In 2019, Jessica Meyer's first composer/performer portrait album Ring Out highlighted her lyrical, expressive works that celebrate the arts of interpretation and performance. In her sophomore effort, I long and seek after, she focuses solely on vocal music that features poetry by female and underrepresented writers who tackle universal themes such as loneliness, desire, love, heartbreak, justice, and the courage to embark on a journey of discovering oneself. - On Friday, March 22, 2024, Claire Dickson, the Brooklyn-based vocalist, composer, and producer lauded for her "striking - at times, wordless - lyricism and melody-driven sound chamber within shapeshifting ambiance" (Downbeat) and whose voice "[draws] the listener into a world complex and jostled, where everything seems possible, loaded with... fascination and mystery" (Silence and Sound), will release her highly anticipated sophomore album, The Beholder, via New Amsterdam Records. - On The Beholder Dickson casts herself as the beholder: an archetype she formulated during the songwriting process. "The beholder radiates outward and forward. They observe, they love, they dream. Their sense of self becomes fractured and dreamlike, defined by their surroundings and the person they love. Without reliable pattern or repetition, the beholder feels both free and unencumbered and lost and undefined. Their desire gives them a feeling of expansiveness and freedom, although they also feel trapped by it because a part of their self is dictated by someone else." - Through the 9 songs on The Beholder Dickson walks the listener through a series of ambient dreamscapes using a collection of samples, found sounds, synths, layered vocals, and sparse percussion to create songs that are constantly evolving. "The songs are mostly through-composed, the form is continuously pushing forward, turning a new page", says Dickson, "they explore the contrast and coexistence of high drama, drops, big sounds, lush textures, with delicate, close, subtle, sensorial sounds".
