The Fader magazine described Molly Burch’s voice as a “time capsule.” Indeed, a playlist transition from Burch’s Captured Tracks -released debut album Please Be Mine to a classic by the 1950s country icon Patsy Cline, for example, is uncannily smooth. Retro is certainly nothing new (bahaha.), but it’s difficult not to hold this perfect reincarnation of a holy 1950s aesthetic to the light of contemporary events. Back then, white American culture withdrew into the privacy of the home in the face of the nuclear apocalypse, dreamed of Hawaii, put women on horses and men behind the wheels of giant, gliding gas-guzzlers. Escapism in reaction to an ever-more-complex world is also something we see with Bruch—her heartwrenching torch songs describe intangible, intimate realms, reveal to society its own limits, and glorify individual, private harmony. A defense mechanism? Perhaps. But if so, a gorgeous one!

–