So it's the time of the season for labels to start compiling-slash-recomposing LPs released over the past ten or so months – grandly designed deluxe editions etc. positioned as stocking filler and/ or Tesco fodder. This one most indubitably slips down the chimney of the first bracket, and slips down just about as nicely as the winter's first mulled wine from that odious supermarket overlord aforesaid. Christmas tracks are already emerging from the bleak hinterlands of our cherished artists' unknowable minds, too.
Sharon Van Etten, even, recently outed a festive lil' number alongside Rufus. So for this repackaged (or reclothed, if you will) 2-disc re-release of breakthrough LP
Tramp, she proves herself not merely to be an artiste with a palette alive to acoustic majesty musical, but also to a more ink-based form of gracious impressionism. The above 'self portrait' is an accurate reflection of that, if perhaps not of herself. At any rate, I'm just fucking thrilled this morning to have a
new (I mean maybe newish, but to me previously unheard at least) demo recording from the seemingly perennially lovelorn darling. She's my artist of 2012, and
the most delightful being I've encountered this year on top o' that, and this is but another for me to swoon over in the most shamefully maudlin of manners. Lyrically defiant, there are tears "falling in the underground" as per although vocally, this one's somehow even more angelic than the usual (if still raspy in all the right places) as she retraces the harrowing paces of
Epic via this reissue.
DOWNLOAD:
Sharon Van Etten, Tell Me (Demo).
The deluxe edition of
Tramp is expected November 13th via Jagjaguwar, and also features demo takes of its every track. Heartwarming, and an excuse to finally piece together a long overdue review upon these very ink-laden pages.
