Natalie Brooke - Measured in Moments (2LP)

Natalie Brooke's Measured in Moments is dedicated to sonically exploring the complexities of time, nostalgia, relationships, and the fleeting human experience.

The album's opening singles offer two distinct windows into her evolving sound. "Sometimes" featuring Cris Jacobs, is a groove-forward meditation on life's dualities.  Led by her soulful vocals and anchored by the lyric: "sometimes change is what I am, sometimes I'm better off running."  The track builds in intensity, slipping into a jazz-soaked breakdown before she unleashes a fiery organ solo. Baltimore rock luminary Cris Jacobs answers with a spellbinding improvisation of his own, pushing the song into uncharted terrain. "Hands" takes a decidedly different route.  An urgent jazz-fusion composition that rides a staccato motif into a soaring chorus that is both sultry and celebratory, the track embodies Natalie's invitation to the dance floor, complete with tension-building bridges and moments of release that capture her instinct for drama and motion.

Thoughts from Natalie on Measured in Moments:

In my mind, there seems to be an enduring awareness of time. I find myself trying to let go of its passing, trying to hold on to the special and fleeting moments, and always attempting to find a balance between those two experiences. Time feels like it is full of contradictions. It rules our every day, yet it is something we really have no control over. We can analyze and reflect on the past but looking forward we can only rely on our imagination. The feeling of nostalgia is equally as beautiful as it is painful. In each moment we are present and we are also infinitely continuous.

Almost all of the songs on this album are a meditation on various interactions I have had with time and what time has felt like to me. The lyrics in Lucky Enough are my personal favorite, the most illustrative, and were realized as I was driving down interstate 70 during a radiant golden hour at dusk. The few exceptions to the lyrical theme of time are HANDS, Stupid Head, and Water for People but these songs have a common thread of human relationships on both a small and large scale, tension and discourse within those relationships, and our ever present connection to one another.