In The Wild is a departure from Jasmyn's work with Weaves, but a pleasant one and a listen that is full of surprises. Her work as the vocalist of the previously mentioned Toronto band has its merits, but you can really feel her voice straining against the stylistic constraints of the group. She has a unique and dynamic talent and it's cool that we finally get to hear its full range of versatility on her debut solo record. She sounds free here, as if we are encountering her in her natural state, hence the title, In The Wild. Jasmyn's voice is obviously the star of the record, matching Karen O's expressive quiver in both tone and choice of inflection, and using it like a velvet glove cast in iron to tame a tiger made of precarious vacillating melodies whose holler harkens back to the deflating structure of Beat Happening and The Microphones, turned over on their heads and drunk on the juice of Moldy Peaches. This might all make In the Wild sound like a folk record, but it's not. It's a pop record through and through, but Jasmyn's vocal work is possessed of a quaking tension that resembles that which was perfected by early '10s anti-folk and wobbly-legged Olympian indie rock, and pretty much no one since. Despite the teeter quality of her voice, Jasmyn really manages to make these songs soar, especially on the title track "In The Wild," where it sounds like she's running full speed off the ledge of a cliff while holding on to a pair of wings made out of old copies of NME and miraculously gliding like a gull once she's out of runway, swooping around the landscape on the bluster of a psychedelic updraft. The combination of folky strumming, workman-like rhythms, danceable synth imprints, and willful drum machine patterns featured on the record have a Magnetic Feilds kind of vibe to them, an electric indie pop backdrop that Jasmyn full utilizes to sell the drama of her music, and which lends to tracks like "Blank Paper" and "Crystal Ball" an air of lowkey majesty that would otherwise only seem possible in the event of a Santigold and Stephin Merritt team up. The fluidity of the disparate aspects of this record gracefully intertwining so perfectly leaves me with the impression that this In the Wild was meant to be in some cosmic sense, and as a result, you can probably map out who would enjoy this album based in part on their astrological sign. If you decide to undertake such a task, just don't forget to include me in the chart somewhere in the "greatly appreciates" section. Btw, my sign is [REDACTED].
