Lauren O’Connell
Sometimes the most understated compositions can contain the most meaning & conveyance of feelings. Organic songs inspired from earnest reckonings & reflection illuminate the feelings & lost narratives that further illuminate the landscapes & atmospheres that stretch from sea to shining sea. Rochester by way of San Francisco artist Lauren O’Connell exemplifies this tradition of the ever-wandering troubadour as witnessed on the world premiere of “Shimmering Silver”. Featured off the new album Details slated for release February 9, Lauren expounds upon the three solo albums & an EP made as a duo with Nataly Dawn. Building off the 2007 debut album Sitting in Chairs, O’Connell has expounded upon YouTube performances—with an assist from There’s Talk’s Olivia Lee & Lauren Grubb—to create expansive sound-scapes that spin off a center of subtlety to shine a light on aspects of the sublime.
“Shimmering Silver” casts light into the darkened corridors, nooks & crawl-spaces of memory. Lauren O’Connell strums snapshots of recalled experiences shared with close ones that illuminates the people & places of the past. Thoughts on how we change, the people we were in previous lives & all the interpersonal details in-between are mused in narratives that pan like a camera capturing perspectives of loved ones. O’Connell creates songs that feel like yellowed photographs re-discovered in an old cardboard shoe-box that bring a bounty of charged sentiments that flash forward to the present. Elements of the intimate & evocative surface in Lauren’s song amid an interplay of chords, Rhodes piano keys, sparse percussion & more work to chase away the fog of reflection to glean a greater understand of others, loved ones & our selves—both our past, present & future semblances & senses of being.
Lauren O’Connell introduced the new album & single with the following exclusive thoughts:
On Details, I wrote a lot about memories, their reliability (or lack thereof), and how we interface with our past selves. “Shimmering Silver” is about the vexation of trying to experience that through someone you love, and the inability to ever fully understand how they contextualize you.
Lauren O’Connell’s upcoming album Details will be available February 9 via Bandcamp.
