Bleep

To call the follow-up to Tirzah’s 2018 debut Devotion ‘hotly anticipated’ is surely an understatement. An irresistibly enigmatic character with a self-assured DIY approach she could have just as easily vanished without a trace, her ironclad legacy intact. Colourgrade, not unlike its predecessor, has the essence of an album made in secret, carved out piece-by-piece during stolen moments — lucky for us, we are welcomed inside this sonic universe.

Colourgrade is far from a solitary affair. Aside from the thematic through-line of maternal love informed by becoming a mother twice over in the intervening years — Tirzah’s smoky delivery goes back and forth with Coby Sey’s gauzy vocals on ‘Hive Mind’ floating over a stunted drum track and booming bassline, bringing to mind a worn-out R&B call-and-response sparring. Devotion producer Mica Levi surely lurks around the electronic synths on the sensual mumblecore trip-hop of ‘Tectonic’. Kwes is present on the mixing duties on several tracks, while Kwake Bass produced the track Recipe, showing that Tirzah’s extended CURL crew are still devoted to helping her vision come to life.

Experimental touches send the album into far-off cerebral territories, particularly on the intoxicating centrepiece ‘Crepuscular Rays’, a wavy meander of guitar and swirling incomprehensible vocals that sounds like a lucid bedroom pop production sent through a stargate.

And yet, Colourgrade contains intimacy most artists can only dream of recording. A faultless gem of an album usually comes but once a career; Tirzah proves it can happen at least twice.