English painter and musician Joanne Robertson
(based in Glasgow)
debuted with the spartan folk tunes of The Lighter (2008).
She then joined the Bo Khat Eternal Troof Family Band which included
Dean Blunt and
released three albums:
Bo Khat Eternal Troof Family Band (2009),
#005 (2009),
and Infinity (2010).
Joanne Robertson launched a solo career in earnest with her
second solo album,
Black Moon Days (2015), a set of timid lullabies for voice and guitar.
With the exception of the shoegazing Hi Watt, the songs tiptoe into
the subconscious, light as feathers,
gentle and bucolic like Out and
Black Moon Days
or ethereal and dilated like Curve and
Grams.
Faithful to that format that featured only
her dreamy vocals and her barely strummed acoustic guitar,
she pushed it to the extreme on Wildflower (2016).
Here the songs become
fragile slocore melodies full of existential suspense like Late at Night and Wait Your Turn,
somnolent "stoned" litanies like Dance with me and Heven
This album marked a major leap forward in originality.
The eight-song mini-album Wahalla (2017) was a collaboration with Dean Blunt.
She also joined In My Darkest Hour that released only one album: Lady in White (2017).
Unreleased solo recordings spanning a decade appeared on
the six-song mini-album Painting Stupid Girls (2020), notably the seven-minute
Peacecraft,
and on
Blue Car (2023).
The songs are in line with the pure folkish style of her beginnings,
songs of extreme fragility (like standout Take Me In),
delivered by the
sweetest voice (like Band Sit Together and Crossroads).
And so
Little Talkin Do You Know and
the six-minute Street Empty are only atmosphere, impressionistic
portraits of loneliness.
There is an ancestral, almost hymn-like quality to songs like Days
that seem to materialize out of a spiritual enlightenment.
Backstage Raver (2024) was another collaboration with Dean Blunt.
Blurrr (2025) is the real follow-up to
Wildflower, i.e another set of humble elegies.
The dilated melodies Why Me and Always Were are probably the
closest things to her soul.
Standout Ghost feels like just a distant echo of a song.
The whispered Peaceful barely registers but it leaves a profound impression.
The poor domestic recording of the seven-minute Friendly makes it more authentic but ultimately detracts from its emotional power.
