Sharon Van Etten - Metamorphosis of a Singer-Songwriter

We live lives that are waveforms constantly changing with time, now positive, now negative. Only at moments of great serenity it is possible to find the pure, the information-less state of signal zero

(Thomas Pynchon, “Gravity's Rainbow”)

This is a story of redemption. A story of nights and days spent far from everything and everyone, far from “what's out there”. A story of grey skies and sleepless nights, spent with a cigarette in hand, unable to shut your eyes, spirits on the floor with no desire to tear off another page from the calendar and start the next day. But it's also a story of happiness, of the pure joy of “ordinary things”: doing the laundry, changing your child's clothes, going out and suddenly spilling your dark past over a beer, opening up and learning to trust other human beings again. Constantly changing the lens you hold up to your eyes before trying to make sense of that messy, unstructured jumble of events surrounding us every day. And it's a story that glorifies music, as much a lifeline in the lowest moments as a form of awakening in the highest ones.

Sharon Katharine Van Etten was born in Belleville, New Jersey, on February 26, 1981, the third of five children. A rebellious spirit from the start, she spent her childhood and adolescence in various parts of New Jersey, singing for her high school choir (North Hunterdon) and performing solo gigs, among other things.

After high school, she moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, to start a recording and music production program, but scared off, by her own admission, by the economic and commercial side of music — and by the effect of folding in concepts too far removed from the organic way she felt songwriting and production should work — she dropped out after just a year, ending up working for about five years at a pub in Murfreesboro, where small local artists would often perform.

At this point we reach the first crossroads of Sharon's life: the young “fish out of water” enters into a toxic relationship with an abusive boyfriend, also a musician, who does everything he can to discourage her from pursuing her talent. These are difficult times for Sharon, who finds herself stuck in a situation she doesn't have the strength to escape. Some of her earliest lyrics date back to this period, later finding their way onto her debut album, Because I Was In Love. It's also during this time that Sharon begins to develop an intensely personal relationship with songwriting, an act that serves a therapeutic, liberating role for the young singer's frustrations and fears. A sort of psychoanalytic process, as she herself will later describe it.

The situation drags on for quite some time, until one night, in a scene strikingly similar to the one that opens Netflix's wonderful miniseries “Maid” — whose soundtrack is made up largely of Van Etten songs precisely because of this parallel between the two stories — Sharon leaves the house in the middle of the night to head back to New Jersey, showing up at dawn on her parents' doorstep to ask for a place to start over.

I sigh and then I frown

I write this moment down

‘cause I cannot print pictures with my tongue

Finally free of outside constraints and in full possession of her own identity, Sharon Van Etten moves to Brooklyn with a solid batch of songs already in hand, and, while earning a living working for the Ba Da Bing Records label, releases her debut album, Because I Was In Love, which officially comes out on May 26, 2009 via Language of Stone. The recording takes place over just a few days at Hexham Head Studios in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, produced by Greg Weeks (founder of Espers, as well as of Language of Stone itself).

Sharon Van Etten's debut is spare, raw and perhaps incomplete in terms of arrangement and production, but remarkably effective in showcasing one of the twenty-eight-year-old singer's finest qualities. The power and effectiveness of the symbolism in her lyrics, which exude urgency and emotion while still remaining shrouded in mystery, are astonishing for a debut. The opener “I Wish I Knew”, which reveals strong traces of Joni Mitchell but also of late-90s lo-fi (echoes of early Coldplay EPs pre-“Parachutes” come to mind), rests on the lightest of guitar strumming. The voice is warm, high, moving, and carries an entire song on its own (and, looking closer, perhaps the whole record).

The first impression is of a work released out of pure urgency, deliberately stripped down, as if these songs only made sense to Sharon in their original form — and the singer herself will confirm in an interview just how deliberately sought-after that intimate “guitar and voice” feel was, as though recreating the dim lighting and vocal improvisations of a show in some half-empty pub, perhaps the very one where Sharon worked after leaving college.

The following track, “Consolation Prize”, recalls the intimacy but also the playfulness of Sufjan Stevens's “Seven Swans”, with sudden, abrupt melodic shifts over a bed of sparse guitar arpeggios and hazy organ. A lyric that is once again somewhat elusive introduces a male figure who will play a central role throughout the album, and whom we can easily trace back to the toxic relationship in Tennessee. “For You” brings back the organ but, more importantly, offers the first clear signs of a lyric built on oppression and frustration, intertwined with a total dependence on the other person. The unsettling realization of a complete inability to see oneself outside a relationship, however negative it may be, is a truly delicate theme that plays a fundamental role in Sharon Van Etten's lyrics — which makes us appreciate all the more the courage it took to find the strength to leave such a difficult situation.

If “I Fold” seems like a humble tribute to Nick Drake and the intimacy of certain songs from “Pink Moon”, “Have You Seen” turns out to be one of the best songs on the entire record: a simple ballad with a figurative, metrically fascinating lyric, in which the urgency of the message overwhelms any musical ambition. We find ourselves in an empty, dark room, with a hint of smoke drifting through it, and a 28-year-old woman opens her heart to us in her own way, laying bare her pain-filled past through mysterious words. An electric guitar appears on “Tornado”, without unduly upending the record's overall sound, while the collection's other high point comes with its only released single (back in 2007, a full two years before the album's release), “Much More Than That”, where the realization of her own contradictions and the impossibility of fully communicating her feelings are striking for the clarity with which they're described.

Often, throughout her long career, Sharon Van Etten will compare her songwriting to a diary in which she jots down sensations, moments, memories, impressions. There's no better example of this than the lyrics of “Much More Than That”, truly stunning in the way it builds small images that conceal feelings and emotions we all, sooner or later, naturally recognize ourselves in.

The rest of the album doesn't reach similar heights: the guitar-and-voice format keeps total control over the structure of the songs, right up to the closing "Holding Out," a long ballad built on a simple guitar arpeggio, where Sharon's gorgeous voice dominates the entire composition, leaving this time a faint message of hope and stubbornness, showing confidence in her own ability to hold on and overcome difficulties. Although it's a fairly generic concept, far from original, the fact that it's placed at the end of an album so heavily steeped in lyrics full of frustration, indecision and a vague sense of being lost hints at a sense of redemption which, as we noted at the outset, is somewhat the word that defines Sharon Van Etten's career.

Because I Was In Love, as already noted, is a bare, stripped-down record, one that favors the clarity of the vocal message and emphasizes its power. Often made up of just guitar and voice, occasionally embellished by an organ or an electric guitar, these eleven tracks are deeply shaped by the circumstances in which they were conceived and released, and although they lack a number of things, you can't deny them a deep authenticity, an extraordinary voice, and a way of expressing emotions that hints at an originality still waiting to be developed.

To say the things I want to say to you would be a lie

By the time I get the courage I am drunk and you are tired

Alone in the basement where I will write these songs

Of things I’ll never say to you again and you know why

Because I Was In Love received good reviews upon release, and Sharon Van Etten's name began to work its way into New York's underground circles, where she was in fact no stranger, having already appeared there back in 2007, the year, as already mentioned, when the New Jersey singer-songwriter released her first single. And if the debut album came out several years after Sharon had first started dreaming of a career in music, it wouldn't take long for its follow-up to arrive.

The second album under the Van Etten name, epic, came out on September 21, 2010. The title, as the singer herself explained, is meant to represent an "after-the-fact" reflection on the seven songs it contains. Such a pompous, weighty adjective is stripped of its capital letter, usually reserved for the first word of an album title, as if to underline that what seemed so grand at the moment of writing, looked back on and reassessed after some time, turns out to be ordinary, unremarkable, not even worthy of a capital letter.

The album came out on Ba Da Bing Records, the label Sharon was working for at the time of its release, and was recorded once again in Philadelphia, at Miner Street Recordings. At the helm was Brian McTear, something of the resident master of the studio, who has also hosted The War On Drugs and Waxahatchee among others. The big difference here is the addition of a band. To expand on the extremely bare sound of the debut, Sharon brought in a crew of musicians who, across the whole record, add up to about a dozen members of New York's indie scene.

Although "A Crime" opens the record once again with just guitar and voice, it already sounds like something decidedly more mature. Gone is the laconic melancholy of the debut; the attitude turns aggressive: a rebellion that oozes from lyrics full of rage, spilling out in a frothing, scathing and disillusioned voice. The following "Peace Signs" builds on both of those ideas: Sharon is finally backed by a fuller sound, and seems to have a clear, lucid sense of direction. A semi-country guitar and swaying percussion support lyrics brimming with proud independence, manifesting itself in the "peace signs" of the title.

The airy arrangement of "Save Yourself," indebted to early Neil Young, comes as a surprise, but it fits within a broader process of sonic amplification, likely a byproduct of the artist's growing independence and a heightened self-awareness gained after managing to release her debut. All of this probably led to a less urgent approach to the writing and release process, shifting the focus away from the words of the debut and toward greater attention to arrangements. Proof of this comes from Van Etten herself, who would describe epic as an album that isn't so much about her as a person as it is about the feelings she experienced.

With "DsharpG," a title clearly drawn from the two chords the track is built on, the record changes pace. A harmonium introduces us to a long ballad that at times flirts with the wonderfully original folk-rock of bands like Black Heart Procession, where a slow, wearily-kept rhythm carries us through a long string of existential questions. The long relationship that had taken up so much of her life is over, and Sharon has started a new life, her mind full of doubts. Is everyone crazy to believe in concepts like love? What do the people we meet every day really think behind that layer of cold indifference? Do they too live amid hardship? A long metaphorical walk escorts us for over six minutes toward an inevitably open ending, one that offers no answers.

While "Don't Do It" intrigues with its two-faced lyrics, a sort of inner soliloquy that projects us into the author's insecurities, caught between adventurous tension and fear born of doubt, epic, like a skillful chef, saves its best courses for last. The single "One Day" hits home with a 70s-style guitar and a chorus that winks at Stevie Nicks, which, seen in hindsight, reveals a real knack on the author's part for crafting extremely catchy melodies, a talent Sharon would only learn to fully exploit later on.

Finally, the long-awaited "Love Me More" is the New Jersey singer-songwriter's first true masterpiece. Once again, a harmonium offers warm, candlelit companionship to an open-hearted confession from someone shattered by her own past, a victim of a situation too big for her. The disarming, spine-tingling honesty with which Sharon recalls the past relationship, singing of how every abusive behavior from her ex-partner, rather than pushing her away, made her fall more in love, is a first clear confirmation of the talent we're dealing with. The instrumental backing, with delicate guitar notes swelling throughout the song, provides exactly the right, understated company to truly moving lyrics that turn intimacy and fragility into extremely powerful weapons. This wonderful song was, incidentally, the subject of an episode in a series of mini-documentaries produced by the Philadelphia nonprofit Weathervane Music, which explores the world of recording. The episode, just twelve minutes long, is interesting not only for its subject matter but also for the interview with the singer, then twenty-nine, which lets us appreciate two important themes. The first is the cultural humus in which Sharon Van Etten was living at the time: the chance to develop her music in New York, fertile ground for an indie-rock scene that was laying the groundwork for a good deal of the music of the following decade. Sharon herself cites the influence of Peter Silberman, frontman of The Antlers, who just a year earlier had released a towering album like "Hospice," one of the essential works of 2009, if not of the entire decade. The second is the joyful look in the singer's eyes as she talks about bringing a band and a bigger sound into her music. The ability to internalize, grow and evolve quickly would be one of the strengths that would put her on a steadily rising path.

It's not because I always give up

It might be I always give out

epic is thus a crucial turning point in Sharon Van Etten's career. The cohesion and authenticity of those seven tracks, combined with a marked growth in songwriting and musicianship, set the now twenty-nine-year-old singer's career on the right track.

For the production of her third album, none other than Aaron Dessner was brought in, one of the brilliant minds behind The National, a band that can by now reasonably be considered one of the defining forces of the last two decades of indie rock and beyond. Aaron, a multi-instrumentalist always on the lookout for projects outside his prominent role in The National, found himself drawn to the potential hinted at by Sharon's first two albums (especially the second), and, as mentioned, offered to produce her next record, which would come out on February 7, 2012 (so less than 18 months after its predecessor), this time on Jagjaguwar, under the title Tramp.

It's a particular period in Sharon's life: on one hand, she finally feels she's found the right path for her life, but on the other, like everyone, she has to bow to the rules of this world, and like many artists just starting out, she struggles to achieve financial independence. Dessner himself would recall how, during the recording of Tramp, which took place at his house in New York, specifically in his garage, the two of them would often go on long drives during breaks, and how Sharon's car always seemed to him excessively packed with belongings, until he realized that the young singer, at the time, had no fixed address, living on friends' couches or in the car itself whenever she had to. It's a peculiar kind of contradiction, one of many in our times: achieving a decent level of recognition, at least around New York, while being unable to afford a place to live. In this unstable situation, full of inspiration but also insecurity, Sharon Van Etten released what is clearly her most "rock" album. And the supporting cast brought together a mix of some of the most interesting names on the New York scene at the time, including Doveman, Peter Silberman and Zach Condon, better known as Beirut.

The opening of "Warsaw" sets the tone: sinuous electric guitars move against a dark backdrop, the sound is full — if before we were in delicate, melancholy mountain ranches, now we're running through fog and rain. The lyrics, hermetic once again, throw us into different scenarios without letting us grasp any of them fully, in classic Van Etten fashion. The more acoustic "Give Out", among the best tracks on the record, leaves behind small traces of the past relationship, and it's interesting to notice how, even in lyrics this cryptic and elusive, the perspective on such a dark period shifts and matures over time and across albums. If before it was pain, now it's ghosts of intense memories, still vivid despite the time that has passed. An acoustic guitar and distant distortions accompany this mosaic of bitter reminiscences.

In tracks like "Serpents", the first single and the most successful song on the record, Dessner's imprint is felt strongly, so much so that the song almost sounds like an outtake from Alligator by The National. A high-impact chorus, Aaron's slide guitar and percussion reminiscent of maestro Bryan Devendorf's make up this fine song, where even the lyrics, in style, seem to recall Matt Berninger, in their firm claim to independence mixed with a lucid admission of fragility.

The following "Kevin", dedicated to a friend of Sharon's who hosted her during various periods of her "nomadic life", returns to atmospheres similar to those of her debut album, enriched - rather neutrally, it must be said - by a larger band; a slow fingerpicking and the usual full-bodied, particularly pained and expressive delivery from Sharon keep afloat a track that isn't especially notable, unlike the following "Leonard", in turn dedicated to a less close "friend", namely Leonard Cohen, where pleasant pop-rock influences (Death Cab For Cutie but also The Decemberists) accompany reflections on a relationship gone wrong. The lyrics, interesting and experimental even from a conceptual standpoint, reflect on her own past by examining it from three different angles: love, loss, and final resolution, accompanied by a lovely crescendo finale underpinned by strings arranged by Rob Moose (who has worked with, among others, Antony & The Johnsons and My Brightest Diamond).

The second half of Tramp shows considerably less unpredictability, and there are really only two moments worth remembering. First, the simple, pre-emptively "Lana Del Rey-esque" ballad "All I Can", intense in its fragility (a song that Phoebe Bridgers - who, incidentally, has never hidden her admiration for Sharon Van Etten - has surely listened to more than once). Here the songwriting, already open and expansive before, broadens even further, shifting the focus from a single episode to a more general analysis of feelings. In the open-ended, climactic finale, "Beirut-like" horns also join in, accompanying the guitar contributions of both Dessner brothers and the rhythmic input of Bryan Devendorf (in person, this time). Then there's the tender "We Are Fine", a brief and inspired antidote to panic attacks, where a ukulele accompanies a duet between Sharon and Zach Condon, in a radiant admission of fragility, in which the American singer opens her heart about her struggles with this difficult, deeply invasive condition.

The rest of the album, from the slowcore attempt of "In Line" to the crescendo finale - this time not especially inspired - of "Ask" and the acoustic closer "Joke Or A Lie", doesn't add much to a work that certainly can't be called a failure, but which, despite a tireless maturation of sound and an interesting lyrical shift, isn't matched by an equally strong overall inspiration. Aaron Dessner's production, which was meant to be a strength, fails to bring any real added value to these eleven tracks, and where epic managed to stay focused and consistent precisely because of its compactness, Tramp fails to maintain that same tension throughout.

You told me the day

That you showed me your face

We’d be in trouble for a long time

In any case, the rock turn of Tramp is, in its contradictions, a breath of fresh air for Sharon, who continues to grow in popularity and carves out space for a deeper exploration of herself and her sound - something that, as already mentioned, would remain a constant throughout her career. Although she inevitably operates within fairly well-defined coordinates, the New Jersey singer never manages to release two identical albums in a row. And so, from the guitar-driven rock of Tramp, she moves on toward a less aggressive and more "serene" indie-rock, as the mood of her fourth studio album, Are We There, has often been described. It was released on May 27, 2014, again on Jagjaguwar. The production, as usual, changes once more, and is entrusted - for the first time also to Sharon herself - and to veteran sound engineer Stewart Lerman (something of a living legend who has worked with, among others, Antony & The Johnsons, Patti Smith and Elvis Costello). The recordings took place between the singer's two homes, her birthplace (Hobo Sound studios in Weehawken, New Jersey) and her adopted home (Electric Lady Studios in New York).

The extremely impactful intro of "Afraid Of Nothing" is carried by four piano chords and a light guitar strumming. For the first time, the reference to her partner seems to have shifted, hinting at something new, describing the unavoidable moment when one must either fully commit to the relationship or flee from it. The second part of the song, where a "controlled" crescendo builds from guitars and piano accompanied by strings, carries us far away, with a chorus once again touching in its delivery.

The following "Taking Chances", the first single released from the album, shows us the new direction the work has taken (and also a subtle, tentative entrance of electronics). The song is a pop gem, with a chorus torn open by electric guitar distortion, yet always brought back to a tenderness that is one of Van Etten's stylistic trademarks. One gets the feeling that Sharon could start screaming in the middle of a square without bothering a single passerby.

"Your Love Is Killing Me", one of the most ambitious songs on the record: it really feels like a therapy session, with its vivid depiction of a flawed relationship, its lyrics (and especially its chorus) remarkably precise in sketching out a delicate psychological state. The second part of the track opens up both vocally and instrumentally, like an acceptance of a truly tangible pain, into which a spine-chilling performance pulls us. Sharon's lyrics have never been (and, for now, never will be again) this clear and direct, have never hurt this openly.

After "Our Love", which adds little to the serenity already established by "Taking Chances", the mood shifts into the tender "Tarifa", a depiction of a moment of serenity and carefree ease during a vacation in this Spanish town, leading to one of the musical high points of the record, with touches of Wurlitzer accompanying a delicate horn chorus, immersing us in a warm sunset where one would like to stop time ("Soon it was 7, I wish it was 7 all night"). A total novelty in the American songwriter's discography.

The album continues through "I Love You But I'm Lost", a quiet piano ballad, then "You Know Me Well", the track closest to the style of Tramp, caught between palpable tension and an electric arrangement, toward "Break Me", a precious indie-pop gem in which one can already detect some signs of the turn Sharon would take on her next record - arguably the sharpest shift of her ever-changing career: a hazy synth introduces what might be the best chorus of the New Jersey songwriter's career, her voice traveling unchallenged, carried by a guitar seemingly borrowed from the Cocteau Twins, while the verses attempt to translate some sounds from Brian Eno's "Apollo" into a pop key.

And while "I Know" impresses mainly for the incredible versatility of Sharon's voice, almost mannered on this occasion, there's still time for one last masterstroke before the end. "Every Time The Sun Comes Up", born out of a band jam session and the album's second single, is the definitive pop song in her repertoire: a true, decisive push toward a new, deeply North American sound (Neil Young above all), and, alongside "Tarifa", the record's second moment of lucid lightheartedness. The guitar wraps around us while delicate Wurlitzer notes accompany a song perfect for a road trip, much like the one Sharon takes in the cover photo. A side of her we didn't know, long kept hidden by frustration, anger, and loneliness, gradually emerges like the dawn sun, not yet warming us but letting rays of light filter through after a dark night. A new path, as luminous as anything had ever been in Sharon Van Etten's life, suggesting that, although it shouldn't be forgotten, the worst may now be behind her.

I want to be a mom, a singer, an actress, go to school, but yeah, I have stain on my shirt, oatmeal in my hair and I feel like a mess, but I’m here. Doing it. This record’s about pursuing your passions

The openness and lightheartedness found in parts of Are We There were bolstered by a period of personal serenity in the life of the New Jersey-born singer, and the solid commercial success of her fourth studio album led into a long tour. The following five years passed as Sharon devoted herself to pursuits not necessarily tied to songwriting: a cameo in the long-awaited third season of David Lynch's masterpiece series "Twin Peaks", a leading role in the Netflix series "The OA", but above all the start of a university path toward a degree in psychology and her first pregnancy.

Of course, Sharon still released singles (worth seeking out is the excellent "The End Of The World", released in 2017 and included in the soundtrack of the Amazon Prime TV adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel "The Man In The High Castle") and an EP titled I Don't Want To Let You Down, released in 2015, which added little to what Are We There had already said; but this series of changes in Sharon's life would come to be reflected in what can undoubtedly be called the most ambitious record of the American songwriter's career.

Remind Me Tomorrow came out on January 18, 2019, again for Jagjaguwar, with the imposing production of John Congleton. The album was recorded entirely at Studio 64 in Los Angeles. There's a kind of thread connecting the opening piano chords of “Afraid Of Nothing”, which opened Are We There, and those that kick off “I Told You Everything”, the opening track of this new record. As if the idea were to show how, starting from similar premises, two different states of mind could still remain faithful to a single identity.

In the first part of “I Told You Everything”, the stylistic hallmarks are the ones we've already found in her previous releases, but little by little we're catapulted into an electronic distortion built on drum machines and synthesizers. The whole thing, as usual, is marked by a subtle underlying melancholy that seems impossible to shake off. The production lets you feel the style and touch that will dominate the entire album: a presence that's penetrating and evident, though used sparingly. The song rests on a fragile balance, built from just a few elements, the most important of which is the lyric, which for the first time confronts the dark past as something distant, painful but concluded, confided in a moment of ravenous honesty.

The following “No One’s Easy To Love” shows a bolder production (indebted to Radiohead's “In Rainbows”). Written in Van Etten's typical style, it nonetheless reveals partly unheard-of sounds, with a sweeping crescendo that leads to a harmonic opening in the chorus that edges close to electro territory (Royksopp?), while Sharon speaks with the maturity of a Tolstoyan character. There's a new person here, and we can tell from the different tone with which this lyric is delivered. “Memorial Day” keeps up the electronic crescendo consistently; once again Sharon's melodic talent is given the conditions to shine at its best, with a wonderful chorus that stands out between an opening reminiscent of Low's most recent productions (their gem “Double Negative” came out just a few months before Remind Me Tomorrow) and near-“industrial” distortions indebted to Portishead's masterpiece “Third” (2008). We're only on the third track of the album and a whole world has already opened up. “Memorial Day” fully deserves a place in any hypothetical Van Etten “greatest hits”, with its restlessness, fed by the questions in the lyric and by the dark choruses and shadowy atmospheres of the arrangement.

Sharon's indie soul emerges again in “Comeback Kid”, an Arcade Fire-like gallop, in which a girl on the side of the road brings the singer's own rebellious youth back to the surface. The instinct is no longer subversive, but almost parental, because that girl seems to evoke in her a sense of tenderness and protectiveness (which will resurface in “Seventeen” too).

It's at the midpoint of the record, though, that the transformation sought by the Van Etten-Congleton pairing truly comes to a head. The lead single, “Jupiter 4” (named after the synthesizer used on the track), is the ideological summa and the creative zenith of Remind Me Tomorrow. Everything that had only been sketched out so far takes full shape here: one of the most impressionistic lyrics of her career, a simply perfect chorus, accompanied by a hypnotic dance in its obsessive repetition. “Jupiter 4” is one of those songs that stick around, that never wither, that generate new feelings every time they play because the complexity of the inspiration behind them allows for it. And after its most extreme version comes its twin in pop form, forming a pair that represents the absolute peak of this record (and perhaps of Sharon Van Etten's entire career). “Seventeen” is a pop anthem that in an ideal world would be playing on every radio station: built on two simple, sticky piano chords, with lyrics that perfect the whole concept of speaking to one's past self, a tribute to New York and to the acceptance – no longer stoic but deeply genuine – of the inevitability of mistakes. An exhortation to trust in time and in life. Topping it all off is a breathtaking performance, dizzyingly authentic and engaging (“I see you so uncomfortably alone, I wish I could show you how much you've grown”). Distant yet identical, a 17-year-old girl and a woman of almost 40 find themselves facing the same fears, seen from profoundly different perspectives. Both necessary, mind you, because the feeling running through this splendid passage – as through so much of Sharon Van Etten's discography – is that pain and fear should be accepted as part of the journey, without resentment or regret.

In the second half of the record, “Malibu” recalls the relaxed experiment of “Tarifa” from the previous album: the tale of a carefree experience, with strings accompanying the synths that dominate here too, alongside further proof of how melodically flawless Remind Me Tomorrow is; while “Hands”, with heavy production and even an effects-laden vocal, again calls to mind late-period Portishead, with the guitars barely peeking out from under the blanket of electronic distortion.

In conclusion, crowning a journey through a tracklist that began with intimate confessions and continued through small glimpses of life as a couple, “Stay” is the tenderest, most affectionate dedication of all, the one to her son. An open-hearted declaration, with drum machines and sounds that are still partly unusual (though an organ dear to epic resurfaces). A fitting epilogue for a story with a happy ending and for a journey of resurrection: the son seen as the definitive break from a dark past and as a starting point for a brighter future.

Remind Me Tomorrow thus marks a decisive turning point, embodying what could be called a “coming-of-age record”, above all artistically for Van Etten (she had already reached that point on a personal level years earlier, helped along by her own life experiences). It's certainly the record that cemented her standing with the wider public and specialist critics alike. But the fifth album from the New Jersey singer is, above all, a brave work, free of compromise and hesitation. A clear step forward in her career, proof of a strong eclecticism combined with an increasingly personal style and a newfound serenity in her personal life that shines through, even if it's still paired with the existential melancholy that has always been part of the American songwriter's DNA.

Even when I make a mistake

Turns out it's great

Even when you're late, you're late, you're late

It’s much better than that

As already mentioned, Remind Me Tomorrow would soon become Sharon Van Etten's best-known and most beloved record, although its success in the studio couldn't be faithfully replicated live, due to the events that would sadly mark the winter of 2020. Events that, as for most artists, would have a heavy impact on Van Etten's career itself. Covid-19 and the forced quarantine would become the central themes of the American singer's new album, her sixth, which would see the light of day on May 6, 2022.

The title is We've Been Going About This All Wrong, a line taken from the 1993 film “The Sandlot”, which Sharon watched “probably 100 times” with her son during the pandemic days. Production duties, alongside the singer herself as had already happened with Are We There, were handed to Daniel Knowles, while the band backing her features familiar names such as Zachary Dawes (The Last Shadow Puppets) and violinist Owen Pallett, who had already worked with Arcade Fire. Recording took place entirely at Sharon's home in Los Angeles, California, and the album once again came out on Jagjaguwar, by now a longtime home label for the American singer.

No single had been released before May 6, so there was a great deal of curiosity as the first notes of “Darkness Fades” played, about the new path she had taken. And indeed the opening is fairly disorienting: hazy, with a gentle guitar arpeggio, an extremely cryptic lyric evoking images from the past, while a crescendo escorts us toward a chorus with an incredibly evocative voice and drums lifted straight from the best of early-’90s slowcore.

Everything that had been built in Remind Me Tomorrow seems to have vanished. And so yet another version of Sharon Van Etten is born, one that nonetheless feels more familiar to us than ever before. The effective chorus, through the use of single words alone, conjures distant landscapes: the chiseling work on this lyric is remarkable, truly hermetic in the oldest and best sense of the word (it almost recalls certain early-20th-century Italian poets in their search for more through less). “Darkness Fades” is, quite simply, a wonderful, powerful song, a gust of strong wind, in which an extraordinary voice dominates a long stretch of melodic ups and downs of tremendous emotional impact.

The following track, “Home To Me”, falls into a new category of songs about motherhood and the relationship with her son, sealing a new chapter in the American artist's life, profoundly different from everything that came before. It's closer to the sound of the previous album, especially in the chorus, where a corridor of drum machine introduces the now spot-on hook, while a climax of synths recalling M83's “Saturdays=youth” looms inexorably, like something at once distant and near. And while on “I'll Try” the writing becomes even more hermetic and symbolic, by contrast the deep expressiveness of “Anything” strikes through its brevity (“Chainsmoking like no it ain't right, afternoon beer? Understate. I didn't feel anything”) and its profound emotional weight, closing out a flawless first half of the album.

“Born” would ideally belong on another side of the vinyl: the tempo drops, slow-motion piano chords and an almost whispered vocal are set to the rhythm of an acoustic guitar (reclaiming its space after being nearly sidelined on the previous two albums). The closing section is once again strikingly evocative, with Sharon's ethereal voice reaching towering heights and a moving crescendo that brings to mind the finest pages of Sigur Ròs. “Headspace” almost feels like an outtake from Remind Me Tomorrow, with its deep, unsettling basslines and electronics that would have fit right in among the grooves of “All Mirrors” (incidentally, Sharon is friends with Angel Olsen, and the two singers have a couple of studio collaborations together as well as some touring as an all-female trio with Julien Baker), as well as certain nu-new wave works from the early 2010s (the Editors of “In This Light And On This Evening“ come to mind).

“Darkish”, on the other hand, is the album's most acoustic moment and a genuine throwback: Sharon picks up the guitar and sings with the skeletal simplicity that defined her sound 15 years ago. Against that most acoustic of moments stands the record's big gun, brazenly, provocatively pop: “Mistakes”. A driving 4/4 kick drum, guitars and synths blending beneath carnal, blood-warm lyrics that convey a regenerating faith in life and the future. The dreamy closer is left to “Far Away”, another gorgeous song with Cocteau Twins-esque guitars holding up Van Etten as her voice travels to almost uncharted heights (Lisa Gerrard, anyone?).

The deluxe edition contains three more excellent songs, among which “Porta” deserves a mention, released as a single in 2021 and included on the album's second pressing.

If Remind Me Tomorrow was the leap into the unknown, experimentation, courage, We've Been Going About This All Wrong is the return to herself, self-awareness and pride. A primer on the sound of Sharon Van Etten over the years, starting from the shy, bare acoustic textures of Because I Was In Love all the way to the powerful synths of the 2019 album.

Everything is here, and it's all put together with just the right dose of self-confidence and love for music, the very thing that — and it's no cliché to say so — saved Sharon Van Etten's life.

Who wants to live forever?

This is how the collection the singer-songwriter released in February 2025 begins. A synthetic backdrop, a drum machine beat and the clear voice of Sharon Van Etten, addressing the listener but also herself, inviting us to reflect on the transience of human experience. How to face the inevitable arrival of death? Well, for Van Etten the first step was to found a band for the first time in her career as a musician, and to write and make an album together with it. An artistic turning point that not only changes the American singer-songwriter's compositional approach, but also completely reorients her songwriting towards music draped in a dark, hieratic aura. After all, the tribute to Eighties gothic rock is already evident from the iconography that the cover art, video and other visual aspects of the project evoke. Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, however, is not simply a goth or post-punk record, nor is it a mere recovery of a specific musical and social aesthetic. It is, rather, a brilliant demonstration of an artist's ability to appropriate different stylistic traits and blend them harmoniously with the American indie rock scene of which she is one of the leading figures.

The result of this new approach is a tight, cohesive collection, even if the quality of the individual tracks isn't always as excellent as it recently was on We've Been Going About This All Wrong or on the now-classic Are We There. Counterbalancing a somewhat faded middle section, however, is a truly phenomenal opening trio of tracks. While the opening track rises and swells progressively over a chord sequence recalling the dream-pop of Beach House, the synthetic pop-rock of "Afterlife" and the indie rock of "Idiot Box" bet everything on immediate, compelling melodic lines. And it's not hard to imagine the cathartic impact the choruses of these two tracks could have at the band's future shows: in an arena, at an outdoor festival or, as Sharon Van Etten would prefer, in a sweaty club.

After the martial march of "Southern Life (What It Must Be Like)", the album closes with two long tracks that both seem to function as farewell songs. This creates a paradoxical suspension right on the final lines of "Fading Beauty" (“The inherent beauty of light/ the fading beauty of life”), which recapture the contrast between life and death with which the collection opened. And here, as the final silence descends, the musician's voice re-enters the scene and recites, accompanied by an underground pulse, lines celebrating the materiality of existence in all its forms. With a gaze that cuts across rocks, oceans, mountain ranges and the bowels of the earth, Van Etten brings space, time and every atom of the cosmos together into a single moment of ecstasy. One of the many she's given us over a phenomenal career that, against all odds, continues to surprise us.

Contributions by Daniel Moor (“Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory”)

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