(2021) Wyldest - Monthly Friend


Review:
To ask what it means to be a woman, to exact a certain femininity, is to ask a question that titled men have been asking – or tearing to pieces, depending on the way that you choose to look at it – for centuries. History has seen women burned in the name of the startling revelations that have been made of their divine nature. But it is now time for the women to speak for themselves, and Zoe Mead is not fazed by the flames. Writing and recording under the moniker Wyldest, Zoe pensively asks these worn-out questions in her latest project, Monthly Friend. With a certain command she pokes at them, turning these questions over in her hands, her mind, and watching them fall before her like grains of sand, slipping through her fingers. It is in this respect that ‘Monthly Friend’ becomes an exploration of sorts: of the joys and woes of femininity, of finding a voice, her voice, that has the power to be both tender yet poisonous – without ever losing its startling authenticity. Crystalline opener ‘Beggar’ sets the tone with a lengthy and sonically rich instrumental, before reaching tender vocals that seem to carry a certain kind of weightlessness. Wyldest carries this ethereal, woodland sound through the record, with title-track ‘Monthly Friend’ a sullen finesse. In ‘Buddy’, ‘Heal’, and ‘Almost Bliss’, Wyldest is a girl blown about by a merciless wind. Yet as a complete record, ‘Monthly Friend’ has something of a healing effect. Wyldest writes lyrics that are sparse, but that is not to say that they don’t have bite. (‘Sorry I was cruel / I gave you / All I could’) she vocalises sweetly, while the poison of her words seeps slowly, almost unnoticed. Wyldest makes the point that one need not shout to be heard, as only the most important words will be carried along by the wind. It is her seething yet tender vocals that elevate final track, ‘The Void’ to something of the divine. The record screams – whispers – self-possession and certainty. It reflects the powerful bloom of an artist who once laughed off the idea of mixing the record herself. Spirited by the powers of the natural world, Wyldest, in her own way, becomes a leader of the coven. Her record celebrates a world in which her forms of femininity choose to rise and fall together. She is carried by the same fierce wind as the many women before her, this time refusing to be pinned down by it.





Track Listing:
1.Beggar 04:49
2.Hollow 03:04
3.Buddy 04:06
4.Monthly Friend 03:31
5.Heal 03:54
6.Almost Bliss 03:08
7.Glue 03:04
8.Arrows 03:24
9.Burn 03:23
10.The Void 04:48


Media Report:
Genre: indie-pop, indie-rock
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