Claire Rousay - 17 roles (all mapped out)

  • The "emo ambient" musician presents a 24-minute track.
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  • Claire Rousay crafts queasy sonic worlds that are at once naturalistic and alien. The Texas artist's latest, "17 roles (all mapped out)," is a sprawling work that opens with bleary railroad sounds. Over the course of 24 minutes, she slowly embraces bits of melody, and by the end, pretty, lo-fi guitar, violin and harp dominate the foreground. Rousay's helium-pitched voice ruminates throughout about family, the afterlife, the loneliness of privacy and the digital realm. Contemplative and a touch disconcerting, like so much of Rousay's work, it blurs the lines between poetry, sound collage and more traditional instrumental arrangements.
RA