Love Aggregates [CD]

For any other artist, an album like Asher White's 'Love Aggregates' might come out of a conscious push to treat no idea as off-limits, to make something bold and new. Jubilant art-funk about cocaine addiction-absolutely. Swooning orchestral pop about Jerry Garcia-why not? Rippling electronic noise, jazzy brushed drums, an elderly motorcyclist with dementia, a profoundly emotional bass solo-put them all in one song. There are threadbare folk tunes, glammed-up power-pop bangers, ""Sir Duke"" horn charts, Morton Feldman string arrangements, layers of guitar feedback like violins made of liquid chrome. Yes, for another artist, 'Love Aggregates' might be the most adventurous album in their catalog. For Asher White, it's what passes for settling down. White is 25 years old and has been making records-writing, recording, producing, and playing almost everything herself-for over a decade. She'd released two dozen of them on Bandcamp before catching the indie-rock industry's attention with 2024's 'Home Constellation Study' and last year's '8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living.' The latter album, her first for Joyful Noise, zooms from strummy guitar songs to bruising drum'n'bass breakdowns to honest-to-god doom metal riffs. It's dizzy eclecticism and formidable craft landed her on 'Rolling Stone's Future 25 list' with the likes of xaviersobased and Oklou, along with a slew of other accolades. That came as something of a surprise to White, who didn't craft the chaotic '8 Tips' with a breakthrough in mind. 'Love Aggregates' feels like a chance, for one of the most thrilling musical talents of her generation, at a more deliberate introduction. She wrote and recorded her new album while her previous one was gathering momentum, tinkering in the DIY recording studio where she always works, acutely conscious now that people would be listening to whatever she came up with. At around the same time, her years-long romantic relationship ended in a flurry of betrayal and addiction, her first experience of devastating heartbreak. She was determined to present her new audience with an album that felt true to the whole of her artistry as she understood it so far, but also consumed with feelings of a sort that she had no previous cause to explore in her work. ""It was the first time that I was like, Oh, someone is going to be hearing these songs,"" she says. ""And also the first time that I was, like, actually upset while writing them.""