Remote

by Hamerkop

Overview

After closing shop on Bachelorette in 2011 after a brilliant three-album run, Annabel Alpers started work on a new project with drummer Adam Cooke playing music that was as expansive as her previous band while also being more intimate and more intricately crafted. The first Hamerkop album, Remote, began life as a series of field recordings Alpers made around the world and at home, capturing noises as diverse as the clatter of pots and pans and the gentle hum of the great outdoors. When manipulated, looped, and paired with lush layers of synths, fuzzy dream pop guitars, and Cooke's steady drumming, the combined sound provides a rich backdrop for Alpers' expressive lead vocals and imaginative harmonies. The approach is more down-to-earth musically here, with songs often tethered to the ground by the rock-solid rhythms even as the synths spiral into the skies and Alpers soars above weightlessly. "The Splendour of Rome" is a fine example of how effortlessly the duo make it work, with Cooke's thundering glam rock beat and a super fat synth bass dueling with the glittering synth oscillation and Alpers' wave-like vocal harmonies. There are other songs that do similar things, like the doomy "Deadwood," which shows a heavy Cocteau Twins influence, or the pillowy "Lull." Elsewhere, Alpers delves into earthy British folk on the title track, auditions for Warp Records on "Egg," cranks up the guitar to get noisy and somewhat epic on "Polisher," and takes flight on the feathery shoegaze-meets-Motorik track "We Can Wing." The samples are integrated nicely into the arrangements, sometimes coming through clearly, sometimes combining with other sounds to form a mosaic of fragile beauty. Alpers proves her mastery of big gestures, like on the album-ending "Patience," where a chorus of vocals send the song into the stratosphere, and of smaller moments that sound like they were made in a kitchen ("T I N Y") or under the covers ("Mourning Bells"). With Cooke's help, Alpers guides and shapes the album into something evocative, powerfully delicate, and at times painfully beautiful. It may not have the same bubbling pop feel of her work with Bachelorette, but it's certainly not short on breathtaking moments or songs that will hang around in the listener's memory for a long time. ~ Tim Sendra

Product Details

Release Date:	02/07/2020
Label:	Drag City / Flying High
UPC:	0781484076513
Rank:	136229

Tracks

1. Egg
2. We Can Wing
3. The Splendour That Was Rome
4. Remote
5. Deadwood
6. Polisher
7. Mourning Bells
8. T. I. N. Y.
9. Lull
10. Patience

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Hamerkop   Primary Artist
Nick Guy   Guitar

Technical Credits

Hamerkop   Engineer,Composer,Mixing,Producer,Instrumentation
Meghan Jansey Whitton   Cover Photo
J.J. Golden   Mastering
James Duncan   Engineer
Annabel Alpers   Sound Projector
Adam Cooke   Sound Projector