"Annabel Lee" is the hotly anticipated return from Dolly In Slacks, the mysterious project of Amia Korman that sees ghostly stories unfold over luscious soundscapes. From its first note, you are led into a world where art pop meets postmodernism and a Songbook collection that moves between the intimate and the over-the-top.
Worked alongside producer Kevin Salem, "Annabel Lee" is nothing if not an exercise in contrast. The overall sound is a mixture of echoing voices and choral layers, with added acoustic textures that are both comforting and eerie. Dolly's voice is sometimes commanding, sometimes haunted, and maneuvers these changes with the precision of a linguist.
The song further explores themes Korman tackled on her debut EP, "Incarnadine (Vol. 1)," in which she delves into the mythology of Nabokov's Lolita and, more broadly, the shadows cast by gendered memory and personhood. "Annabel Lee" is an extension and development of this vision. Here, the dominant, malevolent Dolly is joined by quieter, mixed-signal presences that together create a fabric of sound that's both otherworldly and profoundly human.
"Annabel Lee" is an intense and haunting experience that further underscores the song's chilling poignancy long after it ceases. It's a demonstration of Korman's ability to blend narrative ambition with musical exactitude, offering you an alternate song that resists ready categorization. In a masterful tangle of intimacy and grandeur, Dolly In Slacks is here to remind you that just some stories and just some ghosts are impossible to forget.
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