Frankie Cosmos – Close It Quietly (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Close It Quietly is a continual reframing of the known. It’s like giving yourself a haircut or rearranging your room. You know your hair. You know your room. Here’s the same hair, the same room, seen again as something new. Close It Quietly takes the trademark Frankie Cosmos micro-universe and upends it, spilling outwards into a swirl of referentiality that’s a marked departure from earlier releases, imagining and reimagining motifs and sounds throughout the album. The band’s fourth studio release is a manifestation of their collaborative spirit: Greta Kline and longtime bandmates Lauren Martin (synth), Luke Pyenson (drums), and Alex Bailey (bass) luxuriated in studio time with Gabe Wax, who engineered and co-produced the record with the band. Recording close to home- at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 Studios- grounded the band, and their process was enriched by working closely with Wax, whose intuition and attention to detail made the familiar unfamiliar and allowed the band to reshape their own contexts.

Who is Frankie Cosmos? A poem, a pinch of sunshine, a childlike voice and a pseudonym, all bundled up with simple and joyful dream pop music. Greta Kline’s solo project is her main outlet: she’s published 10 albums, and as many EPs since 2012, independently or with the support of different record labels more recently. The prolific New Yorker’s latest, Close It Quietly, is her second record with Sub Pop; it largely follows in the tracks of Vessel (2018). Producer Gabriel Wax (Deerhunter, The War On Drugs, Wye Oak) brings a noticeable change to the sonic picture though: the band sounds tighter, with much better dynamics. Lyrically, Kline is still on the path of introspection and thinly veiled self-loathing, grappling with romance, her antisocial tendencies and trademark millennial depression; it’s a record about being in your mid-twenties and wondering what the **** am I going to do with my life? Although Close It Quietly doesn’t take many risks, it leaves a favorable impression on the vast majority of points – solid writing, arrangements, performances and production make this an enjoyable, if hardly standout, listen. – Alexis Renaudat

Tracklist:
1. Frankie Cosmos – Moonsea (02:02)
2. Frankie Cosmos – Cosmic Shop (01:53)
3. Frankie Cosmos – 41st (02:06)
4. Frankie Cosmos – So Blue (02:20)
5. Frankie Cosmos – A Joke (02:12)
6. Frankie Cosmos – Rings (On A Tree) (01:44)
7. Frankie Cosmos – Actin’ Weird (01:10)
8. Frankie Cosmos – Windows (02:47)
9. Frankie Cosmos – Never Would (01:47)
10. Frankie Cosmos – Self-destruct (00:46)
11. Frankie Cosmos – Wannago (03:17)
12. Frankie Cosmos – I’m It (02:00)
13. Frankie Cosmos – Trunk Of A Tree (00:58)
14. Frankie Cosmos – Last Season’s Textures (02:07)
15. Frankie Cosmos – Even Though I Knew (01:32)
16. Frankie Cosmos – UFO (01:44)
17. Frankie Cosmos – Marbles (02:11)
18. Frankie Cosmos – Did You Find (01:15)
19. Frankie Cosmos – A Hit (01:27)
20. Frankie Cosmos – With Great Purpose (01:23)
21. Frankie Cosmos – This Swirling (02:46)