Joanne Robertson
The Lighter (Textile)
Like an adult dressed up like a child at a party, Joanne Robertson is less engagingly quirky than embarrassing. Coming from a fine art background, her album is not built on sure-fire melody or lyrical depth- or even musical competence. What could be appealingly loose and seductive on a cursory listen rapidly becomes a mewling, derivative bore.
Joanne plays a slow, hesitant acoustic guitar- folk influenced and minimal, the plucking is wearing, repetitious and unimaginative. Her voice veers off the notes, her words are muffled and the apparently mellow service hides the absence of tune or structure. Laziness replaces effortlessness. An interesting visual artist, her music nods at cliched ideas of fragility and purity when she lacks the musical skill to bring these concepts to life.
There are a few moments of laid-back pleasure scattered across the (overlong) album, but The Lighter is theoretical music- it sounds like a good idea, but it is mannered, passionless and, ultimately, derivative. It could work as a soundtrack to a mobile phone advert.
Gareth Vile
