Census Designated

Census Designated is the second studio album by the American musician Jane Remover. It was released through DeadAir Records on October 20, 2023. The album is a follow-up to Remover's debut studio album, Frailty (2021). It was supported by the release of four singles: "Cage Girl", "Contingency Song", "Lips", and "Census Designated", which were released throughout 2022 and 2023.

Background
In a press release announcing the album, Remover detailed that her time on a cross-country road trip, which featured a "near-death experience", inspired much of the material included on the project; when Remover had to stop in John Day, Oregon during the trip due to a blizzard, she felt as though the incident was a "reality check" that made her "want to stop ruining things for [herself]".

Style and composition
Remover cites the music of American singer-songwriter Ethel Cain, namely her album Preacher's Daughter (2022), as another source of inspiration for material included on Census Designated; the song "Cage Girl", which Remover revealed was originally "a demo that [she] made in an hour" for a creative writing class, is a favorite of Cain's.

In describing the album as "darker, more difficult" and "straight up rock", Remover shared that while work on the project progressed, she felt the need "to make something else, ... to make something better" with each successive track that was recorded. The second half of the album is largely based on "nightmares" Remover fears will materialize in her own life, and tracks "Census Designated", "Video", and "Contingency Song" are "told through the lens of relationships"; "Video", specifically, tells the story of a woman who becomes infatuated with a man she watched "play with himself online", before he "ends up taking advantage of her" when the two finally meet outside of the Internet.

Recording and production
Census Designated was recorded in both New Jersey and at Studio North in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, over the course of roughly a year and a half. Additionally, Remover handled the album's production herself.

Following the release of her debut studio album, Frailty, Remover felt conflicted over the vocal performances included on the project; criticism directed at the album's recording quality prompted her to "[try] and clean ... up in all aspects" while working on Census Designated. In an interview with Stereogum's Ian Cohen, Remover shared that she re-recorded the track "Lips" roughly 100 times because she was unsatisfied with each vocal take, and this desire to continually re-record the song persisted into the album's mixing stage. During the mixing process, Remover oversaw this aspect of the production in-person to ensure that it was "as perfect as it [could] be" before the album was released.

Artwork
The album's artwork was shot by American photographer Brendon Burton, and depicts Remover standing alone in a field with her back towards the camera as she faces the remnants of a dilapidated house. Speaking with LGBT magazine Them, Remover explained that she chose this picture to serve as the cover art because it represents Census Designated's overarching "of age" theme. When interviewer Emma Madden posed that the empty house featured prominently in the image might embody emotions related to "feeling further away from home", Remover welcomed the idea and expressed her intention for "a lot of the material on this album to be up for interpretation", while also noting that the suggestion "wasn't what [she] was going for" personally.

Promotion and release
Census Designated was supported by four singles. "Cage Girl", which serves as the first half of the album's opening track, was initially released as a demo on SoundCloud in April 2022 before being officially released alongside the non-album single "Royal Blue Walls" on June 27, 2022. "Contingency Song" was released as the album's second single on November 16; however, the album features an alternate version of the song. "Lips" was announced alongside the album itself and released as the third single on August 23, 2023. The album's title track, "Census Designated", was released as the fourth and final single on September 20. It was accompanied by the first-ever music video from Remover, directed by her labelmate Quadeca.

The album was leaked in Japan days before its release; in response, Remover shared that she has become accustomed to the reality of music leaking prematurely after experiencing her previous projects, Frailty and Teen Week (2021), being spread online before their respective release dates. On October 31, Remover announced that she would be co-headlining the Designated Dreams Tour with her labelmate Quannnic, starting in February 2024. The tour saw the two artists travel across the United States to perform a total of 12 shows.

Critical reception
Pitchfork's Kieran Press-Reynolds described Census Designated as "a feverish mutation of shoegaze and bedroom pop" which showcases Remover's evolution from the bitcrushed vocals and sample-heavy production of Teen Week to that of her "newly expressive style ... [weaving] lattices of vocal clips and skitters between inflections" over tracks characterized as "[scratchy] and serrated". Press-Reynolds goes on to note that he felt certain songs "stretch out for too long" and that, collectively, the album is not as sonically pleasing as Frailty. Still, he argues that the "mountainous unfurling" present throughout the project's ten tracks offers an overall "immersive" experience and calls it Remover's "most poignant and piercing music" to date.

Spencer Nafekh-Blanchette of Exclaim! found the album to be "[retrospective] and [tranquil]" compared to the "contagious energy" present throughout Remover's previous releases; her "subtler and more nuanced sound", he explains, results in a project filled with "droning soundscapes that are equally as noisy but significantly more ambient and meditative". Touching on the album's length, Nafekh-Blanchette calls it potentially the only "truly divisive element" of what is otherwise Remover's "most cohesive work yet". However, he also suggests that Census Designated lacks the "unpredictability" of projects like Dariacore (2021), Remover's mashup album released under the pseudonym Leroy, which made her "earlier work so undeniably one-of-a-kind".

Track listing
All tracks are written and produced by Jane Remover.

Personnel
Musicians
 * Douglas Dulgarian – additional guitar, bass (2–7, 9)
 * Kale Itkonen – additional synths (6)

Technical
 * Kayla Reagan – mixing (1–9)
 * Jane Remover – mixing (10)
 * Hector Vega – mastering (all tracks)

Artwork
 * Brendon Burton – cover art, photography