Cameron entered public consciousness in September 2009 with her first release on True Panther label, entitled Apply EP (released also as an UK-only 12” on the Young Turks label). The intimate, luxurious music resonated widely, despite being made by Cameron, alone and in airplanes and shoe stores, on GarageBand. Her EPs and live shows earned her attention from producers Van Rivers and the Subliminal Kid (who co-produced a few tracks and the transitions on her debut album) and opening tour slots with The xx, Jónsi, and Delorean.
In 28 September 2010, Glasser released her debut album Ring on True Panther. With Ring Cameron worked for months with producer Ariel Rechtshaid to re-imagine her musical arrangements, incorporating organic instrumentation like strings, woodwinds, bass, and a wide array of percussion into her once-sparse recordings. Her simple, minimal melodies and rapturous vocals are perfectly complimented by the album’s maximalist arrangements. The voice becomes a focal instrument, delivers abstract stories and sounds that drench the music in emotion without resorting to narrative clichés.
Ring is named for chiastic, or “ring”, structure, an idea borrowed from the oral tradition. In it, ideas are paired in a symmetric order, often leading bidirectionally toward a central idea. Cameron structured the album similarly, with no set beginning or end, with its songs representing fluctuating and often contradictory emotional states.
In “Treasury of We,” she claims, “We’re all the same/Set apart by different names,” then in “Mirrorage” says “we live alone…how can I trust in you?” Perhaps she is asking a lover, perhaps any person at all, or perhaps she’s asking Nature itself, another character in Ring. “Ain’t it odd how we mimic nature indoors, when nature is far more vivid to endure?” she asks, adding, “So where’s the comfort there? What’s real can be anywhere.” It offers fantasy (“Hollowed a log to ride…Behind a beast with a liquid hide”), hope (“Let me grow with you/And I will cut all the blooms/To decorate your room”), pain (“The clouds were dust, raining on us/There was a phantom me in a bed of love”).
In Glasser there exists, side by side, the optimism of a woman captivated by creation and travel, as well as the anxiety that accompanies nomadism and change. Of this duality, the New York Times said “these are beautiful songs, both sweet and abstract, deeply felt and anodyne.” Somehow, in Glasser’s efforts to make sense of her world, she has made an album with the universal lure of both a lullaby and a hymn.
Official site: http://www.myspace.com/glasssser
Tremel
Glasser Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
When the weight of the water
Has finally carried you home
We know
How the current can feel
Like the breathing of watery ghosts
To the splashing side
We were drowing and laughing
Along with the tide
It sucked me down
But I let it slide back up
To the child inside
How's my baby,
He asked of me
As we were pushing our way
Out to the sea
But I said nothing more
And not more said he
And the ghost drove on so forcefully
You go
When the weight of the water
Has finally carried you home
We know
How the current can feel
Like the breathing of watery ghosts
How do I [something] the rocks
I'm lost inside
Now I push along behind
The beast with the liquid hide
How long do I [something] the rocks
I'm lost inside
Now I push along behind
The beast with the liquid hide
In Glasser's song "Tremel," the lyrics paint a vivid picture of being carried away by the current of the water. The song's opening lines declare that "you go" when the weight of the water has finally carried you home. The use of the word "home" here is interesting because it suggests that perhaps the water has taken the singer to a place that is more familiar to them than where they originated. The following lines describe how the current can feel like the breathing of watery ghosts, which indicates a sense of eeriness or otherworldliness.
Later in the song, the singer is at the beach with their friends, and they are all "drowning and laughing along with the tide." There is a sense of surrender to the power of the water, as the singer allows themselves to be sucked down but then lets themselves slide back up to the child inside. The child inside could refer to a sense of innocence or a simpler time in the singer's life. The conversation with a person who asks about the singer's baby suggests that there is a connection between the idea of being carried away by the water and the idea of letting go of something, perhaps a child or a loved one.
Overall, "Tremel" by Glasser is a haunting and evocative song about being carried away by the power of the water. The lyrics are rich with symbolic meaning, and the imagery creates a powerful atmosphere of surrender and letting go.
Line by Line Meaning
You go
When the weight of the water
Has finally carried you home
You leave this life when the burden of living becomes too much to bear and death finally takes you.
We know
How the current can feel
Like the breathing of watery ghosts
We understand how strong and mysterious water can be, like the breathing of spirits in the deep.
Followed my friends
To the splashing side
We were drowning and laughing
Along with the tide
It sucked me down
But I let it slide back up
To the child inside
I followed my peers to a carefree, fun-filled life, but it was not sustainable and I hit rock bottom. I ultimately let go and allowed myself to return to a child-like state of innocence and wonder.
How's my baby,
He asked of me
As we were pushing our way
Out to the sea
But I said nothing more
And not more said he
And the ghost drove on so forcefully
As we headed out to sea, someone asked after my child, but neither of us spoke further. The ghostly thoughts of the ocean's power drove us both in silence.
How do I [something] the rocks
I'm lost inside
I question how to navigate through the difficulties that have trapped me and left me feeling desolate and disconnected.
Now I push along behind
The beast with the liquid hide
How long do I [something] the rocks
I'm lost inside
Now I push along behind
The beast with the liquid hide
I fervently struggle to keep up with the uncontrollable power of the ocean and its beastly waves, desperately searching for a way out of this uncertain and difficult time.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: CAMERON MESIROW
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind