A lush, dancefloor-informed pop record that doesn’t shy away from getting personal and introspective.
Release date: March 20, 2026 | Dead Oceans | Website | Bandcamp | Instagram
This past summer, me and my partner celebrated our tenth anniversary of living in Berlin, which led me down a path of inevitable nostalgia and reminiscing. We both moved here together from a much smaller city, and, like countless newcomers before us, were enthralled by the seemingly endless local clubbing options. Our first few years after the move are a blur of humid dancefloors, endless afterhours, and countless weekends spent losing ourselves to breezy minimal house or cavernous techno (among other things). Fast forward a few years, and we are now expecting our first child, and frequenting clubs much less often. Hell, these days I can actually remember most weekends.
Our story is certainly not unique when it comes to people in their thirties, and many of our friends and long-time dancefloor buddies here have been going through a similar changing of seasons in their lives recently. But though this transitional period has made itself felt in my little bubble of life, while the world around me has felt like a giant garbage fire over the last six years, I struggled to find the right framework for coming to terms with this liminal stage I am going through. Sure, switching toilet queues for baby stroller shopping isn’t the meatiest subject matter, but with so many people going through it, it felt strangely absent from the general cultural discourse, bar the occasional online feature highlighting a famous DJ’s move to a sober lifestyle, sprinkled with some sheep farming (I’m looking at you, Blawan).
What I needed was someone that gets it. Someone who spent endless hours behind or in front of a DJ booth, still loves it, but now finds themselves in a similar in-between phase of life. And I needed that someone to write music about it, because sometimes you need songs that make you feel seen when you’re looking at nursery wallpapers in Ikea and the urge to check who’s playing the closing set at your favourite club makes your fingertips tingle. Dear reader, I have found that someone. And her name is Avalon Emerson.
If you’re like me (and if you stuck around after my getting-too-old-for-clubbing monologue, I’m guessing you are), you’ll know Avalon Emerson is a maverick, creative DJ; Panorama Bar resident; and a constant presence in Berlin’s nightlife landscape. If you also had the pleasure of catching some of her sets, you know that she has a playful, uplifting approach to stitching together older deep cuts with newer sounds, and she probably dropped some edits that made you laugh and hug random people out of sheer delight.
What you might not know, though, is that she also leads a band called The Charm, with whom she’s let her encyclopedic knowledge of pop music from the past fifty years come to the fore as a songwriter, composer, and singer. After releasing a debut album in 2023 (simply titled Avalon Emerson & The Charm), the band dropped their second album, Written Into Changes, in March 2026, delivering a breezy collection of lush, introspective pop songs right in time for spring. And though no sheep can be found on the album cover, its depiction of Emerson handling a falcon in the middle of a marshy field is a pretty strong indicator of the changes the album title eludes too (especially if you’ve read one or two of the aforementioned DJ-goes-farmlife pieces in recent years).
Describing this album as a pop record, to be fair, does it both a disservice and a favor. On the one hand, it betrays just how rich of a musical tapestry it is, with songs crafted by a group of musicians that pull from so many different directions: synth-pop, disco, funk, house, folk, and country. The songs here are full to the brim with musical ideas and brilliant little flourishes that do so much more than just provide a backdrop to the catchy melodies and hooks. The production work here, done by Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend fame, is outstanding. The mix just sounds rich and juicy, perfect for repeated headphone listening to get really immersed in all the little touches each song throws at you.
On the other hand, Emerson is not your typical pop singer. Her voice is timid and somewhat flat, and it sometimes holds back the more soaring choruses, leaving some emotional money on the proverbial table, and taking away some of the breakthrough potential these songs have. At times, this comes off as a stylistic choice, done to keep the record at a more low-key register. But at other points throughout the record, it makes you wish a bigger vocal presence could take the lead on some of these songs, because some of these hooks just fall short of really sweeping you off your feet.
Beyond just the vocals, the record was tracked in England during the winter, except for the synths and a couple of the songs, which were recorded in California. This duality is a constant throughout the album, and despite my misgivings regarding some of the vocal choices, this ambivalence gives the record its unique, self-assured yet undecided character.
Lyrically, the album reads like a collection of songs written for lovers past and present, with bitter-sweet stories of seeking connection despite the challenges, growing up and coming to terms with changes, and looking back at past mistakes. Where it really excels, in my view, is in how it tackles deep, painful truths in a gentle and warm manner, never standing at odds with the music. Even when throwing serrated jabs at her life, like ‘Too young to die / Too old to break through‘ (“Happy Birthday”), or ‘Stuck on the ground / I might as well be in the dirt‘ (“How Dare This Beer”), Emerson and the band keep the record going in a direction that works well for both dancing with your friends, and singing to yourself while walking down the street. Like the best pop records, there’s some dancing with tears in your eyes moments, but it’s always warm, usually self-effacing, and comes with a big dose of empathy.
In many ways, Written Into Changes is the quintessential millennial record. It permeates with nostalgia, grappling with topics like growing up and leaving the old version of yourself behind, but it does it all while dancing. It throws constant musical cues that make your ears perk up, embracing everything from Suzanne Vega (the hum that opens the record and “Eden”) and The Carpenters, to Angelo Badalamenti (the synths at the start of “Country Mouse” invoke the Twin Peaks theme in a big way) and Daft Punk (on “God Damn (Finito)”, where Emerson’s DJ background really shines through). And it’s not afraid of being multiple things at once, because it knows that sound, like life, is often most interesting in the in-between moments, when you’re not really a dancefloor record, but you’re also not quite a pop record yet. Or a parent, for that matter. And while it goes through all its changes and phases, and Emerson tries to hold all her different lives in her arms, one thing is a constant: we’re all pretty lucky to be along for the ride.
