Essie Jain
We Made This Ourselves

THE REVIEW

I have let these songs take root over the years; they have settled, adhering to my experiences with grace and lightness. Listening to this album, I am surprised every time at how Essie Jain is not adequately known. Her essence is transparent and light, anything but sunny. Her voice has the winter tones of the bright light that melts white expanses of land and sky. The tracks are skeletons that, as the seconds pass, take shape, come back into focus, to life, like bodies in motion pierced by sunlight. "We Made This Ourselves" is filled with exquisite pain, with never unruly despair. Its textures have no tears or irregularities of any kind. This doesn't mean it's a solitary gray monolith. It has more of the gaseous and vaporous consistency of certain celestial bodies. It's as if all the tracks are covered by a thin layer of dust which, unlike what one might imagine, enhances its charm and accentuates its colors.

It's possible that you might be particularly resistant to the harmony that pervades the entire album, in which case approaching an album of this kind could be a highly boring experience, and you might want to abandon it after a few minutes. I recommend persevering, at least for the duration of the tracks, letting them flow drop by drop, giving them time to unravel and imprint themselves in your memory, or to pleasantly fade away without leaving any trace of their passage, so thin and spectral they are.