Tasmin Archer - A Cauldron of Random Notes (2025)

Tasmin Archer's debut Great Expectations showed that a song's final form isn't the whole story and that an artist's best-known work is just a snapshot of wider influences. The Tracy Chapman and Seal comparisons fit, but the album also held '70s and '80s elements that shouldn't have worked together but did.

Over time, her broader picture has come into focus: Bloom expanded on her debut, ON set the perimeter, and A Cauldron of Random Notes shows she's always been who she hinted she was. Opener Vibration of Life blends dubby gospel, surprising chords, and steady humanism, with the rest of the set--Silent Witness, Hysteria, Free Fall, Boy, Milan Girl--reinforcing her love of varied arrangements and careful pacing.

A Cauldron of Random Notes is not only a rewarding album on its own terms, it increases the rewards of her entire catalogue by showing us the picture she's been assembling this whole time. In her 60s, Tasmin Archer has further illuminated what she was up to in her 20s.