Joanne Robertson: Blurrr [Album Review]

Joanne Robertson
Blurrr
AD 93 [2025]

“Blurrr turns space and silence into a spell you’ll want to live inside.”

Album Overview: Joanne Robertson is a British musician and painter whose creative life flows effortlessly between visual art and sound. Her recordings often take shape alongside her painting sessions, and she approaches both mediums with the same curiosity and instinct for discovery. Over the years she’s collaborated with Dean Blunt (Backstage Raver, Black Metal), Elias Rønnenfelt (Heavy Glory), and Sidsel Meineche Hansen (Alien Baby), building a reputation for intimate, cross-disciplinary work.

Blurrr—Robertson’s sixth solo release—might be her most striking statement yet. Crafted while balancing painting and parenthood, the album plays like a quiet but charged document of private exploration. Her guitar and voice create an atmosphere that feels both intimate and boundless, while Oliver Coates’ cello deepens the sense of quiet intensity. Across its 45-minute span, Blurrr captures an inner journey that seems to exist outside time and place.

Musical Style: The album blends dreamlike indie folk with hushed avant-garde textures and subtle improvisation. Robertson’s singing often blurs into tonal layers, turning language into melodic shading. Her open-tuned guitar provides a raw framework that contrasts beautifully with Coates’ sweeping cello lines, creating music that feels fragile yet weighty without ever leaning on heavy production.

Evolution of Sound: Robertson’s earliest work sometimes wandered freely and unstructured, but Blurrr reveals a sharper focus without losing its exploratory heart. The interplay between guitar, voice, and cello gives her sound a new dimension, refining her improvisational approach and showing a growing confidence in letting silence and space carry emotional weight.

Artists with Similar Fire: If you’re drawn to Grouper’s solitary soundscapes or the spectral side of the Cocteau Twins, you’ll feel right at home. Fans of Jessica Pratt’s free-flowing folk or the intimate intensity of early Liz Phair and Liz Harris will also catch the spark.

Pivotal Tracks: “Always Were” pairs a gentle guitar motif with Coates’ enveloping cello for an otherworldly hush. “Peaceful” builds to an emotional high point late in the track, quietly revealing the album’s power. “Gown” stretches Robertson’s melodic range, balancing yearning vocals with textured guitar work. And “Doubt” hits hard—her distant, haunting vocal delivery and polite guitar strums, shadowed by cello, feel like she’s singing from another room straight into your chest. Together these songs form the heart of Blurrr’s subtle drama.

Lyrical Strength: Robertson’s lyrics remain deliberately elusive, offering fragments of meaning that invite you to fill in the gaps. Her words hover between clarity and abstraction, carrying emotional resonance even when their literal sense slips away. It’s less about storytelling and more about conjuring moods and half-remembered experiences.

Final Groove: Blurrr is the sound of an artist completely in her element—both painter and musician, shaping space and silence into something quietly magnetic. It’s her best album to date, as it rewards deep listening, each spin revealing fresh shadows and light. Wherever Robertson’s muse wanders next, it’s bound to be just as quietly spellbinding.

JOANNE ROBERTSON LINKS
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