Only Love From Now On

Description

The American, Norwegian, and Mexican musician and producer, Carmen Villain, whose real name is Carmen Hillestad, has spent the last nine years and four albums gently unraveling the song format to find the sound of emotional impulse. From the whispered beginnings of her first two albums to the diffuse warmth that flows and pulses beyond ambient in her more recent work, Carmen's journey is both an artistic musical deconstruction and, in a way, a spiritual growth. Her new album Only Love From Now On, the fourth, is the culmination of a building process that truly began with the evident change in sound that appears with her third album Both Lines Will Be Blue (2019, Smalltown Supersound) and the subsequent releases Affection In A Time Of Crisis (2020, Longform Editions) and Sketch For Winter IX: Perlita (2021, Geographic North). Although the seed of her aesthetic was planted earlier, it has blossomed into something unexpected, benevolent in its calm and quite lush in its sensuality. This may be why she has collaborated with artists like Jenny Hval and Parris, appearing on the latter's debut album. And why Parris, Biosphere, DJ Python, and others have contributed remixes for her. Listening to Only Love From Now On is both comforting and strangely seductive. This is partly due to the contributions of guest artists Arve Henriksen (trumpet, electronics) and Johanna Scheie Orellana (flutes). It is also due to the fluidity between instruments – like clarinets – field recordings, studio work, jams, and meticulous composition. She calls this process a conversation with sound that occurs during her deliberate attempts to experiment with new methods, such as granular synthesis, for her musical work. But this strange comfort mainly resides in the peace and grateful contentment she has found in becoming aware of her own privileges, laid bare by the pandemic. Only Love From Now On is fueled by the feeling of being small in the face of such great things, the contemplation that the most significant impact we can have is on our loved ones, the attempt to ensure that this impact is positive, and the choice to try to focus on love rather than fear.