Skylar Gudasz
Country
Perseids Records
Indie singer-songwriter Skylar Gudasz, whose sound reveals tints of rootsy surf, witchy rock-and-roll, dreamy art-pop, and Southern twang, unveils her latest album, Country, an album tinkering with ideas of perspective, gender, genre, pride, and power.
Most of the album was recorded with Ari Picker at his self-built studio, Goth Construction, in Pittsboro, NC. Talking about the process, Gudasz shares, “There was no playing the songs live, no testing them out for an audience. It was a very internal experience.”
Musicians appearing on the album include Casey Toll, Chessa Rich, Sarah Louise, Joe Westerlund, Peter Lewis, and others, who recorded their parts in one-on-one sessions, including a few with producer Jeff Crawford.
Encompassing nine tracks, highlights on Country include opener “Fire Country,” a creamy, folk-country-flavored song that floats and drifts on Gudasz’s delicate yet strong vocals, drenched in rounded, translucent timbres. As the melody climaxes, it takes on heavier textures, thrumming with thick energy.
A bit darker, “Watercolor” features lush, softly glowing vocals silhouetting Gudasz’s smoke-laced voice, redolent with silky evocations. There’s a subtle buoyant mood to the tune, emphasized by Gudasz’s charming, breezy flow.
The swaying roll of “Atoll” reveals hints of Celtic witchery, undulating on velvety layers of sound as Gudasz’s vocals glide forth on gilded tonal inflections. Simply because of its hovering motion, this might be the best track on the album, teeming with savors of nostalgia and yearning.
The country-laced “Truck” sees Gudasz deploying tighter vocal surfaces, imbuing the lyrics with a luscious, drawling intonation that warbles and keens with emotion, whereas “Australia” sets forth on a slightly melancholic, elegant piano topped by Gudasz’s poignant voice, exposing a feeling almost extinguished and forgotten, but now emerging with more intensity. A combination of crystalline notes and eliding textures give the lyrics a sumptuousness held under careful control.
“No Body,” with its suspended-on-water movement, conjures up sensations of poetry and grace that interweave and overlap with Gudasz’s spellbinding, sorceress-like vocals.
With a voice immediately evoking descriptors like hypnotic and magnetic, on Country, Skylar Gudasz puts listeners under her spell.
