Sharon Van Etten - Tramp (2012) + Tramp Demos (2012)

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Sharon Van Etten - Tramp (2012) + Tramp Demos (2012)

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Although she was born and raised in suburban New Jersey, Sharon Van Etten's folk music evokes the open landscapes and lonely expanses of Middle America. A dedicated choir student during her childhood, she began writing songs on her guitar as a high-school student and, upon moving to New York, started playing them in concert. Van Etten signed with the Chicago-based indie label Drag City and issued her intimate, official debut, Because I Was in Love, in spring 2009, followed by the lush, more band-oriented Epic in 2010. Van Etten signed to Jagjaguwar in late 2010 and began working with the National's Aaron Dessner as producer for her third album, Tramp; it was released in early 2012.

Andrew Leahey, Allmusic.com

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Sharon Van Etten - Tramp (2012) + Tramp Demos (2012)

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Sharon Van Etten - Tramp (2012) + Tramp Demos (2012)

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Sharon Van Etten - Tramp (2012) + Tramp Demos (2012)

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When Sharon Van Etten issued the ironically titled seven-song Epic in 2009, it stood in stark contrast to her 2007 debut, Because I Was in Love. On the latter record, she employed a full-on rock band, her songwriting gained a more defined precision, and her singing voice – even at its most vulnerable – seemed to speak with a confidence that didn't seem to need any frame of reference other than its own. Tramp is titled for the period of post-relationship uncertainty and the period of homelessness Van Etten experienced during its 14-month recording process. Produced by the National's Aaron Dessner, who puts the songwriter's fine singing voice front and center, it features guest appearances by Zach Condon, Julianna Barwick, and more. "Warsaw," with its jagged electric guitars, bass, halting keyboards, and primitive, tom-tom heavy drums, is a shambling illustration of what's to be found here. Van Etten's protagonist is still vulnerable, but she wills herself toward a horizon past it. Likewise, the set's first single "Serpents," with its rumbling guitars and cracking snares, frankly discusses being physically and emotionally abused, but it comes from the other side, her protagonist is out of the situation, refusing to be a victim. Jenn Wassner's backing vocals in every line transform this into an anthem of survival. Not everything here falls down the rock & roll rabbit hole, however. Acoustically driven ballads such as "Kevin's," "All I Can," and "Leonard" highlight her subject's character defects and vulnerabilities as well as those of her significant other's. Van Etten's lyrics accuse as much as they confess and empathize. More often than not, her subject is the one who leaves, rather than the one left; the reasons are myriad: betrayal, co-dependency, a willingness toward an emotional freedom that allows love itself to dictate what it expects. There is great beauty on Tramp, especially in its last third; from the jaunty, acoustic stroll of "We Are Fine" to the multi-textured, nearly psych-pop of "I'm Wrong," to the airy, drifting closer "Joke or a Lie." For all this, Van Etten skirts the edges of giving us a great album without actually delivering one. Perhaps it's the exhaustive, confessional nature of its songs, its reliance on three basic melodic ideas, or even its length. Whatever the reason(s), Tramp doesn't quite fulfill its considerable promise. But this isn't a criticism; Van Etten is still a young, developing songwriter who gets more sophisticated with each album. As such, Tramp offers plenty for listeners to enjoy as she goes.

Review by Thom Jurek, Allmusic.com

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Sharon Van Etten - Tramp (2012) + Tramp Demos (2012)

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Sharon Van Etten - Tramp (2012) + Tramp Demos (2012)

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The newly released CD of demos that became Sharon Van Etten's third record, the markedly more aggressive, emboldened Tramp, underestimates itself in a fashion that suits its modest creator. With the exception of one song that didn't make the original tacked onto the end, the tracklist runs in the same order, as if comparing embryonic renditions to their final form in their intended order could be the only point of letting people hear your rough song sketches.

Demos is the bonus half of a reissue of Tramp, though you can buy it separately. Tramp was likely given the deluxe treatment so soon after its initital release in order to sustain the new-found popularity Van Etten's seen this year: The Brooklyn-based singer performed on late-night shows in Britain and America, and this week, played her biggest ever U.K. gig (2,000 capacity) and got announced as the main support for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' 2013 U.S. tour. All timeliness aside, though, Demos reveals the most when compared to an album that's nearly four years old.

One of the nicest impromptu presents anyone ever gave to me was a CDR of Sharon Van Etten's home recordings, bought at an early British gig. The unmarked, home-burned CD came inside a piece of folded brown parcel paper, held together with black tape, decorated with a square of colorful wrapping. Inside it is another brown sheet covered in splodgy typewriter text: two sides of blocks of lyrics without punctuation or paragraphing, followed by a handwritten note apologizing for the noise on the recordings, a request for feedback, and an old email address. Most of the songs are on Van Etten's debut album proper, the acoustic Because I Was in Love, where they weren't exactly beefed up, but at least there were no trains rumbling past the studio window to intrude on proceedings.

Home Recordings was done in Sharon's then-basement, and her voice is often so quiet that even the atmosphere picked up by the microphone overpowers her. These recordings were made at a time when Van Etten's confidence was low, when she didn't have as many champions– TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone initially encouraged her to play shows after she'd moved back to the north-east after escaping her ex-boyfriend– when she was probably able to personally express her gratitude and hand change over to every person that bought their handmade copy of the CD at those early shows. A different kind of human interaction made Tramp– a large ensemble affair produced by the National's Aaron Dessner, starring members of his band, and the Walkmen, Beirut, Wye Oak, the Antlers among others– but the sense of solitude is just as important to Demos.

Tramp was named as a nod to Van Etten's homelessness during the making of her third album, and Demos' liner notes– in that same blobby typewriter font– draw a map from the backstage area at a Warsaw show to a Bushwick basement, friends' places in Fort Greene, her parents' house in New Jersey, Tokyo, producer Aaron Dessner's Brooklyn studio, and her bedroom. The carefully produced package features a droopy self-portrait on the front, a half-homage to those of Leonard Cohen, perhaps. ("Leonard" on Tramp was named for his influence; the cover of that record had Van Etten emulating John Cale's close-up portrait from Fear.) A note from Van Etten inside the Demos package was written from the first solo holiday she ever took, to Cancun in summer 2011 while recording Tramp, and ruminations on the comfort of aloneness (rather than loneliness) pepper the diary excerpts within the liner notes, where she also explains each song's origin. Some are as old as the music on Home Recordings, but only saw life on Tramp due to their author's hesitation to reveal a certain side of herself until that point.

She calls "Serpents" "really aggressive," and the lyrics here differ from the album in that it's Van Etten (or her character) who has thrown a bowl at someone at the start, and it ends with her raggedly challenging a knife with the threat, "Well, I've got a gun"– unlikely, of course, but an unfettered expression of frustration, vengeance, and self-protection against emotional abuse. Van Etten originally worried that "In Line", one of Tramp's most affecting songs, was too much of a "dirge," but Dessner encouraged her to give it a go. The demo is one of the lesser formed songs here, where she beats at an acoustic's sloppy strings while feeling around the vocal melody; "the world was shitty then" is one of the only audible phrases.

These demos appear in various states of finish, with Van Etten often either feeling out the space where words will eventually go, or extemporizing with a total lack of self-consciousness, her streams of thought sometimes revealing more than the polished Tramp eventually would. You sometimes read bands talking in interviews about how even when they're playing the same songs at gigs each night, doing so takes them back to the exact point where they first wrote them: bullshit. "Joke or a Lie" is shorter than its Tramp equivalent, but there's a gulf between every lingered-over line; her liner notes reveal that this song was written after "a lover gave up" on her, recorded while "chain smoking in my bedroom and letting the smoke rise between strums." She sings at full volume, a small reclamation of power in the face of desertion.

Home Recordings was intended as an invitation– the show itself– whereas Demos is the curtain reveal, dipping its toes into uglier palettes, marked by the gloom and clank of recording in confined spaces on primitive equipment. Stripping Tramp back to its most basic form demonstrates how Van Etten's approach to songwriting has changed. Home Recordings follows mellifluous folky structures with the guide of an acoustic guitar, but that tradition has disappeared from Van Etten's more recent writing; there's less ornate fingerpicking, and more monotone strumming that propels her rough lyrics along with a tense, anxious pace. There's no playing the singer-songwriter, as Matthew Murphy alluded to in his review of Because I Was in Love; she's now beholden to letting what she wants to say dictate the shape rather than the other way around.

By and large, Demos contains very little that would surprise anyone familiar with Tramp, but there's more to this collection than marveling at how funny "Magic Chords" sounds with a rinky-dink drum machine instead of that snare purr, or the way "I'm Wrong" unfolds when stripped of the shimmering production parade with which it marches outward. As well as lifting the curtain on Tramp, releasing Demos feels like an act of dispossession masquerading as a modest recognition of appreciation. In 2012, Van Etten has released more music in one year than ever before– there have been singles, b-sides, a song for "Boardwalk Empire", a Christmas duet with Rufus Wainwright, a strange, "Twin Peaks"-indebted four-song collection called Psychajealous that you got if you bought Tramp at London's Rough Trade. A certain swathe of people know about Sharon Van Etten, and a decent proportion of them know the much-cited, boyfriend-related situation that inspired a lot of her music and has dominated much of the conversation around it. Demos feels like a final act of blood-letting. Whatever comes next will be a fresh body.

Review by Laura Snapes, Pitchfork.com