This Sunderland producer’s previous work included one EP of power electronics, one of antic club tracks, collabs with Aya and 96 Back as Microplastics, gigging with Kero Kero Bonito and a smattering of other credits. So her staggering, fully formed songwriterly debut was a total bolt from the blue. A swarming orchestral epic with shades of Julia Holter and Phil Elverum, it addressed her grief for her late father in serenely surrealist images – hitting a deer with a car in the middle of the night – and the painfully mundane realism of sitting in hospital corridors together.
The standout “Miss America” combined both to stunning effect, a numbed incantation of everything Walton had seen on the US trip where she learned of her father’s diagnosis, the familiar now remade horribly mythic.
Walton is a beloved figure across various sectors of the alternative music underground. Outside of her own music and soundtrack work, she has been a live drummer for Kero Kero Bonito, collaborates with Sarah Midori Perry on the pair’s Cryalot project, has remixed Metronomy and worked with Iceboy Violet, BABii and more. She recently contributed to London collective caroline’s acclaimed “caroline 2” album.
The first seeds of Walton’s debut album were sowed during touring North America in 2018, where whilst ticking off life-long music goals, Walton’s father was dying of cancer. Grief is a constant presence throughout “Daughters”, and specifically the surreal nature of having to process it amongst a blur of airports, flight connections, hotel rooms and battles for stolen medication with the American healthcare system. Strip malls, drug deals, panic attacks; the artificiality of downtown American city districts dovetailing with reality in its most brutal form. “Miss America” for a day while life is changed forever.
Weaving between real life diary entries, travelogue-style storytelling, imagery that ranges from mechanical to religious and a scattering of fiction (though we are obliged to mention that ‘Shelly’ is based on a true story), “Daughters” climaxes with the staggering run of ‘Saints’, ‘Miss America’ and its title track. Sampling unattended machines harmonising bleeps into the void in a London hospital ward, ‘Saints’ narrates Walton taking her father to and from cancer research trials, “sat, hunched and sick in the concourse as minutes became hours”. And to be very real for a moment, Jen is a friend, and first hearing the ‘Miss America’ demo is up there with the most emotional moments we’ve had in 15 years of running this record label.
Finished in London across the second half of 2024, “Daughters” features musical contributions from some of the closest friends and collaborators that Walton has made in her time as a musician: aya (who also mixed the album), Daniel S. Evans, Joshua Barfood and Nick Granata (all of Shovel Dance), Alex McKenzie (of caroline and Shovel Dance), Aga Ujma and Bob Lockwood.
Local Action is proud to present “Daughters“, the debut album by Jennifer Walton.
The Fat Angel Sings 