By Plenty can be gleaned from the way Hannah Jocelyn titles things; her artist project is called The Answers In Between, an implied search for meaning that feels infinite, and her latest EP is called CLOSE CALLS, an intentionally evocative phrasing that comes as a direct result from that search. In her own words, “There’s a lot of aching for connection on here, but it’s just as often rooted in projection as it is a genuine desire to know (another) person.”
The seven songs on CLOSE CALLS pick up where the project’s debut EP, SELF-TALK, left off, continuing to explore her experiences as an autistic trans woman, but with a brighter, more optimistic tone both musically and lyrically. The song structures and production often build with a studied pop sense, trying to find the light between where confessional singer-songwriter fare successfully goes big and simplistic. The EP’s two standouts, “Limbal Ring” and “I’m New Here,” both strike a musical balance between personal and universal that is uniquely rewarding—a collage of electronic beats, gated drums, and distant piano often celebratorily explode into big, eccentric choruses. Fittingly there are traces of artists like MUNA, Sylvan Esso, Kishi Bashi, and the Japanese House across much of the EP, each influences with a keen understanding of that exact fusion point.
In breaking down the album, Jocelyn approaches things somewhere between her roles as both a well-known writer and a freelance audio engineer—the aforementioned closer “I’m New Here” is described as “if Carly Rae Jepsen wrote TRANSGENDER DYSPHORIA BLUES while getting really into ‘Bros’ by Wolf Alice,” and the quietly melting lo-fi, singer-songwriter cut “Where Do You Go?” is framed as “when the Billy Joel song hits differently coming over the PA in a near-empty suburban mall.” The way Jocelyn thinks about sound alone makes her an artist to watch, but the fact that every lyric feels so specific and personal to the close calls of her own life only raises the musical bar.
You can check out an early preview of the EP below, and be sure to support The Answers In Between over on Bandcamp!
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