When we wrote about ‘Vale’, the debut single from Denver-based musician Allison Lorenzen back in January, first impressions were clear. With Midwife‘s Madeleine Johnston providing guitar and backing vocals, Lorenzen conjured “a shadow space of glisten and reverb that is as ominous as it is alluring.” The atmosphere was stark and brooding, “daring the listener to peer over the edge into the dark depths beyond.” But while the sense of foreboding was evident, a shimmer existed at the song’s edges, a suggestion that it portended something more complicated than straight doom. As we continued:
Beyond the McCarthyian desolation, something else stirs. The sense that, perhaps, the dark is not some adjacent threat, but the very space around us. Perhaps we’re already sitting in darkness, and our inability to flee is not a fearful reaction but a steadfast show of strength. If we’re already in the vale, or indeed are the vale itself, then thoughts can turn in a different direction. Be it hope of future illumination, or merely the knowledge that we can withstand such a space, and learn to live within it.
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This complicated relationship between darkness and light is the cornerstone of Tender, Allison Lorenzen’s debut full-length on Whited Sepulchre Records. Written and recorded in the aftermath of a relationship, as well as her previous project School Dance, the album took shape in a strange moment for Lorenzen. Several of her life’s defining characteristics had been removed at once, leaving not only pain and sadness but a deteriorating sense of self. ‘Vale’ is representative of this liminal space. Shadow-veiled and vacant, dreamlike in its intangible swirl but no less heavy, its dark burden weighing on both spirit and mind.
But it is Lorenzen’s vulnerability within this milieu which truly informs the record. Consider the nuance of the title. Tender. Not tough. Easy to cut through. Sensitive to pain. But also warm, affectionate, kindly in outlook and gentle in action. This heightened receptivity and inclination for compassion repositions the vale from terminal nadir to just another milestone on a far longer path. Take ‘Chalk’, a song of movement and change which charts if not the impermanence of pain then at least its habit of fading with time. Jack Manzi’s video finds Lorenzen alone but empowered within a stark environment, aligning her own internal weather with that of the surrounding landscape, thus evoking its grand cycles and propensity for change no matter how severe the present moment.
The style is a subversion of the traditional healing narrative. A rejection of linear progress, an acknowledgement of the uneven topography of life. It’s this embrace of contradictions that allows the ethereal fondness of ‘In a Dream’ to be sandwiched between ‘Vale’ and the stricken ‘Afterthought’ with its needling unease. That allows too for the value of both solitude and company, for loving and being loved, for having both the confidence to walk one’s own path and the ability to submit to the grace of others when in need.
Tender might be a survey of Allison Lorenzen’s emotional journey, though it is less a complete map than an ongoing journal. Or perhaps a map that is so far incomplete, still in progress, drawn in situ and prone to change. The locations might reappear, be reimagined or given new names. Many have no name at all, just feelings judged in comparison to everywhere else. A transience which feels deeply compassionate, hope manifest as an understanding of the potential for change. A complete map would be a key to existence. A definite answer, a solution to life. Tender is not an answer, and this is its greatest strength.
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Tender is out now via Whited Sepulchre Records and you can buy it from the Allison Lorenzen Bandcamp page.
