Tirzah – trip9love…???
Tirzah’s surprise new release brings an unprecedented level of propulsion and structure to her off-kilter romantics
Love as an artistic concept has been so brutally demystified and spotlit over its many crevasses that it is biblically miraculous Tirzah can find time in the day to add to the canon. In the same breath that Stevie Wonder was the love guru of the 60s and 70s, Tirzah embodies the definitive alienation of modern romance.
Following the deeply romantic abstraction of 2021’s Colourgrade, trip9love…??? exists in part as a live companion for her current tour, and as a neurotically rhythmic take on her past work, resulting in a record more impactful and approachable than any in her catalogue, while losing none of its scorched anxiety or lovesickness.
There is a sense that hearing the first minute of the record can clue in a studied listener to the residual 32, yet Tirzah takes this uniformity as a welcome hypnosis. The instances of a beat being as profound the tenth time may be few across album-length releases, but Tirzah and company manage via a host of carefully burnt synthesizers and balanced drum programming; rather than the repetition of a single idea, she explores every angle of an idea with singularity.
While it lacks the truly avant-garde attention of her previous record, trip9love…??? still contributes to her tripped-out, sensual surrealism with the intent of an artist willing to unfurl. In a carefully improvised moment of surprise, a definitive auteur of the modern feel decided to waltz into the centre of the dancefloor and yearn through that great release.
Listen to: F22, 2 D I C U V, their Love