I didn’t really listen to ‘Divers’ much when it first came out - like yourself, I’d heard some of the tracks from MEM but not paid much attention, perhaps dismissing her along with Vetiver, Espers, Devandra as a nice enough but unnecessary rerun of 70s acid folk.
I was lucky enough to catch her live round about the release of ‘Ys’ due to a friend, and that was my gateway into her work and for a long time I thought her high watermark.
HOEM being great, but obviously an intentional tribute to the Laurel Canton tradition.
And then last year I started listening to Divers obsessively - the end of year review from Apple Music suggests over 100 times. I was blown away by it - you could remove the lyrics and there are musical
At the same time I was reading Katherine Rundell’s Donne biography, which refamiliarised me with work I’d not studied since A-level. And while the album specifically references Shelley and Joyce, the big metaphysical themes of infinity, time and love seemed to echo well with Donne. The other obvious one is parenthood - that change in perspective to seeing yourself as a link in a cycle of life. A mathematically inclined listener spotted the half and half and half lines as a reference to Zeno’s Paradox (that motion is impossible)
Back to Ys - I always thought ‘Monkey and Bear’ was somewhat about the Russian revolution as much as an origin story for Ursa Major (which ties into the astronomy themes of Emily) but that is why we keep coming back - pretty much everything has multiple layers of meaning.
I didn’t really listen to ‘Divers’ much when it first came out - like yourself, I’d heard some of the tracks from MEM but not paid much attention, perhaps dismissing her along with Vetiver, Espers, Devandra as a nice enough but unnecessary rerun of 70s acid folk.
I was lucky enough to catch her live round about the release of ‘Ys’ due to a friend, and that was my gateway into her work and for a long time I thought her high watermark.
HOEM being great, but obviously an intentional tribute to the Laurel Canton tradition.
And then last year I started listening to Divers obsessively - the end of year review from Apple Music suggests over 100 times. I was blown away by it - you could remove the lyrics and there are musical
At the same time I was reading Katherine Rundell’s Donne biography, which refamiliarised me with work I’d not studied since A-level. And while the album specifically references Shelley and Joyce, the big metaphysical themes of infinity, time and love seemed to echo well with Donne. The other obvious one is parenthood - that change in perspective to seeing yourself as a link in a cycle of life. A mathematically inclined listener spotted the half and half and half lines as a reference to Zeno’s Paradox (that motion is impossible)
Back to Ys - I always thought ‘Monkey and Bear’ was somewhat about the Russian revolution as much as an origin story for Ursa Major (which ties into the astronomy themes of Emily) but that is why we keep coming back - pretty much everything has multiple layers of meaning.