White Hinterland, the solo project of vocalist Casey Dienel, is a study in texture, space, and expanse, stretching R&B-laced pop to emotional extremes. Her last record, 2010’s Kairos, was woozy both instrumentally and conceptually, leaning toward gossamer dream pop. Baby, her newest, sheds the downtempo beats of Kairos, experimenting with more jagged percussion and orchestral flourishes, notably horns. Dienel learned Protools and built a studio in the basement of her parents’ house, and the methodical approach to the recording, arrangement and production yields a work that feels homegrown (Pitchfork contributor Matt LeMay mixed the record). But for all the sonic change-ups, her idiosyncratic voice remains the music’s signature.
Dienel is in a line of vocalists who subvert traditional diction—Fiona Apple with her asymmetrical couplets, Björk’s ability to contort syllables. She tucks whelps and cries between verses, moving from opera-worthy falsettos to pained whimpers, at times recalling Zola Jesus’s blackened folk and even the indie pop falsetto crawl of Portugal. The Man frontman John Gourley. Baby’s opener, “Wait Until Dark,” features nearly a minute of tense near-silence, with Dienel spitting irregular verbs in the dark, creating an effect that’s uncomfortably intimate—not to mention riveting. “Show me respect, maybe then I’ll let you ride with me,” she growls and howls, curling the words behind the acid-keys of the record’s grooviest number, “Metronome.” Dienel can also belt with a diva’s range, especially on the Saturday night club-ready tracks such as “White Noise”. But the album also presents an interesting paradox: Dienel’s voice, the record’s most gripping element, can also be alienating. Occasionally, her ambitious approach lead in over-singing, such as on “Ring the Bell,” where her background vocals get in the way.
On the whole, Baby is an exceptionally cautious work and is, at times an uncomfortable listen; it’s an account of a woman wrestling with and tackling self-doubt and insecurity, exploring how it feels to lose control. “Is this my weakness?” Dienel asks as the instruments fade to black in the record’s title track. Over the song’s duration, the question evolves from an admission to a mantra, as Dienel’s voice gains traction and grows in power. Corrosive lyrics also make it an exceptionally heavy listen, when she delivers likes like, “Pushed your head under the water till all your breath gave out” on the title track. But even though it’s filled with stark admissions, Baby is ultimately an unflinchingly hopeful record that sees an already talented artist finding finding new ways to grow.
