by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Some things take time and they say patience is a virtue. Hex Sign, the debut album from Ann Arbor via Nashville’s Brianna Bartelt aka Bri Barte has been a long time coming, but the album has a sense of nuance and grace far beyond your typical debut. The songwriting took place over a five year span, one that involved time spent waiting out a bad recording contract, and lyrics that came together from chap book poetry. It may be Bri Barte’s first album, but there’s an established confidence that’s immediate in both the ability to casually subvert song structures and the fact that she played all the instruments on the record (aside from a few drum parts courtesy of Pile’s Alex Molini, who recorded, mixed, and mastered the album).
WIth influences that include a pantheon of legends from PJ Harvey and Fiona Apple to Björk and Cat Power, their collective strengths are channelled throughout the twelve songs that make up Hex Sign. There’s a rawness to Barte’s performances and some ambiguity to her lyrics, singing with both earnest introspective and abstract feeling. WIth minimal arrangements that often end a ways away from where they began, there’s clarity within the skeletal performances, using distorted hums, sparse piano, and looped melodies, to build a steady framework. Barte’s vocals do most of the heavy lifting, and she’s more than capable to do so, with a commanding voice that never needs to take a commanding tone to grip your attention.
There’s a real progression within these songs, with far more dynamics than any bedroom pop record. Bri Barte eases into her arrangements rather than hitting the wall headfirst, playing the patient hand and allowing song like “The Glacier” and “Liked You Better” to unfurl into heavy resolutions. With a cool blend of gritty alternative soul and passionate scorn in her voice, songs like “Before I Have To Go” and “Turbulence” hit upon early PJ Harvey albums, making beautiful music under an ugly lens. There’s moments of stark outsider pop (“Sad Boi”) and stunning balladry (“Catatonia”) as Barte ponders “how’s it held together? how’s it fall apart” over sweeping piano and shuffling distortion. “High Noon” may just be the album’s highlight, a song that begins with birds chirping before Barte’s vocals push and pull with utmost delicacy and unshakeable strength. Set to a single guitar progression and haunting backing vocals, you’re drawn in by the simplicity and the empty spaces that allow complete focus.