Anything Glass by Common Holly
'Anything Glass' by Common Holly
Someone capable of, and insistent upon, being quiet and measured can be particularly appealing when the rest of the world seems capable of being nothing else but loud and sloppy. Anything Glass, the third album from Common Holly, is appealing like that.
Brigitte Naggar knows silence as well as she knows quietude: When I Say to You Black Lightning, the Montreal singer and songwriter’s second Common Holly album, came out in 2019. The unhurried pace of Anything Glass might reflect Naggar’s unhurried pace of creation, during which songs and thoughts emerge rather than explode.
Her voice cups that emergence as though it’s a candle flame. In the opening track, “Terrible Hands,” her approach is that of the wallflower inhaling and exhaling meditatively as she steps toward the microphone, her own hands clasped together as she attunes herself to the droplets of piano notes and the cool jazz shuffle of the rhythm section.
Devon Bate, winner of Canadian music trophies like the Polaris Prize and the Juno Award, serves as Naggar’s co-producer and a kind of protector. Alex Rand and Thomas Sauvé-Lafrance complete the small ensemble, which keeps the accompaniment—keyboards, guitars, bass, and drums, plus Bate’s flutes—thoughtfully minimal, with an indie-minded folk-pop style.
In her daily life, Naggar is a counselor for mental health, and something in her music reaches for but does not force equilibrium, whether liltingly observing a shared condition in “It’s True We’ve Been Happier” or glancing downward in the melancholy, tranquil “A Pair of Ragged Claws.”
As Common Holly, Naggar forms a still, unflickering place in which to think and feel. Anything Glass is like a handwritten letter, or an intelligently romantic movie like Jane Austen Wrecked My Life: a reminder that art need not shout or proclaim to make itself heard or to make its point.
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Buy Anything Glass on Amazon here.
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