Imagine you're on a road trip and you stumble upon a picturesque body of water, surrounded by steep hills and rolling fields.
You stop the car and walk along the water's edge. The sunlight glinting off the water's surface calls out to you, and for a moment, you consider swimming. That's when you notice the "no swimming" signs warning of dangerous and unpredictable waters.
Dutch musician and songwriter Robin Kester had this exact experience at a reservoir near Talybont-on-Usk in the Brecon Beacon Mountains of South Wales. That eerily beautiful moment was a huge influence on her new album, Dark Sky Preserve.
Kester's music is completely at home in the spaces where beauty meets danger and unease, and she uses that relationship to explore her own mental health across 10 electronica, psychedelic rock and folk-infused songs.
The singer's first album, Honeycomb Shades brought her acclaim and awards within the Netherlands, but little acknowledgement on the international scene. It was enough to open new doors for Kester, with Dark Sky Reserve marking the first time she's recorded outside of her home country, heading to Bristol to work with producer Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius).
Opener "An Hour Per Day" is introduced with somber piano chords, muted drums and Kester's hushed vocals. The song settles into a lushly orchestrated trip-hop groove before synthesizers blast off into the stratosphere.
The mixing of organic and electronic textures continues on the anxious "Happy Sad (It's A Party)." It is simultaneously a discussion of the horrible feeling of watching others have fun while you're unable to, and of the imposter syndrome Kester experienced while making Dark Sky Reserve.
The song features guitar from Adrian Utley of Portishead, and Kester wrote "Happy Sad (It's A Party)" about doubting her ability to make music with people she had looked up to for so long.
"Departure" is catchy slice of haunting psychedelia that mines the same indie take on '60s pop of the late Trish Keenan and Broadcast. Kester sings of various attempts to escape her problems through changes of scenery, not by dealing directly with them, ending with this verse:
"So you travel to a distant shore/ But your life will be like before/ So you travel to a sunlit place/ But your life there is still the same."
Dark and light are near constant themes throughout the album. The cover shows Kester bathed in a soft blue-white light but surrounded by darkness, and the title of the album was inspired by her trip to Wales. The reservoir she stopped at falls in Brecon Beacons National Park, recognized since 2013 as an International Dark Sky Reserve.
Much of the album was written at night, which the singer talked about in an interview with Front View Magazine.
"I didn’t feel guilty about wasting my time because it was like bonus time — no one expects anything from you when it’s the middle of the night. I could see myself for who I am.”
The album's incredible opening run continues on "Daylight," featuring the often subdued Kester, singing her most impassioned vocals. As the fuzzy guitar and backing vocals fade away the song hones in on the line, "It all could be right," imagining a time when the brightness of day will be something to look forward to.
The album continues with the singer's hushed voice floating around and over hypnotic instrumentals that touch on varying genres: fingerstyle folk in "Tree-lined Lanes" and "Talybont-on-Usk," grungy alt-rock on "Dog," and synth heavy on "Game Sounds" and "Something Is Moving."
Dark Sky Preserve is a breathtaking sophomore album that functions as her international debut, and announces Robin Kester as a voice to watch in contemporary music.
Must listens
- "One Hour Per Day"
- "Happy Sad (It's A Party)"
- "Departure"
- "Daylight"
- "Talybont-on-Usk"
- "Perspective"
- "Tree-lined Lanes"
