Glasser’s second full-length release, Interiors, shows no evidence of the structure its name might suggest. Instead, the expansive hollowness of this album gives Cameron Mesirow the freedom to drift through her musical dream world, but it leaves her audience yearning for something tangible to hold on to.
Inspired by Mesirow’s recent move to New York City, this album is fixated on transformation. Glasser continuously plays with change, varying every element of her sound except her beautifully surreal, dominant vocals.
Interiors’ first track, “Shape,” starts off weightlessly with a single floating synth note, soon accompanied by Mesirow’s soft and serene, yet attention-grabbing vocals. This open sound is quickly grounded as the heavy drum line hits, ushering in a thicker, more robust and layered instrumental line. This hard-hitting track thumps along, swelling and throbbing as Glasser explores her environment while still staying grounded in a concrete and relatable sound.
After a brief loss of foundation in “Design,” Glasser touches back down with a more full sound on “Landscape.” The song starts with a playful synth riff, shortly followed by a deep drum line and Mesirow’s beautiful vibrato in a lower range than elsewhere in the album. As its title suggests, this tune is still exploratory, playing with changes in dynamics and tempo.
But Glasser proceeds to get lost in the vast openness of her sound. Her songs drift upwards, into an airy, elevated space that lacks the layered foundation of her more successful tracks. Her brief interludes “Window I,” “Window II,” and “Window III” break her momentum and suggest that the album might come back down to a relatable sphere, but following these breaks Glasser’s sound quickly gets lost once more.
Still, there are glimpses of brilliance along the way. In “Keam Theme” she incorporates enough bass and rhythmic consistency to keep listeners engaged. Unfortunately, Mesirow’s obsession with oscillation and variance ensures that such glimpses do not define her sound.
This LP’s journey through change and ephemerality liberates Glasser from a rigid musical identity. Yet this freedom causes Mesirow to desert the scattered moments of full, well-developed sound for her transcendent, unapproachable exploration.
Voice’s Choices: “Shape,” “Landscape”
