Finding oneself is never easy, but Angel Deradoorian seems determined to try. In recent years, the nomadic singer-songwriter cultivated self-awareness while actively embracing solitude, decamping to the woods of upstate New York for long stretches. In 2019, however, she found herself craving communion (and the company of other musicians), and brought that feeling into the studio. Find the Sun, her second full-length, is the unexpected result. Boomy and soaked in reverb, the record occasionally sounds like someone set up a single mic in the corner and left the room. It’s darker, less polished, and more openly meditative than anything she’s done before, miles away from the psychedelic sheen of her debut, 2015’s Expanding Flower Planet, and its more subdued follow-up, 2017 mini-album Eternal Recurrence. But the new LP’s fuzzy, almost lo-fi aesthetic gives her music an earthier, more grounded feel, even in its most psychedelic moments.
Find the Sun was recorded at the Panoramic House, a scenic analog studio in Marin County, California. On previous releases, Deradoorian largely worked alone, only involving others when she needed an instrument that she couldn’t play herself. This time, she recruited percussionist Samer Ghadry and guitarist Dave Harrington (of Darkside), granting them license to not just play along, but to improvise and help flesh out the sketches she’d already written. Setting up shop in Panoramic House’s spacious live room, they refused to overwork the material, running through each song only a few times before selecting the best take and moving on to the next one. Their breezy approach shines on “Corsican Shores,” a peppy tune that sits somewhere between ’60s garage rock, fuzzy Phil Spector-produced pop, and the jangly groups that populated the K Records roster during the ’90s.
The LP’s guitar-centric approach is a bit of a surprise, but Deradoorian isn’t a stranger to big riffs. She’s done stints in bands like Dirty Projectors and Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks; more recently, she’s been ripping it up as the vocalist of BSCBR (aka Black Sabbath Cover Band Rehearsals), filling Ozzy Osborne’s shoes alongside artists like Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner and drumming virtuoso Greg Fox. Find the Sun never reaches Paranoid levels of bombast, but it’s easily her brawniest solo record to date. Songs like “Saturnine Night” and closer “Sun” channel the psychedelic swagger of ’70s giants like the Doors and Led Zeppelin, while the rubbery bassline and surging guitar chords of album highlight “It Was Me” bring to mind the likes of Nirvana and Hole—or at least the times when those bands emulated indie pop groups like the Vaselines and Young Marble Giants.
But Find the Sun shouldn’t be mistaken for an exercise in rock worship. The influence of Can looms large, and Deradoorian’s music is still psychedelic, weird, and seemingly primed for a hallucinogenic trip to the outer recesses of the human psyche. With its motorik groove and dramatic talk-singing, “The Illuminator” sounds like a freaky, nine-minute-long outtake from Andy Warhol’s Factory, while the slinky “Devil’s Market” recalls the space-age lounge music once championed by bands like Stereolab. “Saturnine Night” does feature growling guitars, but they’re paired with an unkempt Krautrock rhythm that could have been pulled from Neu! 2, along with a dramatic, PJ Harvey-esque vocal turn from Deradoorian, who belts out brooding lines like “Innocence/In my death” and, simply, “I die.”
Thematically, Find the Sun is rooted in the idea of self-exploration. Deradoorian has a fervent passion for psychology, neuroscience, and astrology, and in the months before she hit the studio, she attended an intense, 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat in rural Massachusetts that further shaped the album’s introspective tilt. While there, she meditated 10 hours a day and could not touch or even acknowledge fellow practitioners, but Deradoorian—who describes the retreat as life-changing—seems to have come out of the experience with a deeper understanding of herself, her body, her fears and anxieties, and her capabilities. Find the Sun can’t necessarily be described as a confident album, but its creator’s willingness to document her spiritual growth and present herself as vulnerable feels uniquely brave and honest.
The gentle “Waterlily” and the somber “Mask of Yesterday” offer some of the album’s quietest, most emotionally naked moments, but Find the Sun reaches a whimsical zenith on “Monk’s Robes,” a folksy, largely acoustic number whose twirling melodies wouldn’t be out of place at the local Renaissance Faire. It sounds escapist, but according to Deradoorian, “it’s a song about accepting the futility of attempting to escape your reality, finding peace in acceptance and working with what you have to make something beautiful.” It’s an approach she’s applied to all of Find the Sun, which feels like a snapshot of a single moment along a much longer path. Like most of us, Deradoorian doesn’t know where she’ll ultimately end up—but she’s embraced that uncertainty. Even with its dense clouds of reverb, Find the Sun might be the album that provides the clearest window into who she is.
Buy: Rough Trade
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