(2020) Anastasia Minster - Father


Review:
Wherever an artist starts out, it’s natural for those following them to expect subsequent work to go, in some sense, further. One easy way to assess whether Toronto’s ’s second full-length record does this is to look at the cinematic references she’s chosen to bring in, in each case. For 2017’s excellent Hour of the Wolf that reference is the one found right in the album title to the Ingmar Bergman psychodrama of the same name. This time the curious need to look slightly further, to the advance single “Solaris.” That song is not only named after Tarkovsky’s meditative, melancholy adaption of Stanislaw Lem’s novel about a mysterious planet that reflects our own desires back to us (possibly, but not certainly, in an attempt to communicate). What is key here, and powerfully supported by the surrounding songs in both cases, is not the turn from creeping horror to existential angst, but rather the turn from the sometimes claustrophobic concerns of the body and mortality to the equally baffling yet somehow soothing concerns of a more unknowable, cosmic aspect of our shared humanity. Some of the strongest material there ruminates on what happens when we, inevitably, aren’t here anymore. Much of Father, whether plumbing the depths of the ocean seeking “deeper currents, colder streams” on the opening track or the fully half of the record’s eight tracks, including “Solaris” that casts its gaze to the cosmos instead, settles instead on the mystery of experience, on the strangeness of being here at all. Whether it’s “Falling” evoking being “drawn/like a part to the whole/by the gravity of things/falling into place” or “Supernova” explicitly connecting interstellar and interior events, the material on Father keeps all the spare, finely-wrought gorgeousness of Hour of the Wolf and applies it to a whole new subset of metaphysical concerns. Even when the songs turn more inward, a track like “We Are the Prison” expresses by contrast the limitlessness Minster writes about so searingly here. Musically Father sticks to Minster’s definite strengths as a vocalist and pianist, as before accompanied by a well-chosen and -deployed collection of accompanying instruments, most putting this music again into the realm of dark, sometimes jazz-adjacent chamber pop (thing cello, upright bass, the occasional trumpet and clarinet, circumspect drums). The biggest name guest is Japan’s Steve Jansen who supplies strings, snyths and effects on three songs here, including the beautifully textured closing title track (where the questions addressed at the title figure include “is it time to grow teeth?” and “is it over before it begins?”). It’s telling that while his contribution is felt, it’s not overwhelming; those songs still just mostly sound like Anastasia Minster songs. Even more so than on her full-length debut, the music on Father is confidently expressed, sometimes beyond where a more timid sensibility would stop the song. Whether it’s the beautiful instrumental duet coda that takes up over half of “The Ocean Song” or the layered cellos that swell to the surface at the end of “Solaris,” this is music as interested in the chamber side of the equation as the pop one, and the album is strong for it. Sonically and lyrically it makes for a daring attempt at connecting inner and outer space, and makes for headier contemplation than most of its peers. Further than before, certainly, but still recognizably and powerfully human.





Tracklist:



Media Report:
Genre: chamber pop, jazz
Source: CD
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits