This entrancing album is a moving tribute to all the wonderful complexity of being human.
Back in 2018, Nat Bartsch released Forever, and No Time At All, a beguiling album of quiet, contemporary classical lullabies, written in moments between caring for her newborn son. It led Bartsch to some really fascinating places, including performing concerts for parents and babies, and since then she‘s enjoyed significant success, including multiple nominations at the ARIA awards. But the last few years have also been a time of upheaval in her life: one relationship ending, another beginning (with Hadyn Buxton, who recorded, mixed and produced this album), a diagnosis of autism, then another diagnosis with AuDHD.
Forever Changed is clearly a reflection of the changes of the last years and in particular, it‘s a fascinating exploration of how Bartsch‘s neurodiversity feeds her music, something she explains with real candour in the video below, which is well worth watching:
As to the music, we were already big fans (check out our other reviews here), but this album is on another level. It has all the traits of her music that we love—it is accessible, melodic, and complex—but everything is heightened. She has got a real talent for laying down an appealingly simple opening, then transforming it through textural change, rich instrumentation, unexpected chords and gorgeous improvisation. The result is like being taken on a journey. There are so many wonderful examples of this it’s hard to pick out favourites, but “Thirty Nine”, “New Kinds of Love” and “Arrival” are particularly entrancing, with a simple piano motif spreading out through different instruments: harp, strings, synthesisers, field recordings.
It’s an entrancing album and, for those of us who maybe aren’t neurodivergent, it offers a fascinating, beautiful glimpse into the mind of our fellow humans. (Garreth Brooke)