Lotte Kestner "At My Most Beautiful" (2023) (single)

At My Most Beautiful, single

release date: Aug. 4, 2023

format: digital (1 x File, FLAC)

[single rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,62]

producer: self-produced

label: self-released (bandcamp) - nationality: USA

Tracklist: "At My Most Beautiful (R.E.M. cover"

Single release and second consecutive R.E.M. cover from Lotte Kestner made available through her bandcamp-profile following the release of the single "Walk Unfraid" (May 2023).

Again, Kestner covers an R.E.M. favourite [the original] from the album Up (1998) and she does that with appropriate conviction. The song remains but heavily rearranged to fit Kestner's lo-fi production and a simple and serene expression. A prediction regarding her next covers relase is likely to feature a handful of covers of the great Athens-band.

Lotte Kestner "Walk Unfraid" (2023) (single)

Walk Unafraid, single

release date: May 30, 2023

format: digital (1 x File, FLAC)

[single rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,68]

producer: self-produced

label: self-released (bandcamp) - nationality: USA

Tracklist: "Walk Unfraid (R.E.M. cover)"

Single release by Lotte Kestner released via the artist's bandcamp-profile in support of #bravehood ('a community of many supporting children in emergency situations').

The original is taken from the R.E.M. album Up (1998), and the song is one of my personal all-time favourites by the great band from Athens, Georgia. Kestner is famous for making cover versions, and this one is a highly remarkable and original version by being a lo-fi stripped-down song but also a multi-layered track by the way she has made use of several tracks in the mixing of the recording - to some extent in an unusual manner in the case of Kestner covers that are often quite simple arrangements. That alone makes it a most interesting version, as she has made lots of covers using only guitar with vocal, or piano with vocal, but to hear how she maintains a minimalist expression while turning up on the arrangement-button is something new and a most welcome introduction to her soundscape.

Lotte Kestner "Radiohead Covers" (2023)

Radiohead Covers (ep) (compilation)

release date: Apr. 7, 2023

format: digital (4 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,63]

producer: Anna-Lynne Williams [recorded by]

label: self-released - nationality: USA

Tracklist: 1. "All I Need" - 2. "Motion Picture Soundtrack" - 3. "How to Disappear Completely" - 4. "No Surprises"

Four previously released covers have here been compiled for digital download at Kestner's bandcamp profile. Tracks #1 and #2 are both included on Covers 2 (2020), track #3 was previously included on Covers (2015), and track #4 has previously been available on her bandcamp site. Covers are just a big part of Kestner's music, as most of her releases have included covers, and she has released several singles, eps, and full albums exclusively containing cover songs, so seing Kestner covering Radiohead isn't really a rare thing.

Her speciality, when speaking of covers, is her ability to make her very own and highly original ambient folk-versions of not-folk material, and in that regard it's always fascinating how she chose to arrange these songs.

The four Radiohead songs are all major classics by this great innovative British band and in Kestner's hands they shine anew. I do prefer the originals, but Kestner's versions are still intruiging renditions.

Lotte Kestner "Lost Songs" (2022)

Lost Songs

release date: Feb. 11, 2022

format: digital (13 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,70]

producer: Anna-Lynne Williams

label: self-released - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "Open Ocean" (4 / 5) - 2. "Slip" - 3. "Weaving" - 5. "Colors That Did Not Exist" - 8. "You Must Have" - 12. "Fade Away" - 13. "Inside of Love"

Solo album by Lotte Kestner (aka Anna-Lynne Williams), former songwriter and vocalist in Seattle folk-quartet Trespassers William, a band which after years with an ever-changing line-up ended up as the duo-project by the only lasting members: Williams and composer / guitarist Matt Brown. After the split from Brown, Williams had a short stint and made two albums with Ormonde - another duo-project (this time with Robert Gomez) - she then concentrated on her already highly original solo career as Lotte Kestner (debuted with China Mountain in 2008).

Lost Songs appears to be her seventh, eigth or ninth solo album. It's not the easyist task to enlist her solo albums. Some releases are pure cover albums, some are alternate mixes, remixes, and with titles like Solo Versions (2017) and Other Versions (2018) it's rather hard to distinguish what's really new releases in a traditional sense. And Lost Songs follows this pattern by both being a studio album of 13 tracks but also a collection of songs composed over [what I read somewhere is] a ten year period. On previous releases Kestner has made it a bit of her thing to do cover versions, and on this you'll find two songs: "Everything I Wanted" by Billie Eilish and "Inside of Love" by Nada Surf.

Kestner's trademarks are slow to very slow folkish material held in lo-fi productions, typically arranged with Kestner's gentle vocal accompanied by the strumming of a guitar and at times with occasional accompanying piano, backing harmonies and soft percussion. Several passages brings to mind folk traditonalists as Joni Mitchell and / or Emmylou Harris, although Kestner's songs are not exemplified entirely by stunning vocal range or the strengths of vocal performances - instead it dwells on a narrow palette of grey colours and emmotional melancholic sensation. That may not sound impressing as such, but Kestner does what she does without much fuzz and still the end result is quality music.

I enjoy this quite a bit, only, at times I find somewhat narrow with little variation but it's all done with artistic conviction.

[ bandcamp ]

[ HeavyPop (German) 7 / 10 stars ]

Lotte Kestner "Stolen" (2011)

Stolen

release date: Jun. 1, 2011

format: digital (12 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,42]

producer: self-produced

label: self-released - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 2. "Flume" - 5. "Hur jag fick dig att älska mig" - 6. "Fake Empire" - 8. "Let's Go to Bed" - 11. "True Faith"

3rd studio album by Lotte Kestner (aka Anna-Lynne Williams) is often mentioned as her sophomore album to China Mountain (May 2008), but she released China Mountain B-sides in 2009, although, the album is no longer filed on her bandcamp-profile; however, it's been out, and it's now a part of her discography.

Stolen is Kestner's first official covers album, and there's a few. The album is lo-fi, indie folk - and propably recorded by Williams without the use of overdubs and practical editing of tracks. In that regard it's quite coherent, although the original songs stem from very different sources and represent a rather wide stylistic span. You only have to mention some of the artists: Damien Jurado, Bon Iver, Kent, The National, Eels, The Cure, New Order, Interpol. And she even sings in Swedish when covering Kent!

The album nicely 'covers' Kestner's musical universe. It's melancholic and quiet lo-fi folk, where you sense the inspiration from the gloomy side of the post-punk influence but there's something uplifting in Kestner's airy / ethereal vocal.