Citizen of Glass
Play It Again Sam
With Agnes Obel’s latest release, ‘Citizen of Glass’, sound truly becomes ‘extra-sensory’. For this is an album in which colours, flavours, scents, and textures are miraculously conjured out of the thin-air world of vibration and frequency.
The notion of a conjuring is entirely fitting for an album that possesses such a darkly beguiling glamour. Where this witchiness is most apparent is in the spiky, modernist approach to production, where honeyed vocals and tasteful instrumental flourishes are dirtied by distortion and dissonance.
While traces of influence can be detected in this heady mix (from Kate Bush to The Knife), ‘Citizen of Glass’ still manages to astonish with its originality. I, for one, have yet to come across anything this year as sonically captivating as second track ‘Familiar’.
This is an album that is sure to haunt listeners from the very first hit of the play button.
4.5 STARS
CHRIS PRINDIVILLE
