Carmen Villain shares fourth album, Only Love From Now On
The Norwegian-Mexican producer-composer’s new record is out today via Smalltown Supersound
Carmen Villain's past decade in music has seen her travel, simultaneously, deep into her emotional core and far into the outer reaches of the cosmos. Her fourth album, Only Love From Now On — released today and preceded by two singles, "Gestures" and "Subtle Bodies" — transcends such temporospatial binaries to achieve a sublime state that is at once organic and otherworldly.
Villain, whose earth name is Carmen Maria Hillestad, was born in the United States to a Mexican mother and a Norwegian dad. She now resides in Oslo, where she's collaborated with such scene legends as Jenny Hval and Biosphere. Only Love features two more Norway natives: trumpeter Arve Henrikson (on the aforementioned "Gestures") and Johanna Scheie Orellana, who plays multiple flutes on the new album's title track.
Through seven songs and 38 minutes of slowly developing textures and dense yet gentle harmonies, the record is a triumph of quiet beauty. Listen below.