Ring
The debut from L.A.’s Glasser (born Cameron Mesirow) begins with a magic trick. The opening “Apply” kicks off with a lumbering beat that’s weighed down further by a groaning synth — but then the vocals hit, and against all laws of physics, the song takes flight. Glasser has a Björkian gift for pairing airy melodies and occasional gale-force belting with polyrhythmic, electronics-dense beats. On “Ring,” her voice is multitracked into lush harmonies, and her abstract lyrics (“The clouds were dust, raining on us/There was a phantom me in a bed of love,” she repeats on “Home”) often carry a surprising emotional wallop. The album is over in just 38 minutes, but it feels like some long, gorgeous dream.