Margaret Glaspy spent four years introducing the world to her bluesy debut record, Emotions and Math, on tour before returning to her home in Brooklyn to ideate a proper follow-up. The challenge she set for herself was to recreate the soulful feel of her first LP while shifting to a more electronics-based sound, evident immediately from Devotion’s opening track and lead single, “Killing What Keeps Us Alive.”
But beyond the Laurie Anderson–recalling vocoder of that track, much of Devotions’ contents effectively manage this balance between the indie troubadour Glaspy’s established herself as and MG 2.0: an adept experimenter in the fields of MIDI and Ableton. Songs like the title track blend analog piano with programmed handclaps, seamlessly presenting an artist capable of growth while maintaining a unique aesthetic.
To get a better idea of this aesthetic, we asked Margaret to throw together a list of songs that she pulls emotional and musical influences from. “It was cathartic to make a playlist that is filled with soul and meaning lyrically, musically, aesthetically, and otherwise,” she says. “Some things are old, some things are new, some things make me laugh, and some things make me cry; all of the music here speaks to my heart and soul.”
Stream the playlist below—and order your copy of Devotion, out today via ATO Records, here.
