🔗 Share this article Jennifer Walton's First Record "Daughters" Explores Grief and Style Within this track "Miss America", audiences find themselves inside a lodging near JFK airfield, as the musician learns the devastating update of her father's illness discovery. This Sunderland-born artist had been traveling America for the first time, playing with group Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly sadness takes over, tinging everything with melancholy. Faltering keys and soft orchestration accompany dark reports emanating from the road: "Rural scenes and crumbling homes / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments." Her gentle vocals come across in a flat manner, yet this record's tension stems from her sharp penmanship—mixing stories, traditional phrases, and direct diary entries—along with unexpected rich textures. Not many tracks recently showcase more potent novelistic style compared to "Shelly", which describes the death of a deer and descends into a petrol-laden confrontation, evoking literary pieces lit by glimpses of distorted cello. Anxious, subdued verses with resonating, plucked strings move into expansive refrains, with Walton's voice digitally manipulated into something all-knowing and sinister. Listeners might previously be familiar with Walton from her work as an electronic producer, disc jockey, and member in groups such as Caroline. The album's sonic turns draw on her varied background. The opener "Sometimes" erupts in fanfare, as if an ensemble taken unawares, whereas "Born Again Backwards" radically ups the BPM with an intense, stunning, looping drum fill. Thick walls of sound, expertly produced by a longtime partner, feel at once rough and ethereal, and her morbid, magical thinking culminate on highlight "Lambs", which momentarily becomes a swirling dance. "I hope your existence doesn't conclude with dying," Walton bargains, with poignant gallows humor.