Glasser: Ring

Glasser is the recording and stage name of vocalist Cameron Mesirow, a recent Brooklyn transplant by way of Los Angeles. Ring is her debut full-length, an appropriately circular journey that finds Mesirow improving upon the bedroom pop of last year’s appeteasing Apply EP simply by launching herself into every corner and canyon of the album. Even when she isn’t cooing or crowing to often Björk-like effect, her presence and vision can be strongly felt throughout. The album was written and arranged symmetrically, two halves meant to lead, bi-directionally, toward the towering synths of “T,” a monument that unfurls at the halfway mark. On either side of said mark, the lilt of “Plane Temp” and aquatic, tribal jounce of “Tremel” are meant to interact with each other, energetically and lyrically. They do. In addition, every song is outfitted with ambient outros so that each (including the closer, “Clamour,” and its spectral nod to the percussive spell of the opener, “Apply”) may hand off to the next, creating one constantly engaging loop. Those interstitial snippets don’t provide much to hear, but they do help lend Ring its own buzz and breath—each part fashioned to feel as though it’s constantly shifting, revolving, and very much alive. It’s an ambitious, perhaps even hypercompositional debut, one whose strange beauty demands attention.