A Brooklyn artist who has worked with Felix Walworth of Told Slant (who helped provide instrumentation and production on the record), as well as Brooklyn’s up-and-coming Sisters, she is at the center of America’s most tender and poignant music. She even drops a line about open mics on the record. But the record isn’t so much about the music scene in New York or anywhere, but the tenderness of finding a firefly in your bedroom after a bad experience or the feeling of looking at something through fabric.

The clarinet, provided by Adelyn Strei, is a beautiful touch on many of the songs, and hints at the complexity of the compositions, over pretty simple, circular guitar parts and vocals that often sound like Adrienne Lenker, but hit more satisfying highs at times. “You’re so used to hurting / That it doesn’t feel wrong / I’m so used to hurting, too,” she sings on the song of the same name, and the feeling you get from the record is that these songs, like her “composting memories” byline, come after processing life’s difficulties with attention, compassion, and a deeper digging for meaning.

It is a gentle album, though the additional instruments make it a thrilling listen, and you have to wonder how such a tender creature doesn’t get crushed along the way. “So hold me / Like I’m the one / Not just a photograph / Ruined with light.” She tends towards darker brush strokes, perhaps to reflect her storied experience, but begs for a bit of tenderness in her songs, which are never on the nose, but capture life’s poetry in song.

“But assurance / Is a desert of mourning / There’s no glory / There’s no warning,” she sings the album’s title phrase in the song, “Worldfire.” It is music, not so much as an escape, but provides solace, nonetheless. A tender album of beautiful songs, that would make you soft, except for the realism behind her story telling. If you like music that cuts you open and then stitches you back together, you might really like this album of expertly crafted songs and compositions.

Order No Glory by h. pruz HERE