Echo Chambers Inside A Neighborhood

Clairo “Amoeba”

Clairo’s voice usually sounds small and fragile, an impression exacerbated by production moves that wash her out in reverb or multitrack her vocals so it’s like musical baklava, lots of thin layers not quite adding up to anything you could call dense or firm. The smallness feels like a key part of what’s being expressed in any given song – it’s vulnerability, it’s passivity, it’s a sense of helplessness. “Amoeba” is a bit of an outlier in her small discography in that there’s a little more density and confidence in her vocal than usual as well as more groove and sway to the arrangement. The vibe feels a bit Todd Rundgren to me, the majestic but cozy melancholy of a full-time introvert. The lyrics sketch out some lovely specific images of suburban malaise but there’s some ambiguity at the core of it, as it’s hard to tell whether she’s addressing someone else or singing in the second person. “Aren’t you glad you reside in a hell and in disguise?” definitely stings more if it’s self-directed, and I’m inclined to think that’s the case here.

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