Laura Gibson

An encounter with so delicate a thing as this album must be not unlike what a new mother feels while observing her child soundly sleep: It’s a tiny and beautiful thing, radiating peace, and you feel somehow that alerting others to witness this enchanted scene might only serve to upset it. Gibson’s exquisite voice—clear as glass, though it touchingly trembles at times—is the raison d’être of this debut, with understated help from her fellow Portlanders Norfolk & Western. There’s a timelessness to Gibson’s songs that places her outside of the indie-rock scene. They feel more like the product of a long-forgotten reel-to-reel recording found in somebody’s grandparents’ attic. Slow-burning songs like “Wintering” are preferably listened to in front of a fire, with hot chocolate, as snow falls.