At first listen, June McDoom’s voice is pure, chilled air, hovering over buried guitar grooves and wafting toward distant, thunderous percussion. But just beneath this whispery delivery is another, lower register: deeply anchored, with a rich, finely controlled vibrato. The mingling of these distinct voices, as they blend with and overtake each other, is enjoyably discombobulating. It sets the tone for a daring and lovely debut EP that doesn’t just bounce between polarities, but actually unfixes them.
McDoom has spoken of the influence of Joan Baez, Simon and Garfunkel, and Judee Sill, but June McDoom isn’t an acoustic, stripped-down-and-turtlenecked kind of debut. The album blends folk-rock sounds with elements of McDoom’s other formative interests, among them the groundbreaking textures of ’60s and ’70s reggae, the bright Philly Soul tones of The Delfonics, and the airtight intensity of Spector production.
The album stirs these phrases and effects into a shifting ambient background, transforming them further as it flows. There’s a prevailing DIY murkiness to it, but it also packs sonic power, approaching the sublime while still retaining nuance and scale. It’s a Wall of Sound that’s been deftly dismantled and rebuilt.
Within this sensory space, McDoom plots out the landscape and atmosphere for songs that seem to exist on their own plane. Gracefully impressionistic lyrics are defined by elemental pairings: moon and stars, trees and fruit, past and present. Half-absorbed into the roiling instrumental mix, their meaning fluctuates with each song’s minor-key turns, tempo climbs, and melting-turntable slowdowns.
The album's first track, “Babe, You Light Me Up,” delivers its title lyric as a delicate descending phrase, seeming to evaporate or burn out as soon as it’s uttered; the song’s quavering melody is gradually overtaken by guitar, drum machine, and overdubbed vocals, pushing the song into a dreamlike extended coda. The cinematically moody and suspenseful “On My Way” also seems to test the limits of language. It breathlessly describes reunion with a remote other; then, with the sudden zip of a synth, McDoom’s voice breaks into a place beyond words. Doubled or triple-tracked coos and howls echo around an expanding instrumental groove, vibrating with ecstasy and dread.
The EP also showcases McDoom’s considerable vocal talent in more traditional, lyrically driven song structures. “Stone After Stone,” the tightest and most hook-oriented track on the album, allows her voice’s resonance to set the pace, confidently and contemplatively gaining ground. Crashing drums, a funky bassline, and field recordings fall into formation around it, enhancing and ornamenting McDoom's flights and flexings.
The slow and melancholy “Piano Song” also foregrounds its lyrics to more openly emotional effect. “We are not the same, you and I,” McDoom sings, haltingly and almost wearily. “I love things they told me not to like.” Later, a phrase is sung quietly but clearly, and then repeated as the track reaches its arc: “Slow it down, turn it off.” It’s a compact, curt directive amid all the hazy ambience, and it comes close to capturing the enigmatic stance of most of the album's songs—sticking somewhere in the tensions between intimacy, agency, and refusal.
It also evokes McDoom’s dual role as both a songwriter and a producer with a holistic vision for her music. Stylistic precision and restraint—slowing it down/turning it off—temper the album's bold experimental gestures without obscuring their brilliance. June McDoom stays light on its feet, and airy above all. - Emma Ingrisani