Jennifer Walton's First Record "Daughters" Explores Grief and Style
In this song "Miss America", listeners find themselves in a lodging close to JFK airfield, where the musician learns the heartbreaking news of her father's cancer discovery. The UK-raised artist had been traveling the US for the first time, drumming with indie band Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly grief casts a shadow, tinging all with melancholy. Faltering keys and soft orchestration accompany gothic reports emanating from the tour van: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."
Her soft singing are delivered with a deadpan style, yet the album's tension arises from her keen writing—mixing stories, folksy sayings, and direct personal notes—coupled with unexpected rich textures. Not many songs this year possess more potent novelistic flair than "Shelly", a piece that depicts the killing of an animal and descends into a petrol-laden confrontation, evoking literary pieces lit by glimpses of distorted strings. Tense, subdued sections featuring resonating, plucked guitar move to grand choruses, and Walton's vocals digitally manipulated into a presence omniscient and menacing.
Listeners might already be familiar with Walton as an electronic producer, DJ, and member to bands like Caroline. The album's musical twists draw on this varied background. The first track "Sometimes" bursts in fanfare, like a string band caught unawares, while "Born Again Backwards" radically ups the BPM via an intense, stunning, looping drum fill. Dense walls of sound, expertly produced by a long-term collaborator, feel at once gnarly and ethereal, and her morbid, magical thoughts culminate in highlight "Lambs", which briefly transforms into a swirling jig. "May your life never end in death," she pleads, exuding poignant gallows humor.
