Review Summary: A soothing immersion in sunset that occasionally rings false
Does tranquility mean more when it’s earned? Are we, by nature, in such a constant state of flux that peace is something we can’t live with for very long? When a moment of respite presents itself, is it better to fill it with activity, or to take a moment for simple contemplation? Does endless tranquility lead to listlessness and languid passivity, or is it the end-state we’re all striving for?
On her latest musical offering, Hollie Kenniff’s gentle, whispering snatches of melody, lightly tapped from piano keys and guitar strings and wrapped in clouds of reverb and warm synthesizer are structured and varied enough to be musically interesting while never leaving the nestled confines of the warm, blissful atmosphere that her previous solo outings have always embraced. Even when the album seems to abandon the nebulous cloud of atmosphere around it, as on the synth-led Momentary, the prevailing mood of nostalgia-tinged tranquility maintains itself. And on first listen I was absolutely entranced by the warmth of this mood, its evocation of sunset and stillness, its weighted-blanket qualities that spoke of very little beyond comfort and glow and mindfulness. But it was after returning to
We All Have Places That We Miss a few times that a sense of doubt began creeping into the experience.
While there is a sense of progression and resolution with many of these track, the gossamer-thin structure of each piece ensures that atmosphere is the primary brush that Kenniff is working with. Amidst the Tall Grass is anchored by a gentle, repeated arpeggio on piano as a gentle tide of synthesizer swells slowly become more distorted and noisy, and if it doesn’t quite break out into anything overwhelming, the progression of the track does show that there can be a sense of depth and weight to the album. But much of the rest of the album is more than willing to eschew any depth or tension where it would impede the endless cloud-bath, as on the soothing hum of Salient, structured around a lightly dancing piano line, or the ever-so-slight moodiness of This Division, which trades in all the sunset atmosphere for something edging towards the nocturnal.
The album is almost astonishing in its commitment to its blissed-out atmosphere, especially as it maintains that commitment even at the risk of getting mired in treacle and kitsch. The telltale signs that
We All Have Places is occasionally drifting towards a warm bath of insipidity are sometimes hard to pick up on in the face of how lovely it all is, but there’s a sense of foreboding in the moments where those twinkling, reverbed guitars are slowly plucking out their glacial quasi-melodies on the likes of Start Where We Are, No End to the Sea, and Carve the Ruins, an uneasy feeling that maybe the soothing warmth from this placid bath might in fact be piss. Likewise, the piano-led Between Dreams tends towards everything I found mildly repellant about Takk, the overwhelming prettiness, the twinkly, weepy quality of the whole thing, the kind of sensitivity that strives for depth but falls headlong into bathos. But if this sense that maybe the tranquility of the album is in some way unearned or shallow does sometimes pop to the surface, Kenniff nonetheless manages to keep the whole thing, for the most part, both grounded enough that it doesn’t just drift off into the ether, and heady enough that one remains intoxicated by the sheer mood of the whole thing.
Overall, however, the peace and melancholy of a sunset, the moment of the ending of another day is the image I kept coming back to while hearing this album, and it seems to be a mood that Kenniff is consciously working towards. The album art certainly bolsters this notion, as a transparent, double exposed image of Kenniff is laid against a sea of orange fading into a blue sky. The nostalgic evocations, and the relentlessly patient lushness of the whole thing lends a seductive quality to all this placid melancholy, a quality that’s as adept at demanding an emotional response as an episode of This is Us. But like that series, the tendency towards the sugary, along with that kitschy, manipulative quality that doesn’t simply express its own feelings but demands that you share them leaves the whole thing with a slightly bitter aftertaste. As an ambient piece
We All Have Places, all awash in its lovely atmospherics, is as evocative of a certain mood and as pretty as anything I’ve ever heard, but alongside that come its more disposable, and more mawkishly sentimental qualities.
We All Have Places That We Miss is a lovely encounter that’s worth diving into at least once, but someone looking for greater conceptual heft might find this to be an experience of ever-diminishing returns.
