Last year, Laura Fisher released Celestina, a daring, refreshing full-on plunge into solo piano that fuses the musician’s classical music roots with a penchant for improvisation. Earlier musical excursions saw her tackle math rock with the recently disbanded Matron and work across various iterations of indie rock and dream pop. Her latest album, THE SKY IS A WONDROUS BEING I AM LUCKY TO BE INSIDE, sees the solo piano temporarily put to rest in favor of warm synthesizers meshing with her intoxicating voice. It’s almost a complete 180, but just as intense and enjoyable.
Composed by Fisher and co-produced by Adam Keil—who, with Fisher, plays most of the instruments—the record recalls the dreaminess of her 2023 release, Rose-Coloured Dream (also co-produced by Keil), but is more synthetic than the earthier, piano-heavy IN NAME ONLY, FOR IT IS NEITHER, also released in 2023. In short, when approaching a Fisher album, you never quite know what to expect.
The low-key vocals and layers of keyboards and guitars that open the album with “Trial & the wishing gun” make for a direct, almost austere introduction, but the stuttering drums and sophisticated pop sensibilities imbued in “Rose leaving” (featuring vocals by RVBY MY DEAR) ground things beautifully, with a brief run time that leaves the listener longing for at least one more verse.
The preponderance of synths on the record seem to put things in another time and place, but the unique musical arrangements are refreshing, particularly on moments like the title track, a luminous, beautiful piece that combines synth arpeggios with viola by Theresa Romano (also featured on two other songs), and the aggressive synth attack of “Intrepid”, where Fisher’s ethereal, wordless voice floats on top of a sci-fi landscape. Fisher revisits this scenery and digs even deeper on the more fully formed “Swarm”, creating an almost cinematic atmosphere as keyboard lines interlock with rich melodic vocal lines.
The nine songs here only make up about 17 minutes of music, and as a result, the longest track, the radiant “Wildfire”, clocks in at a little more than three minutes. In a sense, THE SKY… comes across as a sort of sampler of a moment in time in Fisher’s vast musical explorations.
While Celestina recalls the free-form improv of Keith Jarrett‘s 1970s keyboard adventures and IN NAME ONLY, FOR IT IS NEITHER was a sort of interstellar take on the torch song format, THE SKY IS A WONDROUS BEING I AM LUCKY TO BE INSIDE is a truly forward-thinking, futuristic journey with eyes looking straight ahead but also bringing to mind previous trailblazers like Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush, and Björk. Artists far too often find themselves tethered to specific genres and musical mindsets. Laura Fisher is immersed in all of it.