REMIND ME TOMORROW

In his 1976 essay, “Second Wind,” Václav Havel wrote of the three options facing any artist as they grow: they can repeat themselves, they can languish in the position they have earned in that first iteration of themselves, or, they can “abandon everything proven,” cast aside all perceived expectations and seek a “new and more mature self-definition” that corresponds to their present experience and continued growth.

Few records in recent memory have captured that third option as viscerally Sharon Van Etten’s work here: REMIND ME TOMORROW is at once the welcome return of a singular voice and the announcement that not only has that artist found her “second wind” but that we’re lucky enough to be invited along on the sonic joyride.  

“I wish I could show you how much you’ve grown,” Van Etten sings on “Seventeen”; indeed, REMIND ME TOMORROW is the contemplatively propulsive (or propulsively contemplative) evidence of Van Etten’s own growth and evolution as an artist, nothing less than a living, breathing document of a new becoming, a second wind captured. Essential.