''Gossamer'' is the second studio album by American
electropop
Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. Writer Hollin Jones has described it as a variant of synth-pop with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a re ...
band
Passion Pit. It was released on July 20, 2012, by
Columbia and
Frenchkiss Records
Frenchkiss Records is an independent record label based in New York City. The label was started in 1999 by Syd Butler, bassist and founder of Les Savy Fav. The label's first purpose was to release Les Savy Fav's second album '' The Cat and The Co ...
. Recorded in 2011 in Los Angeles and New York City, the album was produced by
Chris Zane, who also produced the band's debut album ''
Manners
Etiquette () is the set of norms of personal behaviour in polite society, usually occurring in the form of an ethical code of the expected and accepted social behaviours that accord with the conventions and norms observed and practised by a ...
'' (2009), and lead singer
Michael Angelakos
Michael John Angelakos (born May 19, 1987) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the frontman of the indietronica band Passion Pit.
Career
Passion Pit (2008–present)
The first Passion Pit songs, ...
.
In an August 2010 interview with ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'', Angelakos stated that work had already begun on the follow-up to ''Manners'', and that the band intended to release the album in the spring of 2011. "It's gonna be a really fantastic, exciting, beautiful, gorgeous record. An absolutely beautiful record. I'm so excited", he said. The album's title and release date were announced on April 24, 2012.
Singles
"
Take a Walk" was released as the album's lead single on May 8, 2012. The accompanying music video, directed by David Wilson and supported by The Creators Project, was shot in Philadelphia from the perspective of a
bouncing ball
The physics of a bouncing ball concerns the physical behaviour of bouncing balls, particularly its motion before, during, and after impact against the surface of another body. Several aspects of a bouncing ball's behaviour serve as an introd ...
using
helicam technology.
Second single "
I'll Be Alright" was released on June 12, 2012. It received exposure after being featured on the video game ''
FIFA 13'', and received "Best New Track" status by ''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...
''.
"
Constant Conversations" was released as the album's third single on July 9, 2012, and was featured as "Best New Track" by ''Pitchfork''. An official remix of "Constant Conversations" by American rapper
Juicy J
Jordan Michael Houston III (born April 5, 1975), known professionally as Juicy J, is an American rapper and record producer. Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, he is a founding member of the Southern hip hop group Three 6 Mafia, established i ...
premiered on February 28, 2013.
"
Carried Away" was released on January 8, 2013, as the fourth and final single from the album. The music video, directed by Brewer, was released on February 14, 2013, and featured American actress
Sophia Bush
Sophia Anna Bush Hughes (born July 8, 1982) is an American actress. She starred as Brooke Davis in The WB/ CW drama series ''One Tree Hill'' (2003–2012), and as Erin Lindsay in the NBC police procedural drama series ''Chicago P.D.'' (2014 ...
.
A music video for promotional single "Cry Like a Ghost", directed by
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, was released on March 27, 2013.
Critical reception
''Gossamer'' received generally positive reviews from music critics. At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...
score of 76, based on 36 reviews.
''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''s Caroline Sullivan commented that Angelakos' "ability to create sunlight and sparkle with an arsenal of sequencers and computers remains consistent, and is the album's real point of interest."
Russell Warfield of ''
Drowned in Sound
''Drowned in Sound'', sometimes abbreviated to ''DiS'', is a UK-based music webzine financed by artist management company Silentway. Founded by editor Sean Adams, the site features reviews, news, interviews, and discussion forums.
History
''D ...
'' opined that "while retaining
heoveractive production style, Angelakos manages to make ''Gossamer'' feel more effortlessly human, more like the self-realised artistic vision of an individual than ''Manners'' ever came close to being."
''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...
''s Ian Cohen described ''Gossamer'' as "an overwhelming album about being overwhelmed, a bold and ultimately stunning torrent of
maximalist
In the arts, maximalism, a reaction against minimalism, is an aesthetic of excess. The philosophy can be summarized as "more is more", contrasting with the minimalist motto "less is more".
Literature
The term ''maximalism'' is sometimes associ ...
musical ideas, repressed anger, and unchecked anxiety."
''
The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
''s Ryan Reed found ''Gossamer'' to be "more elegant than its predecessor" and concluded, "Throughout ''Gossamer'', Angelakos sounds broken and confused, wrestling with his demons, cage match-style, on an oversized stage
..But despite the emphasis on struggle, ''Gossamer'' couldn't sound more assured."
James Christopher Monger of
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
stated, "Though the environment that birthed the appropriately titled ''Gossamer'' may be a bummer, the end product is winningly majestic as it is obviously spun by the most malevolent of spiders."
John Calvert of ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'' wrote that "one quibble is that ''Gossamer'' never really comes down off its
Haribo
Haribo ( ) is a German confectionery company founded by Hans Riegel Sr.. It began in Kessenich, Bonn, Germany. The name "Haribo" is a syllabic abbreviation formed from Hans Riegel Bonn. The company created the first gummy candy in 1960 in the f ...
rush, which gets exhausting. That said, when they do ease up, as on the
boudoir
A boudoir (; ) is a woman's private sitting room or salon in a furnished residence, usually between the dining room and the bedroom, but can also refer to a woman's private bedroom. The term derives from the French verb ''bouder'' (to sulk ...
-
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...
'Constant Conversations', it resembles the two-a-penny
synthpop
Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s a ...
that clogs the blogosphere."
''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
''s Jon Dolan expressed that the album is "roomier and more varied" than its predecessor ''Manners''.
''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'' writer
Greg Kot
Greg Kot (born March 3, 1957) is an American music journalist and author. From 1990 until 2020, Kot was the rock music critic at the ''Chicago Tribune'', where he covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and busines ...
viewed ''Gossamer'' as "a
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
record disguised as buoyant, uptempo
dance-pop
Dance-pop is a popular music subgenre that originated in the late 1970s to early 1980s. It is generally uptempo music intended for nightclubs with the intention of being danceable but also suitable for contemporary hit radio. Developing from a ...
."
Benjamin Aspray of ''
PopMatters
''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...
'' felt that the album is "as scrappy, outsize, and infectious as anyone could hope for, and as shrill and cloying as anyone could expect."
Sam Walker-Smart of ''
Clash'' called the album "a colorful twelve-track ode to joy", but noted that "the album's main fault
show every track merges into one big goofy smile-a-thon while never delivering a number as exciting as previous hit '
Sleepyhead'."
''
Slant Magazine
''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...
''s Kevin Liedel critiqued that "much of ''Gossamer'' plays as though it were constructed (however poorly) from
Sleepyhead'stemplate
..The band, in effect, seems to be desperately chasing a winning blueprint", adding that apart from the song "Constant Conversations", ''Gossamer'' is "true to its name: colorless and precariously thin, with precious few bright spots."
Accolades
The album was listed at number 18 on ''
Under the Radar''s "Top 100 Albums of 2012", and the magazine commented, "Fueled by the confession, guilt, and cathartic honesty of frontman Michael Angelakos,
'Gossamer''is one of the most lyrically painful records of 2012. It also happens to be one of the year's most musically euphoric, stacked to the brim with electro-pop."
Gigwise
''Gigwise'' is a British online music news site that features music news, photos, album reviews, music festivals, concert tickets and video content. Founded in June 2001, the site is based in London, England.
History
Gigwise was launched in 2001 ...
named ''Gossamer'' the 20th best album of 2012 and opined, "Rarely has an album been better named; ''Gossamer'' is delicate, light, and oh so finely spun. It's despondant while having no time for despondancy; sadness lurks underneath but only to remind us that there are so many other things we could be doing, emotions we could be feeling."
''Rolling Stone'' placed the album at number 39 on its "50 Best Albums of 2012" list and stated it is "shinier, busier and even more hysterically earnest than their debut: Angelakos' falsetto ricochets like laser light, chipper gals coo smoke-machine choruses amid hot electronics and cool string arrangements."
''PopMatters'' ranked it at number 66 on its list of "The 75 Best Albums of 2012", writing that the album's title "speaks volumes about the contents, a thinly veiled peek into the psyche of singer/songwriter Michael Angelokos."
Commercial performance
''Gossamer'' debuted at number four on the
''Billboard'' 200 with first-week sales of 37,000 copies, a career best.
The album had sold 216,000 copies in the United States as of April 2015.
In the United Kingdom, the album sold 2,444 copies to enter the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
at number 56, one position lower than its predecessor, ''Manners''.
Track listing
Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of ''Gossamer''.
Musicians
*
Michael Angelakos
Michael John Angelakos (born May 19, 1987) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the frontman of the indietronica band Passion Pit.
Career
Passion Pit (2008–present)
The first Passion Pit songs, ...
– all vocals, instruments, programming
*
Chris Zane – drums, percussion
*
Nico Muhly
Nico Asher Muhly (; born August 26, 1981) is an American contemporary classical music composer and arranger who has worked and recorded with both classical and pop musicians. A prolific composer, he has composed for many notable symphony orchestras ...
– celeste, piano, string arrangements
* Caleb Burhans, Max Mandel,
Nadia Sirota
Nadia Sirota (born in New York) is an American viola player. Her father is Robert Sirota, a composer and conductor.
Life and career
Sirota is best known for her singular sound and expressive execution, coaxing solo works from the likes of N ...
– violin
* Anna Elashvili, Keats Dieffenbach,
Rob Moose
Rob Moose (born 1982) is an American multi-instrumentalist, arranger, producer, conductor, and orchestrator. He primarily plays the violin, viola, and guitar.
Early life and education
Moose was born in 1982. He was raised in Windsor, Connect ...
, Yuki Numata – viola
* Clarice Jensen – cello ; flute
*
Eric Lamb – flute
* Ebba Lovisa Andersson, Petra Brohäll, Amanda Wikström – additional vocals
* Jon Natchez –
baritone saxophone
The baritone saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass. It is the lowest-pitched saxophone in common use - the bass, contra ...
,
tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while th ...
*
Kelly Pratt – trumpet, trombone
* Andrew Esposito –
aux percussion, additional programming
*
Diplo
Thomas Wesley Pentz (born November 10, 1978), known professionally as Diplo, is an American DJ and music producer. He is the co-creator and lead member of the electronic dancehall music project Major Lazer, a member of the supergroup LSD with ...
– additional programming
* Mike Dunkley – additional programming
Technical
* Chris Zane – production, mixing
* Michael Angelakos – production
*
Alex Aldi
Alex Aldi is an American, New York City-based record producer and mixing engineer, who has worked with bands such as Passion Pit, Magic Man, and Holy Ghost!.
Discography
2014
* Magic Man - Before the Waves - Producer, Engineer, Mixing (Ne ...
– engineering, additional production, mixing
*
Greg Calbi
Gregory Calbi (born April 3, 1949) is an American mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, New Jersey.
Biography
Greg Calbi was born on April 3, 1949, in Yonkers, New York, and raised in Bayside, Queens, New York. He graduated in 1966 from Bisho ...
– mastering at
Sterling Sound, New York City
Artwork
* Anita Marisa Boriboon – art direction, design
*
Mark Borthwick – photography
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Release history
References
{{Authority control
2012 albums
Columbia Records albums
Frenchkiss Records albums
Passion Pit albums