The Tunnel and the Clearing

Cécile Schott is not named Colleen but her long-running project is. For The Tunnel and the Clearing, Schott used an organ, an old drum machine, a Roland Space Echo and nothing else, beyond her voice. The recording happened after a long illness and a breakup, in the middle of the pandemic, and those events all form a sort of invisible frame for the record. This has always felt like a private, small project that seeks to move from person to person, rather than to a large all at once, and this album encapsulates that. The small gestures build up and elapse, a bit like Schott is replaying songs from movies she loves, without any notes, just from memory. Delicate but steely.