Aldous Harding - Party

Drowned In Sound 80

Aldous Harding is a lady of, it seems two voices. There is the sing-song, almost twee delivery of 'Bleed' and 'Party' as set against 'Imagining My Man' and ;I Am So Sorry', with their sonorous and deep incantation of lyrics of inner turmoil and sincerity. What is startling is that never once as these voices appear to swap at will does the album lose its potency. 'Bleed' begins with the yearning of “Hey man, I really need you back again” and by the time of its harrowing close, the thrice repeated “You're the perfect man” sets the course that the album will take. This is serious music of love, loss and all things in between.

On 'Party', we're told that “He took me to a clearing, the grass was warm and the air was soft”, whilst the chorus informs us that “I was as happy as I will ever be, believe me, I will never break from you” before the question, tantalising and almost frightening comes: “If there's a party will you wait for me?”

Over the top of some lovingly-picked acoustic guitar, 'I'm So Sorry' begins with another gorgeous lyric (there are a lot of them, hence all the quotes) as the confession rings out “Freedom, balance, so many friends wish that for me”. One gets the feeling that this is sung with an arched eyebrow. The poise and control exhibited throughout by Harding, wondrously assisted by the production of John Parish is one of an artist who knows exactly who she is, what she wants and how to get it.

Running to nine songs, the album features no missteps. Whilst there's nothing here that seems likely to trouble daytime radio, there's plenty that's likely to accompany you suitably through the end of a tumultuous evening or the emotive climax of an on-screen relationship in TV shows and films in years to come. There is something both abstract and individual and yet universal about the way that Harding writes and presents her trials and triumphs of the heart.

Tucked away in the midst of the sumptuous 'Living the Classics' comes the album's most telling line of all. “Can't fight the feeling, I'm gonna make it”, Harding sings, and it's hard to disagree.

The Guardian 80

(4AD)

Judging by the spellbinding songs on Aldous Harding’s second album, the party of the title isn’t a right old knees-up with jelly and ice cream – more likely she’s party to a crime of passion. These songs are full of worried wonderings and torrid, erotic declarations – “My mouth is wet / Don’t you forget it” – sung in an extraordinarily dextrous and perhaps divisive voice that ranges from Josephine Foster’s warble to Nico’s sonorous tenor. Amid the slightly humdrum instrumentation of guitar and piano, other voices intrude: a startled but delighted “Hey!” on the exquisite Imagining My Man (featuring Perfume Genius in a subtle duet), and, on the otherwise straightforward I’m So Sorry, little Twombly-style smudges of saxophone and backing vocals. It’s an album that creates a very particular headspace of desire, paranoia and possibility.

The Guardian 80

(4AD)

Americana might need a new name, so many sterling exemplars have been rolling in off the South Pacific: Nadia Reid and Julia Jacklin, for two. The latest is Aldous Harding, whose second album of hypnotic folk flowers into something far more opaque and artistically evolved. Producer John Parish’s long association with PJ Harvey is a reference point, but Harding is her own woman, an arresting vocalist whose mannered deliveries – from chanteuse to jazzy – and intense themes defy obvious influence. Titles such as What If Birds Aren’t Singing They’re Screaming and Swell Does the Skull (featuring Perfume Genius) evince the best kind of gothic bent, but there is much else to get lost in here: stones that feel, instruments barely caressed.