Danish author Agnes Obel rewarded us with her third album in 2016. The title Citizen Of Glass refers to the concept of glaserner burger, or the citizen of glass. The concept has intimate and political dimension because it adverts to the situation in which the individual is totally transparent and visible in public space. Body as the object of health politics is the razor of the record. What’s also striking is the album art showing distorted and multiplicated portraits of Agnes Obel. (Her first two cover arts were clear portraits).
On the first two albums, Philharmonics and Aventine, Agnes insisted on simple folk songs with the piano in front. As she grew up playing piano, and as her parents were musicians, music was her destiny. On her current album, she turned up the instruments game, having even trautonium filling the background. Trautonium is an electric instrument mostly known for the appereance in Hitchcock’s Birds where it was used as a presentation of bird tweets. This is a complex instrument, used for complex expressions. It made the sound of the whole record more perplexing, but still prosaic. Style is ethereal and magic folk.
Citizen of Glass is a little art piece in which Agnes reveals herself as she was made of glass. Her vocal sounds like a crystal and you can hear your heartbeats dissolve in the singer’s candid vulnerability. The main theme is relation to the other. Agnes has often sang about love and guilt, because confessional tone of her albums is designed to help her make up with herself and others. The simplicity of her expression is obvious in each song. Lyrics are mature and smart, without hermetic ambiguity. Direct and sincere, more than elegant and polished. Agnes’ education is evident both in lyrics and perfomance.
Familiar is the hit of the album, gracing the listener with beautiful violins. Tottally hypnotic track. Unforgettable melody of this song continues to haunt you after you turn the music off. It’s Happening Again sounds like a siren song, as Agnes’ voice permeates in high intensity.
In Trojan Horses, she says Seek what I seek in a blinding flash, these bare bones are made of glass. This is thevery essence of the album. The light surrounding us penetrate through our bodies and there is not much privacy left. Fear of public is omnipresent, but also braveness to confront it (Red Virgin Soil, Golden Green).
The title song is the emotional pinnacle of the record, ending with And no lovers sin can reverse what will begin. Agnes sings about love relationships from such a mature perspective. Citizen of Glass is a phenomenal album by a gorgeous singer full of inteligent lyrics and crystal sounds. Kudos!
