Carrie, 1981

reviewed by dave heaton

Carrie’s quasi-electronic pop songs are given a fuller more varied sound on her second album 1981, produced by Ruben Tamayo of Fax. It’s a haunting electro-acoustic folk-pop style. Haunting, and haunted, for its feeling of being a slightly surreal, antique/futuristic trip through the shadows. That feeling is heightened in the instrumental used as segues, like by the wailing ghost noise at the end of “Instrumental” (explainable as an instrument, a whistle or theremin maybe, but it feels like a ghost to me) and the strange lopsided, heavy/light Twin Peaks feeling of “Road Season. That song itself, though, has a positive, personal message – “catch a flight, walk around, swim a little, try to fly”. Inspiring stuff, but can you trust it when you’re inside of a haunted house? Overall the feeling of 1981 is more like we’re drifting inside of a dream. It’s ominous in corners, but we pass those by. Within that dreamscape, the songs themselves are personal letters to us, telling of small pleasures and heartbreaks.

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