It took a long time for Lisa Hannigan to drop her new baby, aka, record. I have been waiting for five years. The wait is over and At Swim is finally here.
This female musician started her career in Damien Rice’s band, and her solo career took off in 2007. By instantly attracting attention with her debut Sea Sew, Lisa earned plethora of nominations, awards, festivals and collaborations. The second album, Passenger, came out in 2011, leaving her fans in despair for half a decade.
Such a huge lull is the result of personal struggles, breakups and process of self-actualization. Lisa also wanted to take a break from writing and performing in order to step aside and choose the path that she wants to take next. At Swim is not a part of her big plan. It came to realization as a result of Aaron Dessner’s (The National) persuasion in offering himself to producer her album. Dessner’s talent to spur someone’s authenticity provoked a new Lisa. Distance from the previous two albums is conspicuous, as the singer dives into the maturity.
Obsession with water and sea is visible in majority of Lisa’s lyrics. As she explained, water brings her peace and it reminds her of pureness and freedom. Aquatic elements are omnipresent, starting with the album title. It is associated with diving into the unknown, and it serves as a metaphor for creative process. On the other hand, it is about letting go and expressing deepest meditations and emotions. Lisa accomplished both missions as each song sounds like a diary page, bursting with metaphors and lucidity.
Also, the water is the element of mystery, fluidity, melancholy, threnody and darkness. All of these phenomena are laced within the record. At Swim is not a dark album per se, since Lisa’s crystal folk-jazz vocal makes everything sound light.
In Undertow, Lisa plays banjo for the very first time in her life. It is also the purest track when it comes to vocal interpretation, while Ora and Fall are the biggest hits from the album. These songs stand out for their perfect combination of doleful lyrics and crystal vocal. Ora is practically a piano fairytale.
Prayer For The Dying and We The Drowned are the heaviest ones. They sound almost like Emily Jane White’s dark folk. Funeral Suit comes near the end of the album, presenting penumbra that conceptualizes the whole project
At Swim raised the bar for al the folk authors out there.
