Dora Jar
No Way To Relax When You Are On Fire


5.0
classic

Review

by owl beanie EMERITUS
September 17th, 2024 | 10 replies


Release Date: 09/13/2024 | Tracklist

Review Summary: for when you accidentally brought up politics at the dinner table

dora jar’s technicolour pop landscapes express the vital distinction between ‘careless’ and ‘carefree’ by being so obviously the latter that any negative criticism i could level at it would wash off its surface like water off a duck’s back. the cheek it turns to our collective sadness blushes a bright pink but in its more subtle movements, when it intentionally acknowledges that it does not take place in a vacuum (because no art can), its inherent silliness reads as more welcoming and empathetic than capricious and mean-spirited. it will not tell you of a cure to your problem; it will listen to your complaints and ask you if you want to hear a joke in response. the kid-spirit of dora jar is NWTRWYAOF’s lifeblood: the reason for its existence and its means of survival – and yes, NWTR… has been passed down to us, inherited by us, and in its proximity a fortunate contingent of us listeners will accidentally inhale the little airborne particles of childlike awe radiating off its surface. please for your own good: look at it, look at it in its beaming, glint-toothed face.

because dora jar loves you. she does not know you, but the idea of you, the idea that an ancient wind lives inside of you, is a constant source of deep fascination for her. there are songs where she studies her object so intently she sees their mind as a clock, dissolving into the infinite backdrop, making them a character built with odd proportions. She fantasizes to an absurd degree, and that’s where the crux of the album finds itself. NWTRWYAOF is the real and the imaginary welded together – fused so completely, the molten run off so blotchy and homogenous, that it’s impossible to tell where parts of one plane end and the next begin.

some of these numbers are the stickiest folk songs you’ve ever heard, taking a single idea to its logical conclusion with quiet confidence; others use brute force to jam electronic/glitch into a pop-shaped hole. they somehow succeed. the album steps up to the soil of 2021’s ‘digital meadow’ and excavates deeper, further down, unveiling a frankly baffling mass of raw materials to play with. the swashbuckling cannonball takes maritime pastiche and shrouds it in the grey modernity of twenty-first century new york. its alchemy only magnifies the scope of the new reality it has just invented.

dora’s penchant for imagery has a tactile quality to it. there’s a poignant line in the title track where she refers to her subject as a “ketamine angel” and though i love me a labyrinthine metaphor there is something so incredibly effective about the simple image this conjures. there is so much stirring in the middle of this line and its delivery: a love, a pity, a morbid curiosity, that seems to compress everything about this record into a morsel – allowing us to touch it, hold it, decipher it with the same attention that dora herself does to her curios. for how fantastical this record is, it’s wondrously easy to grasp and just as rewarding to pore over.

the fact this record is so vivid in its imagery is the only reason why dora is able to connect us emotionally to a reality that hitches itself to high fantasy systems and surreal, impossible daily events. the starkness of the words and the folksy musical skeletons teach us what to expect, so that every choice which subverts our expectations leaves us with a big red target on our furiously beating hearts. dora knows to follow up with a bullseye every single time. devil eye’s repeated vocal hook casts a completely different shadow the moment the modulations morph dora’s voice – her will-o’-the-wisp voice – into something robotic. she goes immediately from sincere and gentle to cold and detached – like you and her have switched places. suddenly she’s looking over you, getting caught in her song, studying you scientifically.

this is why it is gilded with the nostalgia of a child playing with their toy houses. dora invents a new reality to play and frolic in. she burns its edges a little bit with the potential for heartbreak, betrayal, death of autonomy, but those challenges give these dreamlike landscapes an access point which allows us to experience them alongside her. it is this album’s lot that it humanizes its author by mythologizing the mundane. each person becomes a collapsing supernova, each death a black hole, each silence tearing itself open with a million potential present tenses. during the course of this album, you look around, and nothing in the immediate area is quite where it usually is. don’t panic; that is by design.



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user ratings (16)
3.8
excellent


Comments:Add a Comment 
Slex
September 17th 2024


17217 Comments


Babe wake up new verdant review just dropped

artificialbox
Contributing Reviewer
September 17th 2024


2461 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

love this review so much. will have to check the album.

artificialbox
Contributing Reviewer
September 18th 2024


2461 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

alright i'm half way thru this and it's phenomenal. wow.

verdant
Emeritus
September 18th 2024


2505 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0

it's very very good. devil eye ironically made me see god i think

Sunnyvale
Staff Reviewer
September 18th 2024


6136 Comments

Album Rating: 4.2

Delightful read - and this is album is very good, nice find! Slapping a 4 on it for now, but could see my rating moving up with more listens.

durkl
September 18th 2024


41 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

This is real nice! An interesting sound. Familiar but original

neekafat
Staff Reviewer
September 20th 2024


26633 Comments


Doja Rawr

artificialbox
Contributing Reviewer
September 21st 2024


2461 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

starting from Ragdoll onward this album just hits the gas and does not let up. Every song somehow keeps reinventing the palette and throwing new surprises in my face, it's crazy!!

Sunnyvale
Staff Reviewer
September 22nd 2024


6136 Comments

Album Rating: 4.2

Just bumped my rating up a few points - this is super good and will probably make my top 10 for the year.

fogza
Contributing Reviewer
September 23rd 2024


10062 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

This is really good



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