The LA singer-songwriter’s switch to stately orchestral pop earned Karen Carpenter comparisons, but her all-American concerns were firmly of our timesThe 50 best albums of the yearMore on the best culture of 2019Going from playing bass in an avant-garde noise band called Jackie-O Motherfucker to garnering comparisons to Karen Carpenter is no mean feat. And yet that has been the winding trajectory of Natalie Mering, an auteur based in LA whose solo career reached an almighty crescendo this year with her fourth outing, Titanic Rising.
As slow and stately as a tanker turning, and as waterlogged as its title implies, Titanic Rising was a curio in 2019. Unburdened by modish musical trends – no guests, no genre crossovers – it was a feat of immersive beauty, the kind of record you might put on an old-fashioned stereo, dim the lights and sit through in one indulgent sitting, the better to appreciate its three-dimensional production washing over your skin like a gong bath.