''The Turning Wheel'' is the third

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by American

experimental pop Experimental pop is pop music that cannot be categorized within traditional musical boundaries or which attempts to push elements of existing popular forms into new areas. It may incorporate experimental music, experimental techniques such as m ...

artist

Spellling Chrystia "Tia" Cabral (born May 18, 1991), known professionally as (stylized in all caps), is an American experimental pop musician based in Oakland, California. Cabral released her debut album, ''Pantheon of Me'', in September 2017; ''Pitchfor ...

, released on June 25, 2021, by

Sacred Bones Records Sacred Bones Records is an American independent record label founded in 2007 and based in Brooklyn, New York. The label has released recordings from artists including Zola Jesus, David Lynch, John Carpenter, Spellling, Blanck Mass, Crystal S ...

. The album received generally positive reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...

Composition

''The Turning Wheel'' has been noted for

's dropping her earlier

dark wave Dark wave, or darkwave, is a music genre that emerged from the new wave and post-punk movement of the late 1970s. Dark wave compositions are largely based on minor key tonality and introspective lyrics and have been perceived as being dark, ro ...

and

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

sounds and expanding her

progressive pop Progressive pop is pop music that attempts to break with the genre's standard formula, or an offshoot of the progressive rock genre that was commonly heard on AM radio in the 1970s and 1980s. It was originally termed for the early progressive ...

terrain. For instance, album opener "Little Deer" pulls from

jazz pop Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...

and "plush"

1960s File:1960s montage.png, Clockwise from top left: U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War; the Beatles led the British Invasion of the U.S. music market; a half-a-million people participate in the Woodstock, 1969 Woodstock Festival; Neil Armstrong ...

lounge pop Lounge music is a type of easy listening music popular in the 1950s and 1960s. It may be meant to evoke in the listeners the feeling of being in a place, usually with a tranquil theme, such as a jungle, an island paradise or outer space. The ran ...

, while "Emperor with an Egg" takes on

chamber pop Chamber pop (also called baroque pop and sometimes conflated with orchestral pop or symphonic pop) is a music genre that combines rock music with the intricate use of strings, horns, piano, and vocal harmonies, and other components drawn from t ...

. The album itself is divided into two parts, subtitled ''Above'' and ''Below'' respectively. ''Above'' begins with "Little Deer" and ends with "Emperor with an Egg", while ''Below'' begins with "Boys at School" and ends with "Sweet Talk", as they are separated in the album's liner notes.

Critical reception

''The Turning Wheel'' was met with positive reviews from critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a

normalized Normalization or normalisation refers to a process that makes something more normal or regular. Science * Normalization process theory, a sociological theory of the implementation of new technologies or innovations * Normalization model, used in ...

rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the release received an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

score of 79, based on nine reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave the album a 7.5 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.

Track listing

All songs written by

. ;''Above'' #"Little Deer" – 5:39 #"Always" – 5:14 #"Turning Wheel" – 3:33 #"The Future" – 3:27 #"Awaken" – 4:31 #"Emperor with an Egg" – 3:09 ;''Below'' #

"Boys at School" – 7:28 #"Legacy" – 3:51 #"Queen of Wands" – 5:21 #"Magic Act" – 5:40 #"Revolution" – 5:59 #"Sweet Talk" – 3:33

Personnel

Credits adapted from

Tidal Tidal is the adjectival form of tide. Tidal may also refer to: * ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple * Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim * TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music * Tidal (servic ...

. Musicians * Noor Al-Samarrai – choir * Rita Andrade – viola * Monica Benson –

flugelhorn The flugelhorn (), also spelled fluegelhorn, flugel horn, or flügelhorn, is a brass instrument that resembles the trumpet and cornet, but has a wider, more conical bore. Like trumpets and cornets, most flugelhorns are pitched in B♭, though ...

, trumpet * Calliope Brass Quintet – brass * Ted Case – string arrangements * Jennifer Hinkle –

bass trombone The bass trombone (, ) is the bass instrument in the trombone family of brass instruments. Modern instruments are pitched in the same B♭ as the tenor trombone but with a larger bore, bell and mouthpiece to facilitate low register playing, and u ...

* Donia Jarrar – piano * Milo Jimenez – acoustic guitar * Nick Marchione – brass arrangement * Sara Mayo – trombone * Jinty McTavish – violin * Dharma Mooney – choir * Macgregor Munson – banjo * Brijean Murphy – conga drum * Erin Paul – horn * Lidia Rodriguez –

baritone saxophone The baritone saxophone (sometimes abbreviated to "bari sax") 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 saxophone, bass. It is the lowe ...

* Javier Santiago – piano * Rebecca Steinberg – flugelhorn, trumpet * Sabrina Tabby – violin * Ezra Teshome – choir * Carolyn Walter – bassoon, clarinet,

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common Soprano clarinet, soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays no ...

Del Sol Quartet The Del Sol Quartet is a string quartet based in San Francisco, California that was founded in 1992 by violist Charlton Lee. Del Sol has commissioned and premiered thousands of works from a diverse range of international composers, including Ter ...

– strings Technical *

– producer * Drew Vandenberg – additional production, mixing * Adrian Morgan – mastering * Jonny Esser – mastering * Mike Johnson – mastering * Aleks Ozolins –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

* John Finkbeiner – engineer

References

External links

''The Turning Wheel''
at

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epic ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turning Wheel, The 2021 albums Sacred Bones Records albums Spellling albums Kickstarter-funded albums