When Claire Cottrill relocated to a small Massachusetts town nestled among the Berkshire and Catskill mountains in 2021, it wasn’t for a temporary retreat from congested, COVID-infested cities or to record a rustic pandemic record before returning to her previous base in Brooklyn. She bought a house on a five-acre property there, deciding that’s where she wanted to be rooted.
After the viral diffusion of her 2017 song ‘Pretty Girl’, Cottrill felt increasingly out of touch with herself, adrift in the distortions of internet stardom and constant touring. Like it did for many, the pandemic forced her to slow down, to a pace at which she realised she’s most comfortable living – and one which allowed for her music to progress and expand in all the ways she’s hoped.
Sling, her 2021 second album co-produced with Jack Antonoff, was recorded in Allaire Studios, at the top of a mountain in upstate New York. For all that’s been said about Antonoffication, this duo proved perfect for realising the ’70s folk-pop sound that Cottrill envisioned. Antonoff’s nerdy curiosity about vintage recording gear merged with Cottrill’s musicianship and passionate knowledge of music history to fill the record with warm and ornate analogue arrangements. Cottrill sang, at twenty-two, of her desire to settle down in one place, her discomforts as a young woman in the music industry, and what stability and sacrifices might be required for her to be a caregiver – either of a future child or her recently adopted dog, Joanie.
With her new album, Charm, Cottrill continues to veer away from her initial sound and public image, and ventures further into her love of older recording styles, landing on something that’s rather peerless in this moment – especially from an artist who has flirted with mainstream pop success. On Charm’s lead single, ‘Sexy to Someone’, Cottrill once again flexes her knack for catchy, relatable songwriting. “Oh, I need a reason to get out of the house,” Cottrill lilts in the chorus, harkening back to a bedroom pop theme of fantasising about what life could be like out in the world, if one were not too cloistered or timid to pursue their yearnings. Whereas Sling burrowed into secluded introspection, Charm finds Cottrill remembering she is still young and doesn’t wish to cut herself off from the bewildering sparks of human connection, be they romantic or otherwise.
Though ‘Sexy to Someone’ teases a contemporary sensibility, the rest of Charm strives for anachronism, turning toward ’60s and ’70s soft rock and soul for its sonic palette. Sling was run through tape to lend it a faded, wobbly quality, but several songs on Charm (which Cottrill co-produced alongside Leon Michels) were recorded to tape first, giving the album’s instruments a tactility that complements Cottrill’s hushed vocals.
On opener ‘Nomad’, her melodies throughout the chorus spiral up with a thick, blooming mass of accompaniments: a rubbery upright bass, twinkling guitar, a wheezing Wurlitzer. The visceral closeness of the record’s distinct parts makes its psychedelic forays even more affecting. ‘Second Nature’ drops into a lumbering intro, with Cottrill and a deeper-toned vocalist laying down a path of duh-dums as a faint clipping of a laugh flutters in and out, rendering the whole thing even wonkier. “It’s when you’re close enough to touch / I’ve forgotten the point / My train of thought destroyed,” Cottrill draws out in a slow monotone at the top of the first verse, pointing toward the album’s overarching interest in the act of charming and being charmed: losing hold over one’s faculties as if under a spell.
‘Echo’ delves into psychedelia too, with its woozy synth-work, the hypnotic swing of its percussion, and the strange little cries that erupt throughout the pre-chorus while Cottrill’s coos loop. In the chorus, she sings, in a whisper as soft as the flute that swirls around her voice, “Our love is meant to be shared,” and the following line, “Our love goes nowhere,” trails off in every one of its repetitions except the last, leaving only a ghostly outline of itself.
Referenced artists
Jack Antonoff
Lights Are Much Brighter There: Daddy’s Home By St. Vincent
The theme of charming is just as wonderfully evoked in the songs that approach it through a frame of enchantment, as when through one that suggests a tinge of possession. The arrangement on ‘Slow Dance’ is lush and easeful, propelled by lightly galloping keys until the multi-part post-chorus gives way to an instrumental break, peaking with cymbal crashes that punctuate a repeated phrase. Underpinning ‘Terrapin’ are fitful drums, a dynamic bassline, and ecstatic, slip-sliding keys, simulating the stumbly love-drunk swooning Cottrill describes. And ‘Add Up My Love’ strikes like a cranked-up reprise of ‘Sexy to Someone’, the longing of the latter swapped out for confrontational confidence: “Add up my love / Honey, was it enough? / Is it ever enough?” goes the sweet and simple hook, as destined to cement a hit in this era as it would in any other.
As fun as that track is, the greatest achievement across Charm remains Cottrill’s execution of another large-scale reimagining of her desired sound. At twenty-two, she nailed the whimsical, trickily detailed folk music of Laurel Canyon. Now, at twenty-five, she’s collecting classic R&B and soul 45s, studying their textures and quirks, and infusing her music with that deep sense of history.
