Mary Lattimore – Silver Ladders

In 2019 I saw Mary Lattimore perform with William Tyler in the Janskerk in Utrecht at the Le Guess Who? festival. Afterwards I read an interview from The Daily Indie¹ where William Tyler mentions that their performance would be mostly an improvisation. I was hypnotized by their act in the Janskerk, it was so pure and beautiful. I don’t think that many musicians are able to improvize such purity.

Obviously I was pretty excited when I heard about a new release from Mary Lattimore. She recorded this album over nine days at Neil Halstead’s studio stationed on an old airfield². Neil Halstead plays as guitarist in Slowdive, and I had this Aha! moment when I read that they teamed up for this album. The guitar that enters halfway Sometimes He’s In My Dreams really reminded me of the guitar licks in Slowdive – No Longer Making Time, one of my most favourite tracks of this band. Mary comments on the process of making Sometimes He’s In My Dreams:

It’s a song borne from a long improvisation – it was a section we both liked out of a longer piece. After I finished playing, Neil shaped it and looped part of it and then added his dreamy guitar line. What started out as simple meandering solo harp with a ricocheting delay got a little deeper and more fully formed with Neil’s help. It’s probably my favorite part of the record because it’s nothing I would’ve thought to do, having made a lot of music on my own on the past. Plus, that guitar!³

The two were introduced by a mutual friend at a festival, and although Halstead had never recorded a harp, Lattimore asked him to produce her next album, which she ended up recording at his studio⁴. The resulting album is beautiful.

Tracks

Pine Trees 03:20
Silver Ladders 03:45
Til A Mermaid Drags You Under 10:26
Sometimes He’s In My Dreams 03:46
Chop on the Climbout 05:57
Don’t Look 08:03
Thirty Tulips 04:58