A compilation from the prolific Water From Your Eyes songwriter offers an endearing tour through their introspective, constantly evolving body of work.
Keeping up with Rachel Brown’s catalog can be overwhelming. In addition to their work as one half of the experimental indie-pop duo Water From Your Eyes, they’ve released 79 projects on Bandcamp since September 2012. You Haven’t Missed Much, Brown’s latest release under the name Thanks for Coming, is a welcome entry point. Akin to a greatest hits LP, the 14-track compilation spans all of Brown’s styles from twee, acoustic-led tunes to jangly bouts of distortion, including songs as old as 2015’s “Yr Kind of Cool” and as recent as 2022’s “Plagiarizer.” Like a retrospective exhibition of their creative process, it offers a flawed but endearing tour of Brown’s artistic growth and the lived-in charm of their songwriting.
Since Brown started releasing introspective indie-rock as Thanks for Coming just over a decade ago, the lineup has undergone several permutations, involving bassist and co-writer Linda Sherman, drummer and Water From Your Eyes bandmate Nate Amos, and more recent collaborators Charlie Dore-Young and Mike Kolb. Some of Brown’s most affecting material, however, is solitary. Originally included on 2022’s rachel jr., “My Name” is an exercise in gradual tension, building on a modulated bassline and a foreboding acoustic guitar. Although Brown layers in ambling percussion and synth pads, “My Name” fades like mist rising from a lake, never building to a climax and subtle enough to be overlooked.
On another solo recording, “U R Not Sick, Yr Electric,” Brown longs for the past and future simultaneously. “I’d give anything to go back to October,” goes their opening salvo, but by the next verse they’d “give anything to go right to November.” The compilation’s most poignant song, “Me, Missing You,” memorializes a relationship that’s failing purely due to shitty circumstances: “I know I’m hard to get a hold of/’Cause I’ve been held for far too long/But not long enough for the two of us.” Like Brown’s best lyrics, it’s a simple yet trenchant observation about lost love.
Given that You Haven’t Missed Much documents Brown’s work since high school, some of the inclusions feel underbaked. “Yr Kind of Cool” poses a series of repetitive questions (“Do you wanna touch my hair?” “Do you wanna make a joke?”) that yield little depth within the narrative of an age-inappropriate relationship. “Universe,” a song about romance in a computer simulation from 2018’s back at it again, could benefit from more thematic development. But even these weaker tracks provide context for Brown’s growth as a songwriter. Contrasting the typical concision and focus of a Thanks for Coming album, You Haven’t Missed Much plays like a mixtape from a friend eager to hear your thoughts. What it lacks in uniformity, it compensates for in warmth.
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