Electric bouquet

Anna McClellan unfolds stress from the inside out. The Omaha-raised songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has been crafting empathetic and whimsical tales of flowers, pancakes and heartbreak for a decade, biting her nails all the time. In the four years since her last record deal, she's uprooted and changed careers, without losing any of her musical power. Electric bouquet is another beautiful retelling of her piano narrative, honest in its immediacy and poignant in its specificity.

You might not guess it from her albums, but McClellan spends her days as an electrician and lighting tech on televisions (she has he joked which she “likes [TV] more than music”). Her lifelong obsession with the episodic format has informed her songs from the get-go, even when she's not making early references to “Co-Stars” or naming a song from a favorite millennial-era teen drama. The life value of the seasons is outlined opposite Electric bouquet11 pieces of it. Instead of filling each song with simple narratives, they begin in medias reslike waking up in the middle of a dream or starting a show in season three episode six. Entire scenes fit into short turns of phrase—on “Dawson's Creek,” he sings, “Ravioli/Family prayer/Realizing life ain't fair,” embodying the faded youthful optimism of Chef Boyardee cans and glimpses of dinner ritual. The song's anecdotal reminiscences coincide with a spoken word from fellow former Nebraska poet Marija Estrada, who ponders “this great sadness we call life” and offers a line that gives the album its title.

Time, distance and their longing intersection fuel the brilliant poetry of McClellan's songs. Piano arpeggios and fleet drums glide beneath sparkling declarations of love. It taps into a familiar aching need to disconnect from the endless digital misery of a collapsing world and embrace each other. Light flourishes of vibraphone, saxophone and French horn color the jumbled corners of “I'm Lyin” and first single “Like a Painting”. Lively chords give the latter a strange intimacy, even as a strummed guitar detunes the space between the verses. He lets as many syllables as he needs fall into each bar, where they land in charmingly simple rhymes.

Traditional cabinet augmentation and kitchen sink instruments, from a stick to shakers and shaker bottles, never distract from its core Electric bouquet: McClellan's words and incredibly expressive voice. The cracks and quivers of her song are a reminder that songwriting can be an outpouring of emotion as much as a deliberate art. Perfection is a chimera, never a goal. “Co-Stars” is an endearing duet with Ryan McKeever, full of description and self-awareness. The wistful, lighter-wisting chorus of “Paper Runner” sinks into a sea of ​​wandering exhaustion. The wistful desire and uncharted desire are somehow kept in check as McClellan slips into her vocal range.