‘Childqueen’ is something of a Hero's Quest. In the opening "Procession," above a muted drummer's march, an unseen oracle announces to you, the listener: "Every morning is a chance to renew, a chance to renew." As with her 2016 debut The Visitor, the songs on ‘Childqueen’ are never casual, never ditties. Acting as a sort of diffuse chanteuse, Kadhja Bonet's achingly lovely voice achieves what can only be described as "ambient song." Particularly in songs like "Delphine" and "Nostalgia," we hear the jazzier intricacies of the vocal melodies brushed soft at the edges. And the instruments — played mostly by the polymathic Bonet herself — mix the cinematically and classically orchestral with the noticeably more synthetic. By combining softer enchantments with an ever-listenable experimentalism, Bonet has created a soundscape the listener sinks into, unplaceable in genre and decade from beginning to end. ‘Childqueen’ is available on marbled mint vinyl, limited to only 500 copies.
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