This morning, we are delighted to welcome Katy Davidson from Dear Nora to MailTape :) They join us just after the announcement of their USA tour and the release of their human futures album. Dear Nora’s discography crosses into folk, punk, ambient, and experimental textures.

human futures arrives 4 years after their 2018 album, Skulls Example. The record is rich with descriptions of nature and tenderness, but also of our place in deep time. Navigating topics from the technosphere to climate to the mist of memories, Dear Nora’s standout lyricism is meshed with creative rhythmic and melodic backdrops, swaying from futuristic synthwork to earthy acoustics.

Dear Nora’s selection

Mecca Normal - I Walk Alone

Dear Nora: ” This song features a truly unparalleled vocal performance from Jean Smith and potently restrained guitar performance from David Lester. The minimalism makes it impossible to look away. The lyrics explore some of my absolute favorite things – travel/movement and cosmic connection. The performance is punk, so beautiful, and very deep. I wish I recorded this. “

Henry Mancini - Two for the Road

Dear Nora: ” My first introduction to this song was that slow motion scene in the movie Crystal Fairy and the Magical Cactus where the boys are tripping on mescaline and tackling each other in the waves, then Michael Cera sees Gaby Hoffman sitting alone on the rocks before she walks away, and you see him cycle through so many emotions in a short amount of time before he runs back into the waves with the boys. I don’t think I’ll ever be unable to mentally disconnect that scene from this song, and I don’t want to. The scene exposes the darkness beneath the romantic illusion the song projects. Aside from that, it has a classic, undeniably gorgeous Mancini melody, and instrumentation that makes one feel like they’re at their most gay. “

Najat Al Saghira - Ana Bashaa El Bahr

Dear Nora: ” This song reaches down to the core of the Earth. It’s utterly transfixing. “

MailTape’s selection

Dear Nora - sinaloan restaurant

Sarah: ” One of my favorite tracks on the human futures record (a difficult task to separate just one, as it feels embedded as one with the songs surrounding it — the spirals of human futures lends to this track’s percussives, and the sudden drop at sinaloan restaurant’s end is lifted by fruitful streams’ bright swaying rhythm; together they create a special ambient interaction). The lyrics, My dad died many times years ago // Now on the table staring at the light // I move from grief to joy paints such an immediate, wrenching emotional picture. The track hums through the heaviness of nostalgia, memory, change, and awareness. These vocals are so tender, they carry us, gently, through these waves of living. “

Renata Zeiguer - Sunset Boulevard

Sarah: ” At once smooth and harrowing, Renata Zeiguer’s vocals mesmerize in this track off of her 2022 album, Picnic in the Dark. The haunting percussives later on are striking, shaking us in and out of the track’s flow. “

Darryl Rahn - Angels Bowling

Sarah: ” Listening to this one a lot on walks around Dublin. It rains so often here, you forget the sky can be blue too :) The slide guitar and the light strumming have such a grounding mood to them, drawing out an easy moving Sunday. “

Allegra Krieger - Making Sense Of

Sarah: ” Introduced to this track by Katy :) Love the texture of the synth echoes running through, giving its own ethereal tint. “

That’s all for this morning! Thank you for joining us on your Sunday. Our love to Dear Nora for their energizing selection, and to Patricia for this episode’s gorgeous illustration based on a picture by Chris Lael Larson. Until next Sunday :)