Rise

Format

• ---

  MRG421CD  £8.00

Label

Merge

Eleanor Friedberger

Last Summer

Fiery Furnaces front woman Eleanor Friedberger opens her first solo effort, Last Summer, with the lines “You know I do my best thinking when I’m flying down the bridge / humming to myself,” and that’s as good a summation of the mood here as any: the thinking here isn’t so much of the pensive, moody variety, but of the breezy, bouncy, gee-I-wonder sort, the type that’s so much easier when you’re off wandering in the sunlight with a song flitting around in your head. Simple but lovely piano melodies and richly mellow bass shepherd most of the tracks here, though Friedberger has paid lots of attention to filling the album's ample breathing spaces with guitar fills and percussive coloring. The warmly recorded, light-treading effort feels like a throwback to idiosyncratic but solidly crafted albums made in the 1970s by piano-driven popsmiths like Harry Nilsson, Todd Rundgren, and Joni Mitchell.

Tracklist

• 1. My Mistakes
  2. Inn of the Seventh Ray
  3. Heaven
  4. Scenes from Bensonhurst
  5. Roosevelt Island
  6. Glitter Gold Year
  7. One-Month Marathon
  8. I Won’t Fall Apart on You Tonight
  9. Owl’s Head Park
  10. Early Earthquake