claire rousay’s music cascades from a well of documented experience, reflections of the past that compose the present. A prolific multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer, rousay gracefully crafts boundaryless music. From her frequent and acclaimed collaborations to her film scoring, from her own compositions to her solo pop work, rousay’s music is delicate yet powerful, carefully constructed with a casual intimacy. rousay collages a wealth of found sounds and field recordings with earthy strings, stately piano, and processed instrumentation, all of which trace the outlines of memories and distinct impressions and create a complex constellation of feeling. a little death illustrates rousay’s ability to sculpt sonic microcosms from disparate raw materials, worlds where sound and feeling are one in the same. Shaped around field recordings she captured at dusk, the album is an homage to the gentle drifts and lurking disquiet of twilight.
The process of composing a little death felt like a homecoming for rousay after the more pop-oriented song forms of 2024’s sentiment. “sentiment was a different way of working that helped refresh my music making habits and usual flow,” rousay notes. “This record is a return to what I see as my core solo practice, a re-dedication to those methods of working which I’ve found most align with what I envision my music or sound to be.” Intended as a part of a trilogy along with a heavenly touch and a softer focus, the pieces on a little death sprout from a wellspring of tactile samples and granularly processed sounds. The use of sounds recorded from her life outside of the studio remains a throughline in her work. While the previous two albums used field recordings as the primary sound source or central figure in the compositions, here they act more as springboards, timbrally intertwining with live instruments like additional voices in a chamber ensemble. Captured as daylight fades into memory, the sounds give a subtler diaristic impression, the recordings occupying a more elemental space which give moments of absolute clarity a shine in the dim gloaming.
