
Remind Me Tomorrow
On her fifth album, Sharon Van Etten conjures tempests and explores their subsequent calms. It is the peak of her songwriting and her most atmospheric, emotionally piercing album to date.
Sharon Van Etten returns at the time of year meant for streamlining: Kondo-ing your frazzled mind, dysfunctional relationships, and sloppy habits into one efficient machine. Remind Me Tomorrow is not a product of this mindset.
Just look at the mess on the cover: a tiny photograph of Van Etten barely visible amid the chaos of a kid’s bedroom. It’s an album made after she thought she had let music go for a while, until it crept back in as a reliable constant while she started acting and scoring films, studied for a degree in psychology, embraced a fulfilling relationship, and became a parent. A lesser artist would find a cheap fulfillment narrative in all this. Van Etten characterizes these complicated pleasures as a tempest, and it feels true.