Karen O: Crush Songs review – low-fi sketches on love and loneliness

Earlier this year Karen O received an Oscar nomination for Moon Song, an acoustic love song whose nigh-on nursery-rhyme lyricism was undercut by a tangible melancholy ("But with you my dear/ I'm safe and we're a million miles away"). It turns out that this wasn't the first time that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer, better known for up-front rock and ebullient electronic pop, had explored her lo-fi side. In 2006-7 she recorded a baker's dozen of such tracks, released now on Julian Casablancas's Cult label. It's fair to say Crush Songs is not what might normally be called a studio album. The production values are wilfully low, while the musical accompaniment on Comes the Night amounts to nothing more than a single repeated note on acoustic guitar. Several of the songs aren't much more than sketches: a thought, a chord sequence, a fade out. But, as on Moon Song, Karen O displays an ability to articulate raw emotion here, be it on the subject of love, loneliness or strength of will. It sounds like O was in a bit of a mess in 2007, but still composed enough to capture it.