Frontier

The latest Danielle Stech-Homsy cosmic cotton candy creation, still keeps the general ethereal mood of Bride of Dynamite but has a more smooth, processed feel, which isn't necessarily a bad thing... If Bride of Dynamite took place in a small cave, Frontier is more of a venture out of the cave and into the surrounding wilderness. Thus, we lose a bit of the intimacy of the first album but gain more interesting landscapes and sweeping sounds. I find her songs most successful when she sticks to a more simple vocal line (such as the haunting non-vibrato strophes of Bride of Dynamite evocative of the songs of troubadours of the medieval era), and lets the background noises and effects become a part of the landscape rather than taking control of the song. The Light House (my favorite track) embodies all these qualities, and much like Everyone is Someone's, uses sound bytes that seem as if they were collected by spending an afternoon sitting with a recorder on a playground bench and oddly placed blips and crackles to expand the meaning of the song and create a poignant setting. The Visitor, reminiscent of Radiohead's Treefingers, seems more labored and thought-out, unable to transport us to Rio en Medio's asteroid in the same way the rest of the album can with its gossamer, celestial state of being.