Claire Dickson - The Beholder (2024) [Hi-Res]

On Friday, March 22, 2024, Claire Dickson, the Brooklyn-based vocalist, composer, and producer lauded for her “striking – at times, wordless – lyricism and melody-driven sound chamber within shapeshifting ambiance” (Downbeat) and whose voice “[draws] the listener into a world complex and jostled, where everything seems possible, loaded with…fascination and mystery” (Silence and Sound), will release her highly anticipated sophomore album, The Beholder, via New Amsterdam Records.

On The Beholder Dickson casts herself as the beholder: an archetype she formulated during the songwriting process.

Through the 9 songs on The Beholder Dickson walks the listener through a series of ambient dreamscapes using a collection of samples, found sounds, synths, layered vocals, and sparse percussion to create songs that are constantly evolving. “The songs are mostly through-composed, the form is continuously pushing forward, turning a new page”, says Dickson, “they explore the contrast and coexistence of high drama, drops, big sounds, lush textures, with delicate, close, subtle, sensorial sounds”.

The Beholder was created over the course of about a year (Summer 2021-2022) in Dickson’s studio in Brooklyn and during an artist residency in Toffia, Italy. During that period of creating she cast herself as the beholder, an archetype she formulated during the songwriting process.

“The beholder radiates outward and forward. They observe, they love, they dream. Their sense of self becomes fractured and dreamlike, defined by their surroundings and the person they love. Without reliable pattern or repetition, the beholder feels both free and unencumbered and lost and undefined. Their desire gives them a feeling of expansiveness and freedom, although they also feel trapped by it because a part of their self is dictated by someone else.

The songs and arrangements exemplify this idea. They are mostly through-composed, the form is continuously pushing forward, turning a new page. The topic necessitated that the form sometimes be a series of transitions, rather than a traditional verse-chorus structure. The songwriting shifts between many different aesthetics and moods, making the composite texture one of change. I was interested in the contrast and coexistence of high drama, drops, big sounds, and lush textures, with delicate, close, subtle, sensorial sounds. Many of the instruments on the album are samples I found or recorded myself, and I found myself inserting them into the music not just as instruments but also as sound effects. It felt important for moments to have the tactility that comes from a sample of the rain or a bell or some rocks being jostled together. To me, reality has this quality; moments of sensory blending and cohesion punctuated by the hyperreal. The archetype of the beholder is fascinated by this way of being - unmoored from the trappings of actuality.

I describe this understanding of perception in many of the songs where realness is superimposed by magic. ‘Thrill Of Still’ is about the satisfaction and control that can be derived from beholding without the burden of participation. Beholding is lightness, nearly formlessness, which can be a blissful experience and an unsettling one. I think about ‘My House’ as the haunted house song. In this song, the beholder feels they have gone too far. They are in someone else’s dream, the ideas they’ve chosen to pursue are too vast for them to understand, they have no choice but to fully embrace their loss of self.”