An acclaimed composer, Isobel Waller-Bridge‘s recent commissions include 2024’s original work for the American Ballet Theatre for their new production of ‘Crime and Punishment’ alongside ‘Temperatures’ for the Philharmonia Orchestra, which premiered at the Royal Festival Hall in November 2021. She has also collaborated with fashion houses Alexander McQueen and Simone Rocha, scored installations at Frieze London and Venice Biennale, and partnered with Francesca Hayward, principal ballerina at the Royal Opera House, for her dance film ‘Siren.’
Her new solo album, Objects, feels like stepping into a room where sound itself remembers how to breathe. It’s a quiet, deliberate unravelling of everyday textures, hoovers, cushions, scraps of tape, reshaped into something strangely tender. You can tell these pieces were made in stolen pockets of time. They carry that hush, that sense of someone working slowly and curiously while the rest of the world rushes past.
The lead single Hoover shows this best. What could have been a gimmick becomes a kind of sonic meditation: buzzing air, ASMR grittiness, gentle electronics folding around a pulse that never quite settles. It’s playful, but there’s clarity in it too, like watching dust swirl in a sunbeam. Pillow, the opener, moves in the opposite direction, lush, cinematic, heavy with the kind of stillness that almost vibrates. It sets the emotional temperature for everything that follows.
Elsewhere on the album, Waller-Bridge takes a meditative turn, as in Cushion, using rich synths to create a tranquil atmosphere. Another highlight is ‘Objective Contemplation,’ which features more traditional instrumentation, including a small ensemble of viola, bass clarinet, cello, tenor saxophone, double bass, and trombone, creating a lush, blissful sphere. The minimalistic HZ, the record’s most experimental track, is hypnotically beautiful. Over the eight minutes of its duration, you can’t help but be drawn into the rich, layered binaural frequencies
Across the album, Waller-Bridge leans into simplicity without ever flattening the mystery. Objects isn’t just ambient or minimalist; it’s a quiet study in presence that lingers long after it ends.
