Emerson, Avalon & The Charm: Written Into Changes (transparent red vinyl) LP

Change, they say, is the only constant in life. Fittingly, multi-hyphenate musician Avalon Emerson sounds at home harnessing the steady flux of her existence on "Written Into Changes", the memoiristic second album released under her Avalon Emerson & The Charm moniker. A work of rigorous invention and revision, the album's themes of personal and relationship evolution "came into clarity after they were all done", according to Emerson. While their debut album album was, in Emerson's words, "soft and bedroomy", the energy was upped this time around, as Emerson carefully considered how this material would work in a live context. The resulting body of work is band-driven but groove-heavy and dance-adjacent. "Written Into Changes" is an album about not just accepting change, but embracing it with a full wingspan. Progression is a theme both on record and behind the scenes, so that "written into changes" describes a conscious approach to expression and life itself.