The fantastical wintry cover of Clairo’s second record Sling (via Fader Label) eloquently states what her newest record is about. While the cover of her first record Immunity (via Fader Label) depicted a dejected portrait introspectively into the floor of her bedroom, the cover of Sling shows Claire Cottrill in the snowy foothills of upstate New York, who glances down at the puppy cradled in her arms pawing back at her face. Her gaze is certain, and with the sun beaming across her face, she is tranquil, soaking up the quaint environment around her and deliberately looking into the eyes of the infantile puppy whose warm fur presses up against her chest. By the way, that dog is Joanie Cottrill, the rescue puppy that Clairo adopted earlier this year, and whose adoption spurred the themes of maturity, introspection, and domestication present on Sling.
Speaking to Vogue, Clario questions, “Do I have kids because it’ll make everyone happy? Would it make me happy? Do I even want kids? Is this the right climate for kids?’” “I know it’s too soon to think about kids—at least for me,” she says,” but these questions were all crossing my mind for the first time.”
The burgeoning thoughts of motherhood consume the lyrics and moods of the album. On “Zinnias” Clairo fantasizes on what settling down would look like: “Quietly I’m tempted/ sure sounds nice to settle down for a while/ let the real estate show itself to me/I could wake up with a baby in a sling.” The instrumentals on songs like “Zinnias” and “Reaper” feel incubative and help portray Clairo’s daydreams of a more domesticated lifestyle.
But darkness doesn’t seem to spare itself from Clairo. Her feelings of mental instability take a prominent place on Sling. “Bambi” shows the songwriter’s grappling with alienation due to fame and trying to come to terms with the deafening dissent of an invisible crowd set on picking apart her vulnerabilities. “Just For Today” explores a dark night last year where Clairo dialed the Suicide Prevention Hotline. It’s on tenacious songs like these where the sonic singularity of Sling works to isolate Clairo, building a seamless frame of low strings and muffled guitar plucks to hyperfocus on the singer’s voice.
And for that matter, I want to say with full confidence that Clairo’s voice has never sounded as well-fitted as it does on this record. Producer Jack Antonoff helps Clairo construct a film-grain-y sonic dimension building a sense of nostalgia while cleverly elevating her whispered vocals. Across the record, we see instances where the singer experiments with new venues to deliver her timid bedroom pop voice from the dense harmonies on “Partridge” to the almost psychedelic swirls on “Harbor.” While I still see the lack of vocal dynamics on this record as a sour quirk that seems to haunt her music even from her earliest EPs, Sling definitely has her most interesting vocal performances so far.
One of the most remarkable things about Sling is its lush instrumentation. As opposed to the in-your-face pop of the 2017 debut Immunity, Sling lingers in dense indie folk atmospheres made up of muzzled guitars, pulsing strings, and comforting pianos. While reviews like Pitchfork’s call Clairo’s newest record “her 70s singer/songwriter album” and accurately capture the timeframe of Sling’s sonic vocabulary, they seem to neglect its distinct execution that makes this record special. Yes, songs like “Management” do resemble sounds familiar to a Carole King or Carpenters record, but Antonoff’s brilliant production seemingly decapitates the egos of the performances, constructing an orchestra of disembodied guitars and pianos that only sing to match the pulse of Clairo’s voice. See “Joanie”, an interlude named after Cottrill’s puppy, for an indulgent instrumental that encompasses this exact feeling.
Unfortunately, Clairo’s healthy give-and-take with her instrumentation isn’t fully present in some of her past relationships and many songs meditate on this. “Partridge” shows Clairo swallowing the pain of knowing that the person you love won’t love you back, and that you’ll eventually need to move on. My favorite track “Harbor” especially explores this dynamic in a brutally candid but mature way with a gut-punch in the chorus that stings with every playback. “Stand guard when I am near/Clinging on to everything you fear/Keeping me close while you hold me out and say/’I don’t love you that way,” sings Clairo. It’s sad that the one-sided love in songs like “Harbor” can’t reciprocate as the instrumentation does for Clairo on Sling. But until Clairo meets her worthy match, I guess she’ll just be carrying the bedroom singer/songwriter scene until then.
With the help of Jack Antonoff, Clairo completely rebrands on Sling from bedroom pop star to indie folk sonneteer, trading in lo-fi melodies for dense chamber arrangements. The album covers Clairo’s feelings of heartbreak and domestication in a new aesthetic that seems to fit nicely for the indie extraordinaire.
Clairo’s new album, Sling is available where all music is streamed including Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal. To purchase the album visit her website.
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