love aggregates

Asher White is prolific. She’d put out two dozen records on Bandcamp before Home Constellation Study got her noticed in 2024, and this February she released a full-album cover of Jessica Pratt’s self-titled debut, which I wrote about in April. Love Aggregates was written as a long relationship fell apart, though White has said she was wary of making a breakup record.

It’s a beguiling album, and a lot of that is down to White’s gift for songs that turn in unexpected directions, with melodies lovely enough that the turns make sense. The lyrics range from the lovelorn ‘White Castle sad’, which is also the song closest to Pratt, to ‘Jerryboy’, which details the birth of Jerry Garcia. ‘Nightingale Version (Sailor’s Moon)’ is a standout, one of several songs that recall recent power-pop successes like This Is Lorelei. Sonically it’s adventurous: trumpet, trombone and violin on ‘My day at the casino’, more violin on ‘Atoll’, and White’s own experiments with field recordings and omnichord.

The running order is as unpredictable as the songs. It rewards your full attention. The energy spikes in odd places, and a sound gets set aside for something different, then picked up again a few songs later. ‘Stage Diva’, the obvious single, is the album in miniature: catchy as hell at either end, while the middle drops the tune and most of the instruments for a breakdown. Naturally, it’s placed at track ten of eleven.