The name Montaigne ought sound familiar, it’s taken from the massively influential writer. It’s obvious that the artist Montaigne, the project of Jessica Cerro, a musician from Sydney, Australia, takes endless influence from her chosen namesake. In Life of Montaigne, she uses minimal production and a blend of punchy acoustic sounds to create a style that I think very closely mirrors the thoughts splays out. They’re a little bit noisy and disjunct by design, particularly in I’m a Fantastic Wreck the song plays up the lyricism with strange instrumental quirks out of rhythm and tune. She wrote Life of Montaigne only a year or two out of high school, possessing extremely coherent style and voice for such a young musician. More recently she released her debut album, Glorious Heights, which is a slight departure from her previous work. It has more weight to its production albeit with some callbacks to her earlier style such as Consolation Prize. Glorious Heights employs more experimentation as on In The Dark, and a generally broader use of electronic instrumentation. Some of the pieces, namely the album titled track, are distinctly reminiscent of Florence and the Machine, with the album as a whole setting its tone as quite grand in comparison with her previous EP and pieces like I Am Behind You that are simply beautiful pieces of music.

TL;DR Montaigne’s minimalism, experimental risk, thoughtfulness, and talent are something to appreciate.

-A