Mary Lattimore
Goodbye, Hotel Arkada
GHOSTLY INTERNATIONAL
Evermore increasingly since the release of 2018’s Hundreds of Days, experimental harpist, composer, and vocalist Mary Lattimore has forged forward with a subtle yet bold musical brand mixing woozy etherealism with complexly energized improvisations (guided by her choice of collaborators—recent among them guitarist Paul Sukeena) while maintaining focused songcraft. In short, Lattimore knows how to have a good time with some weird bits and oddball friends, all while keeping things clearcut and concise.
What Goodbye, Hotel Arkada does differently than, say, her 2020 masterwork Silver Ladders is find uneasy solace in the shoegaze sound and goth gauziness of the late ’80s. No, you won’t mistake the shimmering drone of closer “Yesterday’s Parties” or its lovelier cousin, opener “And Then He Wrapped His Wings Around Me,” with My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless—but there are warped and tilted reference points to their spidery wall of sound.
The biggest difference between MBV and Lattimore’s gathering of old friends (Heron Oblivion’s Meg Baird) and newer collaborators (Lol Tolhurst of The Cure, New Zealand composer Roy Montgomery, shoegaze avatar Rachel Goswell of Slowdive) is that the harpist’s melodies are open-faced and emotional, and her arrangements on tracks such as “Horses, Glossy on the Hill” are inviting and warm. Lattimore’s wall of sound is highly penetrable, as its lyrics play tricks with the notion of things disappeared or aged out as they’re seen on the sadly sparkling likes of “Arrivederci.”
