Shed The Skin. Selk

In the past months Selk debuted on this blog with two singles, now it returns with its album Shed The Skin. Expect Anna Jordan from Dublin in Ireland to show a few musical faces on her album. She does not want to be put under a single musical niche or genre. Instead she celebrates music in a broad and a nearly always satisfying way, for this listener.

Things do start with the term folk. Not in the traditional way of bearded singers with fiddles. Anna Jordan taps into the modern form where you can find Big Thief or Josephine Foster. In the way she uses her voice you will recognise hints to other singers in the way a certain note is bended or exclaimed. Little fun moments in her songs.

It starts with folk because some instruments that are associated with folk. And then Selk moves off into another direction and adds a piano at the heart of a song. The songs can be very different in sound. Take 'Pure'. You hear the piano, somewhat muted soundwise, over which Anna Jordan starts singing. The song seems to need nothing else to work. Beware of the acoustic bass joining the song and her harmony vocals. In sound the song is doubled. Despite everything still being so low key, the effect is truly double and even more so when she starts singing with more energy. Followers of his blog will not be surprised when I write I'm remembered strongly of the way Reb Fountain approaches some of her songs.

That makes Shed The Skin turn around the voice of Anna Jordan. That voice choses to be wobbly, somewhat like Foster's and Adrien Lenker's, or extremely steady. Just like subdued and relaxed as self-assured and more forceful. All ways show that Anna Jordan is a singer that desires to creep into the ears of the people listening to her. Her goal is to stick there, to be heard over and over again.

Promo photo

Shed The Skin seems to, more or less, follow a predictable path. Not necessarily in how Selk arranged the songs but in the folky feel of the album. The arrangements are different enough. Enter a drums in 'Moments', an acoustic guitar and strings in 'Spill'. Beware, folks, the surprise is coming.

It's the title song, the seventh of the eight songs on the album, that changes everything. The mood really changes. 'Shed The Skin' is a rhythmic song. Drums and a tinny sounding percussion over which Jordan sings with a higher tone of voice. Slowly but surely it turns into the busiest song of the album and the most surprising, also where the arrangement is concerned. The kind of song that attracts and pushes away, again and again. The experiment pays off though as the attraction wins.

Selk more or less is Anna Jordan. She plays the majority of the instruments herself and created the atmospherics or loops on the album, as can be heard in the final song. 'I'll Stay Here Now' is the most experimental track on Shed The Skin. A track befitting for Kairos on Concertzender. The song really stands apart from all that came before. Is it a hint at what is to come in the future?

Promo photo

Anna Jordan produced the album with Michael Buckley. Several musicians assisted in recording parts of the tracks, on guitar, drums, cello or violin. The basis of everything is singer and multi-instrumentalist Anna Jordan.

Shed The Skin is not your average folk album. Far from even. It is an album that invites the listener to go on a musical adventure and takes the listener step by step into that adventure, song by song towards unsuspected musical avenues. "Shed my skin", Peter Gabriel sang in 'Sledgehammer'. Selk is making it far more universal, Shed The Skin. It may be just that time.

Wout de Natris

You can listen to and order Shed The Skin here:

https://selk.bandcamp.com/album/shed-the-skin