Sometimes there’s music that makes you feel like you’ve been listening to it your whole life. It immediately gets under your skin and stays in your head forever. Even when an artist is new, their songs might sound as iconic to you as, say, J Mascis or Jason Pierce’s stuff. somehow works exactly this kind of magic on your mind. Her 2023 debut, ‘Julia’, felt like coming home, like returning to your old teenage bedroom full of posters, vinyl, and precious memories. Her sophomore outing, ‘Kind of Fantasy’, is akin to – it’s like reliving a whole mix of emotions just by opening an old wardrobe full of you-know-what.
Having started down this path around 2019, with bare folk ballads in the vein of or graced with a touch of and on her first two EPs, ‘You Who Was Myself’ and ‘More Than Reaction’, Webster later combined that approach with her previous experience as one half of the electronic duo Hemm, formed with producer Robert Downie. Seamlessly blending indie folk and rocky boldness with nuanced production layered with “playful textures”, she brought to life a dense, atmospheric, and highly detailed sound. “It does feel like it’s all coming full circle a bit”, Webster reflected on that.
“All along, I’ve tried to be / A kind of fantasy / Then, I thought it was a waste / To live inside your mind”, she ruminates in the manner of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind characters, with wispy, echoing vocals on the title rocker ‘Kind of Fantasy’. Her tender voice is like gentle, soothing stroking, imbued with hazy-shoegazy sonics. It makes connections with your inner self, easily bypassing your conscious permission. Even having completely missed the lyrics, it’s still hard to resist the temptation to stay in that kind of fantasy forever.
“I’m not an angel, I’m just wearing / Something white and long”, Webster warns us in a softly idiosyncratic voice on the opener ‘Kissing’. Trying to work through her feelings and talking to images of people known only to her, she effortlessly cuts through layers of our emotional defenses. Evoked by her sharply calibrated lines, listeners’ personal memories could naturally mix with hers, creating new fluctuations in the noosphere akin to Lem/Tarkovsky’s Solaris or Lynch’s Inland Empire. It’s immersive music that draws you in and anticipates your subconscious’ participation.
Along with evocative ballads and gorgeous torch songs like the breezy country glide ‘Wind Me Up’ and the Bridgerscore confessional ‘Keep Warm’, there are upbeat kickers like ‘Care Yeah’, evoking a toned-down version of ‘Complicated’ mixed with distorted groove. “Now you think I’m high when I’m really low / I’ll take you for a ride, but we’re taking it slow”, sings Webster, masterfully juggling meanings, as if describing her own seamless switching between genres. Or the playful ‘Pretty Please’, a woozy slacker rock anthem with signature fuzzy, crunchy Dinosaur Jr. guitars. “I don’t know if it’s me / Or my imagination / It could be something sweet or / A miscommunication”, she concludes, echoing the whole idea of dreaming together.
Even if you don’t recognize these memories, she still sings about you. Webster’s lyrics are like good RPG games or action movies – yes, they’re about those bold guys in medieval armor or high-techy space suits, but they’re still about all of us. “The tulips died ‘cause the water ran out / I was too in my head to be careful”, she states an irreversible fact on the romantic tune ‘Blue’, veering closely to Sixpence None the Richer’s ‘Kiss Me’. Isn’t it so true to life? Or take “I’m dying to be / As riddled with joy as I can be / In spite of most everything I know” from the country-ish, slow-burning closer ‘Spite’. It’s all us!
Webster prefers not to throw in real names and stays away from describing particular people, which makes it even easier to identify with that experience without having to guess who Chloe, Sam, Sophia, or Marcus are. This is an album about the complexities of life, real emotions, and universal memories, not the struggles of certain people, even though it’s a highly intimate and personal journey, with Juice Webster always at its center. It’s a talent, a gift to write about yourself while being able to express the problems of many.
“Yeah I’m older now / But I’m ready, have a need to, fuck it up”, Webster perfectly sums up her own and listeners’ coming-of-age emotions in ‘Keep Warm’ and then, seemingly carelessly, adds a mic-drop line right in the next cut, ‘Long Drive’, “Windows down, hear me singing along / I am gone, I am gone, I am gone”. Well, let’s hope not for too long, because we’ll wait here, right next to that old Narnia wardrobe full of thoughts, memories, and introspective, nuanced music.
8/10