Cross Record – Wabi-Sabi

Two years ago, husband and wife team Dan Duszynski and Emily Cross, otherwise known as Cross Record, decamped to rural Texas, where Cross, emboldened by the sheer scale of landscape (not to mention the scorpions that adorn the artwork), wrote a suite of songs indebted to the remote beauty beyond her windows.

As such, there’s a pronounced elegance to Wabi-Sabi. Wispy vocals layered across delicate musical patterns that float, difficult to slot neatly into genre – there’s a wee trace of Björk’s more pared-back moments about this. With track titles such as The Curtains Part, Wasp In A Jar and Something Unseen Touches A Flower To My Forehead, the drama is naturalistic in inclination, Steady Waves built upon a mean guitar riff that complements Cross’s voice rather than drowning it out. Both vivid and dreamlike, each narrative swims in and out of focus without ever being forced; the type of record to return to, again and again.