Artist:     Globelamp

Album:     The Orange Glow

Label:     Wichita Recordings

Release Date:     06/10/2016

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Spare and haunting for most of its strange, insular journey, the mist-shrouded medieval folk and ominous psychedelia within its bare walls swelling with emotion as it confidently strides towards its conclusion, The Orange Glow is Elizabeth Le Fey’s revenge.

In taking her leave from the psych-pop carnival that is Foxygen, ugly allegations were lobbed from both camps, and it seems from song titles such as “Controversial/Confrontational” and “The Negative” that she still harbors some bitterness over the whole rigmarole. Globelamp is her salvation, an intimate solo project that employs unconventional melodies and peculiar, pained lyrics that captivate. Think of her as Joanna Newsom’s weirder sister.

Wintry at first, The Orange Glow sees Globelamp wrapping a blanket of diverse, threadbare instrumentation around spectral vocals capable of turning fierce and bold in an instant. Dreamy and detached, “Washington Moon” is an unsettling ethereal presence, whereas the acoustic guitar and oaken strings of “Moon Proof” create an atmosphere of pressing isolation and a witchy “Controversial/Confrontational” becomes an asylum of mad background sounds and dark hallucinations.

The autumnal “Artist/Traveler” indicates a change in seasons, culminating with a vernal “Faerie Queen” set against a backdrop of nature sounds. “Piece of the Pie” is a wilderness of noisy guitars and raw anger, its potent, unruly distortion disturbing any sort of peace The Orange Glow has attempted to cultivate. And while the lush, more defined arrangements of “Master of the Lonely” and “Invisible Prisms” bring Le Fey out her LSD-fueled reverie, it’s the sumptuous piano of “San Francisco” that restores a sense of calm. Orange truly is the new black.

– Peter Lindblad