Joanne Robertson - Blue Car LP

AD 93 jemmy the padlock off Joanne Robertson’s archive of diaristic songcraft with frankly devastating results that form her solo follow-up to ‘Painting Stupid Girls’ (2020) for Dean Blunt’s World Music label.

The Blackpool-raised songbird, guitarist and painter Joanne Robertson is among the most precious artists of her generation. Since the 2008 release of her solo debut ‘The Lighter’, produced by General Strike and This Heat’s David Cunningham, Robertson has been a regular collaborator of Dean Blunt, lending her silvery folk lilt to Hype Williams and Bo Khat Eternal Troof Family Band recordings, and notably some of Blunt’s best solo sides. ‘Blue Car’ is her 5th solo release and a total pleasure to spend time with, holding 11 acoustic recordings of guitar and voice that roll off her tongue and fingertips with preternatural effortlessness and linger on the mind long after the music has stopped.

Reaped from a tranche of undated recordings made by Robertson over the past 10 years, as with ‘Painting Stupid Girls’, these new glimpses of her daily practice feel like leafing through a handwritten diary with polaroid snaps lodged between the pages. We can hear what she was feeling that day, and practically picture the scene: the brown-blue daylight of Blackpool’s Irish sea coast and the town’s neon night glow lending tone and shadow to her ghostly blooz, tape noise resembling wind outside the window. Shy of any effects or post-production, they are captivatingly naked documents of time and place that transcend tastes, with an emotional grip that directly translates to any listener, regardless of mother tongue.

If you harbour a thing for music by anyone from Grouper to John Fahey, The Durutti Column to Ekin Fil, you owe it yourself to spend time this one.

Artwork by Joanne Robertson and Kool Music
Mastered by Kool Music