To: Those who’ve given up on finding music for the drive home
If your curated playlists are getting stale, indulge with me for a bitby Hannah Demerrittepublished 03/20/26
If your curated playlists are getting stale, indulge with me for a bitby Hannah Demerrittepublished 03/20/26
In her album, Drive Home, Portraits of Tracy (abbreviated as POT) takes us on a hypnotic musical journey that records the conquest of becoming.
POT brings us into the life of Junie, a protagonist whose life is wrought with chaos despite their success. Their eventual unraveling lies within the past presence suggested by the album’s title, allowing them to traverse the chaos of their life upon returning home. The journey home feels like one they must travail through, from “Aeternum” expressing the jadedness of Junie’s current life, as successful as it may be, to sustaining tense notes of escapism in “The Afterparty.” Throughout the album, POT uses a harmonic choir of their own voice, distorted in its effect, to amplify feelings of running away (listen to “Home”) or losing one's mind (listen to “Found!”). The “skits” (for lack of a better term), portray familial tension, constructing the “homescape” in which Junie faces the issues they thought they had left behind (listen to “Aeternum”). This dysfunction followed them throughout their lives and their fatal mistake was coming back home in an
attempt to reconcile. While examining this album, I found that POT requires us to attune our ears to the subtleties within language or a song’s shift in tonality (refer to “Graceland”). Unfortunately, there is no resolution for the protagonist of this album, as it ends with their own death. POT brings us into the life of Junie, a protagonist whose life is wrought with chaos despite their success. Their eventual unraveling lies within the past presence suggested by the album’s title, allowing them to traverse the chaos of their life upon returning home. The journey home feels like one they must travail through, from “Aeternum” expressing the jadedness of Junie’s current life, as successful as it may be, to sustaining tense notes of escapism in “The Afterparty.” Throughout the album, POT uses a harmonic choir of their own voice, distorted in its effect, to amplify feelings of running away (listen to “Home”) or losing one's mind (listen to “Found!”). The “skits” (for lack of a better term), portray familial tension, constructing the “homescape” in which Junie faces the issues they thought they had left behind (listen to “Aeternum”). This dysfunction followed them throughout their lives and their fatal mistake was coming back home in an
I don’t view this ending as the finality of Junie’s life, Sabina Spielrein was a physician and psychoanalyst, who suggests destruction must occur in order to reach our current state. “Destruction as the Cause of Becoming” resonates with the feelings of escapism that envelops Junie. I reject the album’s closure through Spielrein’s analysis of “endings.” “To bury” and “to dig” in German share the stem, graben, oblivion becomes a part of the act of creation as it materializes life through burial. Junie’s tragic ending creates possibilities within listeners’ ears; their story allows others to seek refuge within the album. Aeterum (refer to the third song on the album) in Latin translates to eternal; this work will remain immortal in the minds of those who listened.
The Party, POT's most streamed song, reached the ears of notable artists who’ve acknowledged the project, casting her music onto a wider audience, which eventually got my attention. Sitting with this album for over a month has bonded me to the sound of POT and I will eagerly await their next project.
This oeuvre demands space, Portraits of Tracy is writing and sounding the lives of our generation and deserves our full attention as they continue to chart their own path.
Hannah Demerritte (RISD Glass 28’)