The recording project of Philadelphia-based songwriter and producer Kris Leigh, Delv started out as a vehicle for acoustic folk songs but soon evolved to incorporate electronic production. The result is something that retains the organic tones of fingerpicked guitar but able to push into deeper, dreamier and sometimes darker territory.
Back in 2020 we reviewed the debut Delv album, Waning, appreciating how this cross-genre style allowed such nuance and detail. “There’s an energy embedded deep within the track that shows itself in small flashes,” we wrote of single ‘Back of My hands’, “a hard seam of determination that’s sometimes stumbled upon during close introspection.” The track was representative of the entire release:
The description could stand for Waning as a whole, an album of tenderness and vulnerability that nonetheless finds strength in running its fingers along its bruises. There can be great meaning in quiet, a depth of understanding to be found slowly and alone. Living up to its name, Delv pushes down into this space, taking you by the hand so that you too might come to know its contours
Now Delv has returned with a new release, Gardens and Plantings, one which tears up the traditional album cycle in favour of something more fitting of its themes. “Conceptually,” reads the press materials, “[Leigh] wanted to do something unconventional that mirrored the slow and steady, introspective pacing of our time in quarantine.” What emerged is twelve-part series of monthly singles, songs that will eventually be collected in a full album at the end of the year.
With it’s patient croon and melancholic swells, latest single ‘The Light Out’ introduces the sound of the release. Exploring ideas of feminine fluidity, the record lives up to its title in its slow burning growth, sonic representations of concealed gardens and plantings that develop slowly over time, and ‘The Light Out’ is the perfect example. A graceful song of quiet reflection, though the gentle mood belies the power that sits beneath its surface. A seed slowly gathering nourishment from the soil around it, strengthening itself in order to eventually break out and bloom.