Album Review: Brightly – One For Sorrow, Two For Joy
2 min read
Take a step back and soak in the unlimited abundance of feeling and internal musical expression that Charlie Gleason AKA Brightly brings to the table with his third album – One For Sorrow, Two For Joy. Side one is for sorrow, and side two is for joy. A stack of ideas that are equally hypnotic as they are personal – Brightly encloses everything there is about being natural and refreshingly outspoken through his original music. Raw and honest lyricism peppers over blunt, syncopated drum pads and unrestrictive synth communication, as his folk-rooted, authentic singing style holds onto the vibrancy evident in the atmospheric and spatial wealth inhabited on the record.
Hazy, inventive tones formulate the mood on the title track, One For Sorrow, Two For Joy (Beginnings and Endings), as Gleason’s production propels a deep electronica influence, closely wielding an energy reminiscent in work by Autechre or Boards Of Canada. Unexpected but well received is the guitar solo unveiled on the track Lost, as a detached distortion unites the subtleties and liberal spread of instrumentation present in the song. A full scope of the dreamy space in Gleason’s production is especially felt in the album’s last track, Plans (Epilogue), as dubby, echoed drums and a panning arpeggio transpose under the plush sensibilities heard in his carefree vocal contributions.
Accomplished with a warm, kinetic fusion is Gleason’s detailed impulse to make selectively great music that is targeted at touching the soul or moving the body. Brightly, the self-confessed ‘Computer Science Dropout’, makes a stance with a record comprised of sad and joyous dance music fixed with a bounty of melancholic and blue underpinnings. Fashioned with solicitous execution, and mindful perceptiveness, One For Sorrow, Two For Joy is a harmonious web of intrinsic beauty, spanning across a field of delightful sound.
