Locate S,1 [Sky Blue]

From teddy grahams to pussy hats, California forest fires to cash cabs, the stuff of American nostalgia and horror adorns a personal reckoning on Christina Schneider's triumphant third album as Locate S, 1. With a name culled from a Daschel Hammitt noir novel, Wicked Jaw pulls from wildly disparate references and textures to survey the history of American pop music. The Athens, Georgia based songwriter, producer, and virtuosic pop connoisseur authored the album over two years while beginning treatment for childhood sexual abuse by a relative. "I was using these songs as an expression valve for all of these different parts (of myself) that I was trying to integrate, " she explained. The result is a surprisingly tender and often jubilant set of conversations with the ghosts of painful memories, Schneider transforming her metaphysical scars into gleaming armor as she redefines herself on her own terms. Following 2020's Personalia, an album Schneider created in collaboration with producer and romantic partner Kevin Barnes (Of Montreal) - where reviews often displaced credit for Schneider's intricate electropop to Barnes - Wicked Jaw finds Schneider decidedly and unequivocally at the helm, as the album's sole producer. It's a stylistic departure from Personalia in many ways, beyond personnel. Spanning decades and genres from doowop to cold wave, disco to soft rock, Wicked Jaw has the vitality of full band tracking at it's core. Wicked Jaw both is and isn't a pandemic album. The dystopic terror of COVID-19 is an omnipresent touchpoint in the songs, which Schneider began writing in the summer of 2020, but the virus functions as a gateway for interpersonal analysis and reflection. What does it mean to be an American in the 21st century? What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a survivor? Schneider digs tunnels into collective memory on songs like "Go Back to Disnee, " a devastating bossa nova track that could soundtrack an episode of White Lotus. Wicked Jaw offers a similar therapeutic release upon repeat listens as it did for Schneider when she wrote it. It's a portrait of commanding and loving resilience in the face of victimization and apocalyptic doom. The potency of these songs resides not in their grasping toward the heavens, seeking escape or transcendence, but rather from digging in the dirt, sitting with it, and really seeing the worms and rot and entropy in vivid technicolor. "This is about me, but I hope other people relate to it, " Scheider said. "I have all these emotional problems that make me react like a fucking monster, but that is also forged by my experience and there's something there that I can be proud of, that's part of my survival. I can't just cut the head off - I have to integrate it into myself."