Whether as UNTER NULL or STRAY, American artist Erica Dunham always stays faithful to the "quality over quantity" motto. She always takes a great deal of pride, attention, care and patience in her work, never leaving any detail incomplete. And so, four years after the release of the debut album "Abuse By Proxy", it's time for STRAY to let it all go... "Letting Go" is a lot darker in content, confirming to us that this was neither meant to be a 'light' project, nor was it meant to be 'happy' just because Erica's main band UNTER NULL is actually quite angry and pissed off. STRAY kind of reflects the feelings of despair and sadness that are experienced when that anger wears off.
This album is actually quite a departure from any of her previous works, it's a lot more polished and full of layered and lush-sounding tracks. Emotional piano tunes echo with melodic electronic sequences and get accelerated by pulsing beats and vibrating bass lines led by Erica's poignant, half-sung, half-spoken vocals. The material is melancholy, bittersweet, and a lot of yearning, needing, wanting, and desiring is involved. It's about feeling disconnected from the rest of the world, from society, from your peers, from your friends, from your loved ones and your family. A track like "Out of Place" kind of sums up that feeling quite well in so many words. Other tracks, such as "No Vacancy" and "Let Me Go", are sincere with the idea of not understanding peoples' actions and words, and feeling frustrated without necessary closure. Also notable are the exciting remake of UNTER NULL's "Failure Epiphany" and an open reinterpretation of THE FLASHBULB's "Passage D"...
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