ALBUM REVIEW: Mary Lattimore – Silver Ladders

Ghostly International

Released: 09.10.20

With previous collaborators including everyone from Sharon Van Etten and Julianna Barwick to Kurt Vile and Thurston Moore, L.A. harpist Mary Lattimore‘s new album is the product of a nine-day decamp to Slowdive guitarist Neil Halstead’s studio in Cornwall.

Underpinned with subtle low-end synths and splashes of Halstead’s guitar, Silver Ladders’ unfolding sonic collage is utterly captivating – an exploration in form and structure that’s wholly unlike Joanna Newsom, to whom her instrument of choice draws inevitable comparisons. Furthermore, it’s a record whose lush palette is only accentuated the deeper you delve; its congruous marriage of sonorous drone and fragile beauty sharpening the senses to ever more mesmeric effect. Don’t sleep on this magical record – however sedatory its effects may be!