This is Blue Vow: the solo project of Cape Town-based musician Chelsea Ann Peter, who brings together influences of roots music, sombre ambience, distorted guitars and psychedelic rock on her debut offering Sunfall.
The blurred yet beautifully moody, black and white album cover already says enough about what kind of album this is – one of immense emotional proportion, of delicacy, and, as the title suggests, of light.
Opener “Calls From The Cross” is a slow-burn, featuring a bassline that ruminates in its repetitive nature, followed by “Room To Dream (A VIIsion)”, where we get our first taste of Peter’s graceful voice. She sings with a rumbling tone, leaving touches of classic blues and ’80’s psych-rock that give her music a quality of nostalgia, as if taken from the past and brought to the present.
Think Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Anna Calvi, even Lana to some extent, only Blue Vow’s guitars are a little sadder and darker. In fact, a lot of the songs seem to be imbued with a sense of darkness that’s constantly searching for something lighter, echoed in tracks like “They Live” and “Good Grief”, with their obscure melodies and hard-to-hear production.
Out today, the album is also accompanied by a beautifully shot, monochrome video for “Tombstone Eyes”, that follows Blue Vow as she traverses a barren landscape by the ocean, surrounded by stunning vistas in various shades of grey.
Think of Sunfall as an abyss that you dive into. Every track is conceived as curious but tender noise, awash with an enveloping musical glow that eventually becomes an ever-expanding soundscape – one that’s easy to lose yourself in.
Feature pic supplied by artist
