Photo: Spike Lynch-Koch
Ten years ago British singer-songwriter Tirzah Mastin released her debut EP. It was co-written and produced by Mica Levi, who began their career fronting Micachu and the Shapes in 2008, and has since expanded into film composition, scoring films like Under The Skin, Jackie, and Zola.
The pair have worked together ever since, and on Tirzah’s most recent album, Trip9Love, made what might be their boldest creative gambit: an album that shies away from the sunnier side of their experimental club output, and essentially functions as one long piece of music.
When I started listening to this album I wasn’t aware of its concept, so when I checked the runtime of what I thought was one long song, I found it was actually three.
Aside from staying in a similar key, the album is entirely based on piano, Tirzah’s voice, the odd bit of sub bass, and the exact same drum loop. The power of the record comes in the way these elements are altered: digital artifacts suggest the piano has been pitched up or down, you’ll sometimes notice the drums gradually slowing down to synch with the following track (a la a DJ mix), and the addition of a fill or extra hi hat can make a big impact.
Two songs on from ‘U all the time’, the drums are beefed up, to sound like this on ‘No Limit’.
Recording for Trip9Love took place over around a year, mostly in Tirzah and Levi’s home studios. Despite that it feels very on-the-fly, almost like you’re hearing the songs be written in real time. There’s a tentative, exploratory feel to the vocals in particular, with more of an emphasis on post-production.
Where other albums might overdub vocals to make them impactful, here, on the track ‘Their Love’, they are suddenly submerged in reverb.
That’s one of a few songs with no beat at all, just that increasingly distant piano. On ones like that you get a real sense of Tirzah’s voice; naturally warm but slightly removed.
As the album progresses, different elements swell with distortion then pull back. On ‘2 D I C U V’ that drum loop is pushed into the background by the keys, now unrecognisably overblown.
Tirzah’s previous work took Rnb and club motifs and gently scuffed them, with loose improvisation and the odd moment of discord. On Trip9love she and Mica Levi have headed inward, making an album that’s uncomfortably intimate at times, and frequently chilly.
It feels like a descent, until you reach the final track, called ‘Nightmare’, which introduces howling feedback to the mix. Despite the record being so spare, with so much repetition, repeat listens are thoroughly rewarding, as more details reveal themselves. It’s Tirzah’s least friendly outing, but well worth the effort.
