Sharon van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow

In the time between this and her last record, 2014's Are We There, Sharon van Etten has taken the surprising route into acting via the means of Netflix's The OA and an episode of the revival of Twin Peaks two years ago. Whatever fears there may have been that she would "pull a Monáe"* and return with somewhat more disappointing music have thankfully been quashed. As with many other releases I'm trying to dive into this year, this is my first experience with a Sharon van Etten album and there've already been four so I have a lot of catching up to do. I suppose the past decade or so I've spent crossing my arms and reasoning that "I already have St. Vincent, Karen O, Torres, Weyes Blood, Bat for Lashes and Angel Olsen, do I really need someone else of this genre to embrace?" and the answer was, it seems, an overwhelming yes. Her lyricism is blisteringly raw and full of honesty, and the production here (from long-time St Vincent collaborator John Congleton) is pretty and yet disarming. 

Remind Me Tomorrow finds Van Etten as a new mother of a two year old, and there would be a lazy tendency to crown this album as her peak of maturity and emotional crux - let alone from a writer who hasn't even listened to the other four efforts - but if one were to throw labels like "wise" or "poignant" or even "glowing" at this record then I wouldn't exactly rush to deny any such praise.

Much of Remind Me Tomorrow documents her love and trust in her partner and former drummer; on 'I Told You Everything' she documents a bar-side conversation with him that served as a light switch moment for their connection. "We knocked knees as it started" she recalls, and the long, drawn out piano notes only amplify this idealised, perfect memory of falling in love with someone. It's one of the quieter, purer sentiments on the album, as she diverts from her folkish typecast and introduces this almost trip-hop, almost industrial element to 'No One's Easy to Love'. Van Etten revealed that Portishead were a key influence on the making of this record, and that certain moody composition adds layers of doubt and darkness when tackling a previous relationship. "Prove me wrong, dear - don't say I lied" is quite telling in Van Etten's certainty of her mentality and how she views such exes. The background synths in 'Memorial Day' are particularly disarming, too, but there's something a little too hazy and unfocused here that doesn't quite grab me like other tracks do.

Nostalgia is a key component of Remind Me Tomorrow: she's visiting her hometown on the first single 'Comeback Kid' and reliving the age of 'Seventeen' later on. With the former - the album's lead single - she's full of swagger and finds her childhood haunts merely to be amusing little reminders of what she no longer is, but the latter is a more tender love letter to New York City, her home around the age of the song's title.

Down beneath the ashes and the stone
Sure of what I've lived and have known
I see you so uncomfortably alone
I wish I could show you how much you've grown

The song plays with tense and asks the listener who's really the Sharon that looks at the other with admiration and respect, but the answer is immaterial: her voice breaks and the backing builds with such atmospheric release that the whole track is just one cathartic, gorgeous experience. Less about her formative years but equally nostalgic is 'Malibu', where she recalls what band was playing when "you cleaned the floor / I thought I couldn't love him [her partner] any more". 

The reputation of Van Etten as this understated folk artist is tested time and time again with the production here: Nick Cave's Skeleton Tree was cited as another key inspiration for the making of this record and that unrestricted, brash instrumentation seeps its way onto tracks like 'No Shadow' and 'Jupiter 4'. Crunchy, distorted electric guitars build a jagged rhythm on the former, whilst the latter is a bleak meditation that uses the synth its title is named after. She's certainly content and in love, but there's still a sense of frustration and delayed gratification ("how'd it take a long, long time to be here?") and the backing only serves as a compelling counterpoint to her lyrical bliss. She saves her tribute to her son for the final track: 'Stay' is full of your usual emotional expressions but there's also a sense she's holding onto her baby as an anchor, too. "You won't let me go astray, you will let me find my way", she repeats, playing off of a child's need to rebel (something Van Etten has plenty of experience with) and her own newfound parenthood and need to protect.

The idea of an album being about domestic bliss isn't always the most engaging sell, but Remind Me Tomorrow plays with enough of a troubled past and touching memories, that even those of us who haven't been quite subject to the minutiae of her previous albums' heartaches can celebrate this discovery as though you've been lifelong friends and fans. "I wanted to tell you what you wanted to hear/ but you told me to let it all out, dear" she reveals on 'Hands', which touches upon the small squabbles that any relationship - let alone new parents - can endure, and that advice from her partner is a mercy for the listener. What she's let out, here, is life-affirming.

Rating: 9/10
Highlights: Seventeen, Comeback Kid, Stay, Jupiter 4, I Told You Everything
Avoid: n/a really, although Memorial Day would get my "least favourite" spot.

Artwork Watch: Surprisingly not something from Steve McFadden's Cold War
For fans of: heart-on-your-sleeve, open albums

Coming next: Hozier

*yes, Dirty Computer was still 'very good' but it wasn't as AMAZING as the Archandroid or Electric Lady were.