Out October 31 on Thrill Jockey, a little death wraps claire rousay‘s unofficial trilogy alongside a heavenly touch and a softer focus, both from 2021. The Canadian-American artist, now in Los Angeles after time in Texas, exploded in experimental circles the past half-decade by squeezing deep emotion from bare-bones elements. She records everything daily on her Zoom H5, turning mundane, every day sounds into extended musique concrète or weaving stray chatter into into pieces that feel more personal than most confessional singer-songwriter records. Barely any material, maximum impact.
clair rousay opts in for a more unique sound, piecing together field recordings you’d find at dusk with collaborators more eaze and M. Sage. The brain tickles of drones stay constant, fizzing faintly under instruments like the sound of crickets getting ready to perform their serinades. ‘night one’ leans on a scrappy emo riff that feels ripped straight out of 2006, her vocals dragging and processed until they sound equal parts exhausted and desperate. The voices on ‘doubt’ disappear into static rain noise effects, ‘conditional love’ welds Andrew Weathers’ lap steel to a drone until that delivers a tasteful dose of what can be described as electrical feedback, and the title track swells from Gretchen Korsmo’s long clarinet lines into more eaze’s violin alongside rustling leaves before collapsing back to insects and low buzz.
Rousay’s blend of field recordings and electronica on this release nails the core of real experimental work—grabbing ordinary sounds, bending it until it carries weight, and proving “less” almost always hits harder. 
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