Singing

Description

Every artist has to find their voice. Gia Margaret only found hers after losing it. A vocal cord injury prevented her from singing for years, but in that time she developed other musical languages, mastering the grammar of a complex and intimate form of ambient music, initiated by Ernest Hood and perfected by The Books. Now, with her vocal cords healed and her artistic voice honed, she's come full circle with *Singing*, her first vocal album since 2018's *There's Always Glimmer*. Carried by gentle piano lines that settle delicately on glass, the music of *Singing* showcases the same goldsmith-like sensitivity she developed in silence. "There was a time when I didn't know if I would ever sing again. So, once I healed, I felt a lot of internal pressure to come back strong," Margaret confesses. "I didn't know who I was anymore. It felt like a new beginning, a reconnection with very old parts of myself." This mixed feeling of alienation and rediscovery is palpable throughout the album. In the opening track, "Everyone Around Me Dancing," she observes a party from a distance, aware that her body prevents her from sharing in the collective joy while also offering her new forms of self-knowledge. Excluded from the stage, she is "closer to the ground, to the planet." In "Alive Inside," she is so far from the source that she prays to anyone who might hear her ("a god, a departed friend, a spirit"). As her voice rises, she seems trapped in a web of distortion; it's as if, in her quest, she pushes the very boundaries of language. *Singing* was partly recorded in London with Guy Sigsworth of Frou Frou, who helped Margaret unify the multitude of ideas she had for "Good Friend," a standout track on the album that includes Gregorian chants by ILĀ and turntable scratches. David Bazan and Amy Millan also make appearances, as do Kurt Vile and Sean Carey, while Doug Saltzman, Margaret's longtime collaborator, plays and co-produces much of the album. Deb Talan, formerly of The Weepies, lends her voice, piano, and guitar to the album's final – and definitive – track, "E-Motion." Gia Margaret sings without ceasing. Every note on this album is a warm requiem for her past lives; every layer brings her future to life. Throughout the album, she applies the lessons of silence, those almost rational ways of communicating without speaking, the way an unformed sound can cut straight to the heart of things like a scalpel, and to her own artistic voice.