This week’s PBS Feature Album is the triumphant sophomore album Pleasance from Queenie. As much an alt-pop exaltation as it is soft-rock meditation, Pleasance is a journey. The tracks trudge through trauma, laugh in the face of adversity and whisper soft self-assurances, in search of a safe haven. Queenie’s powerful, gripping vocals are reminiscent of Joan Jett or Florence Welch, while her silky songwriting sensibilities lean closer to the likes of Kate Bush, Weyes Blood or Bon Iver.
It is a record about coming home, not to a place, but to a self. It is about finding peace not in the absence of complexity, but in the acceptance of it. There is a line Queenie circles without ever needing to state outright, that happiness is not a fixed state, but a practice, something cultivated, tended to, protected. The album’s title itself gestures toward this, a secluded garden, a private enclosure where beauty is allowed to exist alongside the wider, messier world.
Tune in all this week to hear tracks from Pleasance. PBS Members have the chance to win a copy of the album on vinyl - simply email your name and membership number to before midnight Sunday September 6.
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TOP TRACKS WE'RE LOVING THIS WEEK
Sleep D & Mosam Howieson - 'Mirror Pool' (Konduku Remix)
Khaled Kurbeh - 'wal-Leil (واللّيلْ)'
Juice Webster - 'Kind of Fantasy' (Live)
Surprise Chef - 'Leg Day'
Way Dynamic - 'Officially'
Julia Jacklin - 'The Hardest Thing'
Hermanos Gutiérrez - 'Los Andes'
Chelsea Wolfe - 'Cold'
Mk VI - 'Killa'
Gigi Masin - 'Silver Wheel'
