DOUBLE BILL: ANDREW COMBS / ESTHER ROSE

Andrew Combs

Praised by everyone from NPR (where Combs was featured in an acclaimed Tiny Desk performance in 2023) to Rolling Stone (which called him ‘a pop perfectionist’), Andrew Combs has built his career with a chameleonic sound that explores subtlety, nuance and the grey area between folk, country and classic pop. He continues this exploration with Dream Pictures, an album on which the creator embraces atmospheric textures and heady homegrown experimentation. The album opens with ‘Fly In My Wine’ – an instrumental sound collage laced with upright piano, buzzing pedal steel and field recordings of a visit to Richard Serra’s installation at the Guggenheim in Bilbao – and closes with the title track, in which Combs’ voice floats into a beautiful falsetto with each chorus. Between these two anchor points, he presents a record that is astral one moment and delicately earthbound the next, rooted in sincere songwriting and a willingness to experiment.

Esther Rose

Everything clicks on Safe to Run, the fourth album by singer, songwriter and eternal seeker Esther Rose. It is the quiet culmination of years in which she has been fully immersed in an evolving artistry. The album presents Rose’s always vividly detailed emotional scenes with new levels of clarity and control. As in her earlier work, her songwriting transforms the chaos and uncertainty of a developing life. Here, however, she sharpens the pop elements and adds unwaveringly catchy hooks to even the darkest parts of the journey.

After spending her formative years in Michigan, Rose moved to New Orleans. There she began her musical journey, immersed in the unparalleled energy of the cityscape. Over the course of her first three records, her infatuation with traditional country gradually evolved into a more personal style and increasingly personal material. Rose’s music followed her changes as she travelled along stages, studios and home addresses. She eventually left New Orleans for New Mexico, where the two-year writing process for Safe to Run unfolded. The transition to this new environment, after almost a decade of building a life elsewhere, forced her to look around and take stock. All the heaviness, sweetness, lightness and self-discovery that had led up to that point began to come together in new songs. These songs took time to dig deeper and adopted the intricate hues of a desert horizon as they took shape.