Caley Conway

There are moments in Caley Conway’s latest album, Partner, when the ever-busy Milwaukee singer-songwriter finds herself caught in the humdrum duties of daily life. There are things to do—or not—people to see—or not—and the ones and zeros of technology to attend to. And then, suddenly, she’s off and dreaming, belly laughing with a distant friend or considering taking up “the work of birds.” When she comes back down to Earth, more often than not, she finds bliss in a comforting middle ground. “There aren’t enough hours in the day, I’ve counted,” Conway sings early in the record, before slyly adding, “For loving you.”

Partner is Conway’s first full-length release since 2019’s Surrounded Middle. It’s wonderful to hear her luxuriate in the space afforded by these ten gorgeous and deliberately paced tracks. Her voice toggles between airy and light (“Sky Blue,” “Unforgettable”) and honeyed and warm (“Love Is Sex,” “Into The Screen Door”). Her delivery is conversational, close, and intimate, giving seemingly offhand lines like “I’m sure it’s nothing” the texture of a casually shared secret.

Recorded and realized in both Conway’s spare bedroom studio and Milwaukee’s increasingly invaluable Silver City Studios, Partner hums with the sound of some of the city’s finest musicians. Drummer Devin Drobka, upright bass player Barry Clark, harmony vocalist Ellie Jackson, and others flesh out Conway’s compositions and fold them into unexpected shapes. Nothing stands still for long, and even straightforward genre exercises often take off-kilter musical (and lyrical) turns.

Those looking for a single song that captures Partner’s pulse need look no further than the incredible “Singing Never.” A steady synth beat and Conway’s twinkling omnichord open the curtains on an early-morning scene of drowsy pleasure. “The morning buzzes in, stinging / But I’m sleeping selfishly with you,” she sings, declaring it her “favorite thing to do.” Soon she’s “free and dreaming,” fertilizing the Earth like a bird and contemplating her “second-favorite thing to do”: singing. But then, incredibly, she jumps ahead decades and imagines herself in her nineties. She’s dying, losing her “love and gladness, aunts to cancer, nerve to madness.” It’s in this distant and final future that Conway offers up her life’s work—not for judgment, but for simple acceptance. “I’ll submit my work to them / When I am dead and resting / And singing never” she concludes.

Thankfully she’s not there yet. Here, then, is Partner, as well as Conway herself, in dreams and elsewhere, submitted for acceptance. Alive and restless and singing forever.