Charlotte Greve – Waterbodies
Today, German-born, Brooklyn-based saxophonist, composer, and singer Charlotte Greve announces WATERBODIES, her debut solo album in her own name following nine releases under various band aliases, out October 2 via New Amsterdam.
It’s also her first release since her 2021 breakthrough Sediments We Move, which earned notable praise from The New York Times, Pitchfork, MOJO and The Wire for a sound that moves fluidly across jazz, classical, and experimental traditions. “Although this is my 10th release, in many ways it feels like a debut,” says Greve. “It captures the full range of what I’ve been drawn to musically. Rather than narrowing things down, I wanted to open them up, placing these disparate influences side by side and trusting their connection would come through because they’re all channeled through me.”
Produced by Grammy-nominated Shahzad Ismaily, WATERBODIES features an expansive cast, including the New York-based vocal ensemble KHORIKOS and the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra. Greve (a sought-after sidewoman for artists including Chris Morrissey, Laura Veirs, Cass McCombs, Cassandra Jenkins and Matt Pavolka) channels that same range of collaboration into her own work. The album is a deliberate rejection of stylistic cohesion and her most personal to date, written while Greve was pregnant with her daughter and first child.
Alongside the announcement, Greve releases “Membranes,” whose upbeat, drum machine driven backdrop places Greve’s syncopated vocals front and center as swelling synths bloom in the periphery.
“Membranes is a song about the challenge of carrying several hearts in one breast and wanting to feed them all,” says Greve. Greve uses the song to embrace all parts of herself as she elaborates, “As a kid, I lived like a chameleon, changing my clothing, language and behavior, depending on who I was spending time with and where. The older I grew, the bigger the wish to combine all the different shapes and forms, both in my character as well as in my music. Let them all live alongside each other – the picture of the semi permeable membrane captured this desirable way of living for me.”
Soon after learning she was pregnant, a friend urged her, “Record it now, before the baby comes!” The advice provided the impetus to document this moment in her musical life, resulting in a record that’s sometimes contemplative, often triumphant and always sanguine. “This is the most holistic representation of my musical interests,” she says. “I wanted it to feel like a playground — the opposite of an easy-to-sell, career-minded, one-kind-of-thing record. In some ways, it made no sense. I was pregnant and pouring my money into something that was clearly not commercial. But this was a personal wish. Something I felt I had to do.”
The album’s songs move as individual pieces within a shared world, shifting from spoken word to a full symphony orchestra, improvised jazz to bizarro synth-pop, power ballads to the serene, arpeggiated album closer. “With WATERBODIES, I hope to invite the audience to experience the music as if walking through a film,” says Charlotte Greve. “Contrasting scenes unfold one after another, yet remain connected by a common thread.”
Listen to “Membranes” above and stay tuned for more music from Charlotte Greve ahead of the full release of WATERBODIES arriving October 2 via New Amsterdam.
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