Jennifer Walton's Debut Album "Daughters" Explores Sorrow and Style
In this track "Miss America", listeners find themselves in a hotel room close to JFK airfield, where Jennifer Walton learns a heartbreaking news that her dad has cancer diagnosis. The UK-raised performer had been traveling the US for the first time, drumming alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly grief takes over, tinging everything with melancholy. Unsteady piano and hushed orchestration underscore dark dispatches emanating from the road: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks."
Her soft singing are delivered with a flat manner, yet the album's intensity arises from the keen penmanship—mixing fiction, traditional phrases, and blunt personal notes—coupled with unexpected rich textures. Few tracks recently showcase stronger novelistic style than "Shelly", a piece that describes the death of a deer and spirals into a petrol-laden confrontation, evoking written works lit by flickers of warped strings. Anxious, quiet sections featuring echoing, plucked guitar transition to expansive refrains, with Walton's vocals digitally manipulated to become a presence omniscient and sinister.
Listeners may already be familiar with the artist from her work as an electronic producer, disc jockey, and member in groups like Caroline. Daughters' musical twists draw on her varied background. The first track "Sometimes" erupts with flourish, as if an ensemble caught unawares, while "Born Again Backwards" radically ups the tempo with an intense, stunning, repeating percussion. Dense walls of sound, expertly mixed with a long-term partner, feel at once gnarly and ethereal, and her dark, enchanted thoughts peak on standout "Lambs", a song that momentarily becomes a twirling jig. "May your life never end in death," she pleads, with heart-aching dark comedy.