Frailty (Jane Remover album)

Frailty is the debut studio album by the American musician Jane Remover, released through DeadAir Records on November 12, 2021, under her former stage name, Dltzk. The album was supported by the release of three singles: "How to Lie", "Pretender", and "Search Party". A hyperpop, EDM, and emo record, Frailty was recorded within six to seven months in Remover's childhood bedroom using FL Studio and an acoustic guitar. Many of the experiences brought up in the album reference Remover's issues with her mental and physical health. The album was positively received by critics.

Background and recording
In a 2022 interview with Pitchfork, Remover stated that she chose the album's title because "[she] think[s] 'frailty' means both weakness in the body and the mind". A lot of the experiences mentioned on the album happened "during a time when [she] was physically and mentally not well". In a 2023 interview with The Fader, she described the album as "walking in your neighborhood the morning after you graduate high school, when it’s sunny and a little bit cold".

Frailty was recorded in Remover's childhood bedroom in the span of six to seven months. She had to wait for her family to leave the house before recording vocals for the album. Remover produced the entire album using the digital audio workstation FL Studio and an acoustic guitar, although she didn't know how to play the guitar prior to making the album. She recorded one string of the guitar at a time, using a "learn-as-you-go" recording process.

The album is intended to sound pixelated and noisy, like a Nintendo DS video game soundtrack. Remover accomplished this by using a bitcrusher to lower the audio resolution to become "charmingly fuzzy".

Composition
About the album, Remover stated, "I'm finally making the music I've wanted to make since I was 9". Frailty has been described as being, or influenced by, digicore, indie rock, hyperpop, emo, emo-electronic, EDM, glitch pop, and dariacore (a microgenre invented by Remover). The record's sound was partly inspired by the soundtracks of video games Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, Pokémon Black and White, and Undertale. "Kodak Moment" was described by Kieran Press-Reynolds of Insider as being especially apparent of its video game influence, noting "the outro's yearning piano notes and breezy electronic ambiance evoke the bittersweetness of the "Emotion" theme from Black and White".

Remover was also influenced by artists such as Skrillex and Porter Robinson. Remover stated that her "biggest inspirations as of today are my friends". As Grant Sharples of Paste explains, Remover's influences are "scattered throughout, but [the album] remains Remover's show first and foremost".

Artwork
The album's artwork features a grainy and JPEG damaged photo of a house with two people sitting and a parked car in front. It is a screenshot Remover took from Google Maps while making the album. The house is located in Wakita, Oklahoma at 1461 Locust Street. About the artwork, Remover stated, "I thought it was cool how the people in the photo are looking at the camera. And just the way the house looks. Everything felt ominous, but also familiar—like what I see when I go on my walks just outside of my house".

Before choosing the current artwork, she searched across the United States on Google Maps to find "cool stuff" to screenshot, including highways. Originally, the album's artwork was a screenshot of a place located in North Dakota with a bus in the front yard, but was scrapped due to the screenshot being low quality.

Release and promotion
The album was available for a limited time on CD and cassette upon its initial release. It was later re-released on CD and cassette in 2022, following Remover's name change. The album was issued on vinyl for the first time on May 4, 2023. It was reissued on pink vinyl exclusively through deadAir Records on October 20th, 2023, and was later sold through multiple online retailers on February 9th, 2024.

Critical reception
Frailty received positive reviews from Pitchfork, Paste, and Anthony Fantano. Mano Sundaresan of Pitchfork praised the album for its "adventurous" blend of genres, and wrote that the album's "tracks blur together with seamless transitions". Grant Sharples of Paste also praised the blend of influences and styles. He stated "Frailty is a testament to the power of genre and how everything we consume inevitably infiltrates our psyche". Online music critic Anthony Fantano referred to the album as "consistently creative and impressive".

Frailty was ranked at 47 on Pitchfork's list of the best albums of 2021 and placed on their list of 2021's best progressive pop music, with writer Cat Zhang writing that Frailty is "more melodically-minded and refined than [her] previous work". It also placed on Paste's list of the year's 30 best debut albums, with Sharples praising Frailty for being "coherent yet ambitious, focused yet towering".

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


 * All tracks are stylized in all lowercase.