Following her four critically acclaimed EP’s, The Japanese House’s Amber Bain makes a comeback with a matured electronic sound. Her debut album see’s Bain uncover a layer of vulnerability preceding her breakup. Buckinghamshire born Bain created this album with BJ Burton, (who is the producer for Bon Iver, Lizzo and Sylvan Esso to name a few) retaining her nebulous electronic melodies.
Her candid pop album features thirteen new tracks including an acoustic rendition of ‘Saw you in a dream’, thus showing fans her transition in both sound and mindset with the differences to the 2017 version. Bain guides us through a labyrinth of her bravely honest feelings regarding her breakup, and it is this confident vulnerability that renders Good at Falling so personal and moving. In an interview with iD, Bain expressed her intimate and personal connection with the album; it is a creative outlet for her inmost thoughts and feelings and “is a reminder to me that I am good at falling in love and I can survive falling out of it. I am good at falling”.
Good at Falling is amorphous in its nature, where its aimless brooding combined with Bain’s electronic melancholy makes for a new addition to the smooth soft-core pop genre. The nature of its creation as a series of EPs recorded in the confines of her bedroom, which started off as diary entries, displays the multi-faceted vulnerability and intimacy of the album, which invites the listener to share in her heartfelt mediations.
The album begins with ‘went to meet her’, a short introduction to Bain’s transformed pop hooks, congruous with her quintessential sound. ‘Maybe You’re the Reason’ acts as a second introduction, exposing listeners to her initial heartbreak contrasted with the upbeat hopeful and redemptive lyrics. This is juxtaposed with the dreamy synth vocals of ‘We talk all the time’, detailing the antithesis of its name.
Bain expresses her drifting away from her ex-girlfriend in a mature yet beautiful way in this track which transitions smoothly into ‘Wild’ which is essentially a rhythmic internal monologue where Bain occupies the position of someone on the outside looking in with “watching myself go” and “now it’s all over I’m so glad”, where the retrospective soliloquy is a positive refresh to the listener, highlighting her hope for the future.
The galloping drums of ‘somethingfartoogoodtofeel’ mirror her forward progress as both an artist and a person at the same time crystallising the album as a creative outlet, as she put it to iD, it is an “opportunity to expose things previously unturned”. Lead single ‘Lilo” simultaneously holds an airiness whilst maintaining a depth due to Bain’s soft vocals and slow Haim-esque beat in combination with her openness in her lyrics communicating her anxieties and insecurities, thus her need to keep afloat like a lilo: “I need someone I can depend upon”. ‘Marika is sleeping’ holds more positive lyrics that are contrasted by the eerie electronic sounds almost mimicking the ‘calibrating’ that Bain is feeling in order to let go of her previous relationships
Good at Falling shows Bain’s growth as an artist, her successive development and maturity of her sound through the cathartic process of turning her heartbreak into a deeply personal and immersive album. She displays incredible brevity and courage to both literally and figuratively wear her heart on her sleeve but by also by vulnerability of falling in and out of love into something beautiful.
