalization in a kind of miracle that musical art, among others, allows. - Official website

RISE

STRANGERS

AUTRE LABEL

ATMOSPHERIC ROCK