(2023) Linda Smith & Nancy Andrews - A Passing Cloud    


Review:
In the early ’80s, Linda Smith and Nancy Andrews were living in a large group house in Baltimore, experimenting with music and songwriting by playing in a band together with some of their other housemates. Their early collaborations were short-lived, as Smith moved to New York as soon as the lease expired on their shared house, but the two artists remained in touch over the ensuing decades as they each continued pursuing music on their own. Among other accomplishments, Smith’s home recordings throughout the late ’80s, ’90s, and into the early 2000s were part of the lo-fi movement that quietly thrived at the time. Her multiple cassette-only releases were still reaching new listeners as the 2020s dawned, with a retrospective release on Captured Tracks compiling some of the best examples of her gentle, otherworldly array of insular sounds. Around the same time, Smith discovered an old tape with some of Andrews’ songs from when they were living together, and proposed they rekindle their creative alliance for a new album. Working together for the first time in almost 30 years, the duo passed ideas back and forth remotely, resulting in the ten tunes that make up A Passing Cloud. Despite the years in between new music, there’s a sense of understanding and trust that runs throughout their new collaborations. The songs are dreamy and floating, but convey the unlikely combination of vulnerability and playfulness at the same time. The upbeat “Spare Me the Details” is built on friendly drum machine pops, fuzz guitar lines, and synth interjections, coming across light and happy despite heavy lyrics about infidelity and the fallout of betrayal. “In the Darkness of Slumber” is similar, with a mysterious instrumentation that never feels too ominous despite its moody chord progression and haunted vocal harmonies. A peculiar kind of in-between quality comes to define A Passing Cloud. There’s a tug of war between serious undercurrents and carefree experimentation on most of the tracks, exemplified by the clash of dramatic film noir-style spoken word voice-overs and squiggly synth sounds on “How Could I Know” or the poppy structure and peppy drums of the title track contending with pained, whimpering guitar leads and lyrics that grapple with how hard it can be to hold on to inspiration. The conflicting sounds and feelings Smith and Andrews explore on A Passing Cloud are delivered in a way that’s bright and engaging. Regardless of the sometimes weighty moods and subject matter of the songs, the album feels like overhearing two close friends joyfully catching up after too many years apart. — AMG


   


Track List:
01 - A Passing Cloud
02 - It's Everytown
03 - Room 435
04 - In the Darkness of Slumber
05 - Curtains
06 - How Could I Know
07 - LZ
08 - Spare Me the Details
09 - The Whispering Cup
10 - No One
11 - A Chill Rain
12 - All I Did


Media Report:
Genre: dream-pop, lo-fi
Country: New York, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


Note: If you like the music, support the artist