Beauty is rare in music these days. That is to say – what is mainstream is not beautiful. What is mainstream is Frankenstein pop and crass anti-culture. So, when Ashes was placed delicately inside my inbox, I was delighted to be subjected to some wonderful flourishes upon my first listen.
CN Lester’s voice is gently absorbing. There’s almost a case of the tones being ingested via osmosis to the brain. They do not try too hard, which makes the naturalism in the music all the more apparent. With a number of clear influences from a range of diverse artists – the most notable being Kate Bush, Björk and Antony Hegarty – CN does not allow themselves to be simply a caricature of what has gone before them. What we get instead, is a melding of progressive and regressive that performs everything that it should. The shiver that runs down the spine through ‘Lullaby’; the creeping over your shoulder than you feel when you hear ‘Shiver’. This album is truly haunting, but a beautiful kind of haunting. It is a visit from a ghost that hides in your favorite album.
Highlights:
‘Lullaby’
‘Shiver’
‘Disappear’
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