by Devon Chodzin (@bigugly)
Excavating memories is a preferred pastime of many people, and perhaps artists prefer it most if one believes in the value of memory for informing novel works of creation. Reconstructing memory is never simple, of course – it is difficult, if not impossible, to address experiences of our pasts without projecting some of the present moment onto those memories, using contemporary interpretive lenses to evaluate instances where we may have lacked those insights.
For Renata Zeiguer, that’s an exciting problem to have, and an opportunity to make sonic magic. On Picnic in the Dark, Zeiguer does not hesitate to whisk her listener away to a lush, reverberant world of her own design. By blending contemporary indie pop’s structures with vintage drum machines, old Hollywood strings, and dalliances into bossa nova territory, Zeiguer’s become the architect of her own memories. Creative impulses that seem disparate in time and in place inhabit the same sonic space, resulting in an inimitable record that represents the idiosyncrasies of memory.
Lead single and album opener “Sunset Boulevard” sets an anomalous tone, at some moments sounding like nascent flower-power pop of the early ‘60s and at others sounding closer to an uneasy psychedelia of the latter ‘60s. Playful yet poignant, the promise of growth is a recurrent theme. Zeiguer pins her growth on inflection points throughout her life on tracks like “Evergreen,” a whimsical track centered on relocating, and the title track, a tempered meditation on activating her innermost sources of strength.
Where tracks like “Mark the Date” and “Carmen” are most singular are in their embrace of bossa nova. On Picnic in the Dark, bossa nova is a fitting ingredient that brings playful movement together alongside lyrical poignance. “Carmen” achieves this with sugary execution as her voice soars with grace: “Tell Me When It’s Over / Tell Me If I’ve Gotta Go.” The emotion is more than just tangible – Zeiguer’s memories are as immersive as the drive-in midcentury movies that her songs feel at once contemporary to and ages beyond.
On previous releases, most notably her 2019 EP Faraway Business, it is more than evident that few songwriters are as adept at evoking such a diverse palette of emotions and images with music alone. For Picnic in the Dark in particular, each track is a little movie with its own distinct cinematography, its own genre-genome, its own denouement. As listeners get to observe Zeiguer dissect her memories and realize the actualization she seeks for herself, it becomes obvious that Picnic in the Dark is a thrilling listen. The evocative instrumentation and stylistic blends that have become Zeiguer’s signature are remarkable and realized in their totality. That makes for a record that, beyond being a shimmering work of beauty, is just plain fun.