Alice Hebborn is a younger head on compositionally assured older shoulders. She's just released two impressive singles and her debut LP is incoming in December on TSMM fave Western Vinyl. It's definitely time to take a look.
In 2021 Hebburn decided to move to the countryside where unsurprisingly she's developed a deeper connection and understanding of the natural world. As with many she's looking around at our unsustainable lifestyles, witnessing the increasingly unpredictable consequences in real time and I imagine is concerned about her future. She's not the only one; although she's currently doing a better job than most at expressing her thoughts.
For the LP she's teamed up with the talented pianist Nao Momitani, and as you can see from the video the synergy is real. Momitani is tasked with representing humanity and her fleet fingers rise to the challenge impressively. Cascading notes pour through the speakers like commuters emerging from the main train stations at rush hour. Hurrying, scurrying, consuming as they enable capitalism's money hungry machine; small cogs, increasingly disconnected from the planet, their view obscured by the skyscrapers and attention constantly diverted by app notifications and unsustainable desires.
Hebborn handles electronic duties and takes on the equally ambitious task of evoking the environment. She too succeeds admirably, peering into the undergrowth at ecosytemic minutiae with her attention to sonic detail, whilst more dramatic sounds evoking the earth's natural systems gust from her machines, converging with the effects of 8.2 billion people, then swirling through the speakers.
These two singles are singular, genuinely impressive sonic critiques of the current dichotomy between humanity and nature, but under the sonic drama is an underlying optimism; hope that we can still pull back from the brink, repair the damage and adapt our lifestyles. Let's see what the rest of the LP says in December.
Playlist Companion:
You can also currently find "Saisons - Mouvement 6" in good company in the Slow Neoclassical Playlist.
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