Albums of the Year # 50 Karen Elson - Double Roses

By my calculations it's now fifty days to Christmas Day. So time to start this countdown, so with a posting a day I'll be down to # 1 by the 25th of December. There was plenty I liked this year, so it's much more a matter of eliminating the also rans, (I have 135 albums in all listed on my Spotify playlist), than scraping around to make up the numbers. I don't have a finite list written just yet so it'll just be a matter of choosing one that seems right for its position every day and seeing where we end up. It's not at an attempt at an all inclusive list. There's not much Soul in here for example as I didn't hear that much that really gripped me. Just a list of what took my fancy which this year was mostly but not entirely white people strumming guitars. So we start with one which came out in April.    Here 's what I wrote then.

'A record I've been enjoying all week is Double Roses, the second album from model and singer-songwriter Karen Elson, just out on James Endeacott's ultra-hip 1965 label (in the UK anyhow). It sounds a bit like a 2017 update on that whole seventies Laurel Canyon scene of singer-songwriters, and a particularly confessional one at that. Elson's recent personal tribulations have been well-documented, given her separation, divorce, public squabbles and legal wranglings with Jack White who initially helped her to realise her designs to be a musical artist with her 2010 Gothy debut The Ghost Who Walks.

Double Roses is a much more clearly thought through and interesting record than that one. It's smoothly produced and altogether slick and doesn't make any pretensions on being leftfield, radical or avant gard. It does boast though a number of contributions from contributors with reputations that proceed them,  Laura Marling, Father John Misty and The Black Keys' Pat Carney and the obvious musical comparison here seems Fleetwood Mac rather than The White Stripes.
  

This was clearly an album made in the sun. It's dappled! Elson lives in Nashville and recorded the record in LA. References to being adrift on the ocean abound, from the sleeve of the album itself, its promo videos,numerous lyrical references on several songs, and the general overall feel of the record itself. Perhaps she overdoes it but it's all clearly sincerely meant. There's little doubt that many of the lyrics, (if not the whole thing) are born from Elson's messy break up with White, (restraining orders, and counter-claims were made though apparently they've now reached an understanding and  are on friendly terms). Her words are refreshing unadorned and clear, it's a stark and loving record, (one that hints ultimately at resolution) and something I'd heartily recommend for those moments when you'd rather listen to Rumours or Tusk than Nevermind!'