Colourgrade
Written after the birth of her first child (and just before the arrival of her second), *Colourgrade* finds London’s Tirzah Mastin taking a more experimental approach, wrapping moments of unadorned beauty in sheets of distortion, noise, woozy synthesizers, and listing guitars. It’s decidedly lo-fi—not the sort of album that actively invites you in. And yet, like its predecessor—her acclaimed 2018 debut LP, *Devotion*—this is naturally intimate music, alt-R&B that offers brief meditations on the coming together of both bodies (“Tectonic”) and collaborators (“Hive Mind,” which, in addition to seal-like background effects, features vocals from touring bandmate and South London artist Coby Sey). Working again alongside longtime friend and collaborator Mica Levi, Mastin sounds free here, at ease even as she obfuscates. On “Beating,” as she sings to her partner over a skittering drum machine and a layer of gaseous hiss, she stops for a moment to clear her throat, as if in quiet conversation late at night. “You got me/I got you,” she sings. “We made life/It’s beating.”
The London songwriter’s mesmerizing second album turns towards porous, avant-garde love songs that celebrate kinship, change, and the wonder of quotidian experience.
Tirzah delves into the void on the intentionally challenging Colourgrade
With the mesmerizing fragments of R&B of their acclaimed debut album Devotion, Tirzah Mastin and her handful of collaborators proved their skill at capturing moods in media res.
Taking cues from her early mixtapes, Tirzah's songs on new album Colourgrade function as sketches that build to create a heavy yet rewarding listen.
A lullaby ought to be soft and quiet, but its core objective isn't beauty so much as hypnosis — repetitive, beckoning, inescapable. There's...
It was 2018 when Tirzah birthed her outstanding debut full-length Devotion, an organic and melodic odyssey.
Three years after 'Devotion', Tirzah, with Mica Levi and Coby Sey, pushes her artfully deconstructed R&B towards a slightly rougher and more playful
Working once more with Mica Levi, the Essex songwriter sets a dreamy pace on her unpredictable, eclectic second album
Colourgrade By Tirzah Album review by Greg Walker. The UK artist album drops on October 2, via Domino Records and streaming services