Description
Close It Quietly takes the trademark Frankie Cosmos micro-universe and upends it, spilling outwards into a swirl of referentiality thats a marked departure from earlier releases, imagining and reimagining motifs and sounds throughout the album.
The bands fourth studio release is a manifestation of their collaborative spirit: Greta Kline and longtime bandmates Lauren Martin (synth), Luke Pyenson (drums) and Alex Bailey (bass) luxuriated in studio time with Gabe Wax, who engineered and co-produced the record with the band. Recording close to home at Brooklyns Figure 8 Studios grounded the band and their process was enriched by working closely with Wax, whose intuition and attention to detail made the familiar unfamiliar and allowed the band to reshape their own contexts. On opener Moonsea, an unaccompanied Greta begins, The world is crumbling and I dont have much to say. Take that as a wink and a metonym for the whole album, as her signature vocals are joined by Alexs ascending bassline and Laurens eddying synths, invoking a loungey take on Broadcast or Stereolabs space-disco experimental pop. Theres much more than not much to say here and its augmented and expanded by experimentation with synth patches, textures, and other recording nuances courtesy of Wax.
As the line-up has solidified into the most permanent expression of full-band Frankie Cosmos, the bandmates have felt more comfortable deviating from their default instruments and contributing bigger picture ideas to continue pushing the sound forward. The bands closeness and aesthetic consistency freed its members to take more risks, notes Luke: Everything will sound like Frankie Cosmos because Greta has such a distinct voice (literally and figuratively). We have so much latitude to experiment with the instrumental music, and this time around we really took advantage of that.
Without losing any intimacy of prior albums, Close It Quietly is different, is outer. The album functions as a benign doppelganger, a shadow self of past releases; where other Frankie Cosmos records shine brightest looking inward, Close It Quietly refracts the self into the world and vice versa, miraculously echoing Thoreaus assertion that when I reflect, I find that there is other than me. Reflection and refraction isnt tidy. Flowers dont grow/in an organized way/why should I? Greta sings on A Joke.
Available to independent retailers on Loser Edition yellow opaque vinyl.
Vinyl formats include digital download code.
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