Laura Reznek

On Laura Reznek's raw and exacting new album, The Sewing Room, the Canada-born/UK-based singer-songwriter takes an unflinching look at the ways grief and joy function not as binary opposites but as companion states. Portalling listeners through deeply personal storytelling paired with an organic, DIY aesthetic, Laura's newest album is a feat of honesty and self-possession. Sharpening the blade of melancholy into something more active, more useful, Laura casts back through the familial characters of her life with a tenderness afforded by time. "I cut my teeth in those dark alleyways/Oh how could I have been so easily swayed?" she sings with the advantage of retrospect. The Sewing Room asks: What does it mean to have put your trust in the wrong places? What does it mean to pull out the sutures of what you've learned and recreate your own understanding of the world? Influences such as Nick Drake and Judee Sill ring strong as Laura's latest accomplishes what few can: it stares loss in the face without being consumed by it. This album reminds us that we are vast enough to feel everything in unison — that there is no Before or After when it comes to grief, because love evades linearity. That our strength comes not through overcoming hurt but by staying curious to the ways we inevitably affect each other.