lael neale

There's a sun-scorched propulsion to this lo-fi electronic sidestep by Lael Neale - her switch to motorik omnichord pays off dividends with gold-splashed glimmers littering her delightful folk-informed palette alongside that ever exultant voice.

The third Sub Pop album by minimalist auteur, Lael Neale, is a gorgeous album of drone-pop inspired by transcendentalism, Dionne Warwick, John Lennon, primitive American gospel, and Spacemen 3. The 9-song LP covers an unexpected breadth of musical and lyrical terrain, from garage rock nursery rhymes and creation myths to Motorik dance dirges and solitary Omnichord meditations. A brilliant lyricist, Neale has a unique ability to uncover the extraordinary within the mundane, tackling themes of polarity that recur throughout her work—country vs. city, humanity vs. technology, isolation vs. society. This album is her third collaboration with producer Guy Blakeslee who helps expand the tonal palette while staying true to Neale’s commitment to the raw immediacy and hand-made intimacy of home recording.

'Altogether Stranger' - a stunning album filled with dreamlike reverie, Neale’s crystalline voice, and echoes of the Velvet Underground - was conceived after four years of oscillating between rural solitude and urban chaos. It finds Neale perched at the piano in a hilltop bungalow, looking down on a rare curve of Sunset Blvd. Here, in this daily ritual of writing, singing, and painting—what David Lynch referred to as “the Art Life”—she creates the space for her most adventurous work to date.