I read some reviews of ‘Sexy to Someone’, the lead single from Charm, Claire Cottrill’s third album as Clairo, that recognised Cottrill’s desire to make sexy music but questioned how well that impulse actually showed up on record. Now that I’ve heard Charm, I can confidently say that Cottrill can make sexy music, even if it’s a different kind of sexy to what pop music usually gets down with. Charm is introverted sexy: it captures the feeling of whispering wry, lacy thoughts to yourself alone; of nerding out over warm soul 45s under candlelight; of realising everyone wants to touch you while you’re playing the flute. This, I assure you, is absolutely a kind of sexy.

Charm marks the second time I have been pleasantly surprised by a Clairo record – it took me half a year to give Sling a spin, expecting something merely decent before receiving something formative – but where my own confidence in Cottrill can sometimes falter, it is clear that her’s is growing steadily. Charm is endearingly self-assured, the sound of an artist at ease with her stature and ambition. Cottrill doesn’t push the envelope vocally, opting to sing quietly, carefully, and breathily, but her melodies are curiously complex and elegant. The music around her is detailed and masterfully performed – Cottrill and producer Leon Michels brought thirteen veteran musicians into the studio with them – reverently bathing in the sound of 70s soft rock, folk and soul. And while her writing is often meandering, it is never laborious. She traces ideas in her head for as long as they feel interesting, circling truths about intimacy or distance that she is entirely content to leave unresolved. It is an approach that neatly evokes the all-encompassing feeling of a crush, the way it never really reaches a natural conclusion, the way it can exist in your mind alone but distract you from real life entirely, as it does on ‘Second Nature’: “It’s when you’re close enough to touch / I’ve forgotten the point, my train of thought destroyed”.

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Sam Gollings

14 July 2024