There's something about Tirzah's off-kilter R&B-ish LP Devotion, from 2018 — something that feels so contingent, partial, delicate — that reminds, hear me out, of Chet Baker's vocal 'cool jazz' sides from the 1950s.
Those are whimsical, fey records that perhaps you discovered by accident, probably when young; and which strike you, as they were intended to, as sounding completely concerned with being completely indifferent whether you or anyone else like them. Like a teenager playing it cool, they take a too-polished insouciance to standards like "It's Always You", or "But Not For Me", or "Time After Time", or "I Get Along Without You Very Well". Etc.
Much of the same affect, on Tirzah’s debut album, Devotion, is assuredly in Tirzah Mastin's delivery, as described in Mark Matousek's not-at-all-positive review on PopMatters: "[the tracks] feel like diagrams of love songs, performed with a sort of tired resignation. ... [Mastin] sings in a drowsy, affectless manner. Her lyrics could be addressed to anyone or no one at all." So, exactly.
Mica Levi's production has next to nothing in common with those ancient West Coast jazz sides but it does have some of the same opacity; and a fine-craftedness that is incomplete yet seems to ask nothing of the listener. "Basic Need", for example: its janky, crystalline intro gulped down into a burpy, bassy envelope of a song; the flighty distance and unsolace in Mastin's voice unjoined above. It sounds like a song that has been running for years without you, and will for years yet.