If I Could
Elusive Toronto artist Charlotte Day Wilson has dropped expansive love song ‘If I Could’ and announced her long-anticipated album ‘Alpha’.
Linking together 2020’s collab with Syd ‘Take Care of You’ and 2019’s ‘Mountains’, the 11 track debut is due July 9. Written by Merna Bishouty and produced by Charlotte and Jack Rochon, ‘If I Could’ brings back the cinematic, gospel choir vocals Charlotte explored on ‘Mountains’. Accompanied by a gently strumming guitar, resounding bass and sharp tambourine, ‘If I Could’ pledges sacrificial devotion to a suffering loved one. Dramatic dynamic shifts leave space to showcase Charlotte’s signature vocal production. These alterations bear no resemblance to common autotune practice – Charlotte’s tone is impeccable. Her vocal production subtly plays with distortions of texture, breath, consonance, and pitch, an effect that evokes an elevated, otherworldly being and creates some distance from her intensely vulnerable lyrics.
Always a fierce advocate for complete creative control and ownership, Charlotte will be releasing ‘Alpha’ independently on Stone Woman Records, and co-directed the accompanying video alongside award-winning director Kevan Funk. Opening with a beautiful shot of a seasoned bull rider steeling herself for the risk of a ride, the music video feels more like a visual album trailer in three acts. The video’s centrepiece is a montage of the artist, wearing a mask made from fragments of her own face, performing in childhood home video footage, and standing in the rain, set to a spoken word poem: “Young poet, let go of your spine…let yourself grow right into place…this journey is yours to take…your tears will lead the way.” Framing this stunning piece, the stripped back version of the vocal chorus plays over slowed footage of the Texas bull riders. Opening on the set face of a woman about to undertake a chaotic act of bravado and facing the certainty of pain, the video eventually shows the rider’s fall from the saddle, colliding with ground and animal as they continue to hold on. This act of getting boldly into the ring in full knowledge of impending damage is the perfect visual for the complete vulnerability of the love Charlotte Day Wilson sings about in ‘If I Could’.