Review: Sarah Elizabeth Charles’s ‘Dawn’

While it’s been done in pop, appearing noticeably pregnant on an album cover is a rarity for improvisation-based music. Indeed, vocalist and composer Sarah Elizabeth Charles’ Dawn (Ropeadope, 2025) may be one of the first. The album’s cover is striking – the artist in a stunning silhouette, leaving no doubt that she is indeed with child, and the compositions contained therein develop around that theme. Recorded in 2024 while she was six months pregnant with her second child, Dawn is Charles’s fifth album and reflects on birthing, loss, joy, grief, hope, and personal growth. In an even rarer move, she devotes a song to miscarriages. In another, she also recounts the 2020 loss of her brother, Luke. In short, it is a treatise on life, loss, and motherhood. The courage to be so vulnerable and courageous should not be a surprise to anyone familiar with Charles’s previous work as a strong advocate for gender justice, incarcerated individuals, and early childhood music education. Yet there remains something deeply personal about the recording.  

On the album, Charles appropriately fronts an all-female cast. Maya Keren contributes additional vocals and keyboards while Linda May Han Oh (bass), Savannah Harris (drums), Skye Steele (violin), and Marika Hughes (cello) round out the ensemble. Charles’s husband, Jarrett Cherner, constructed the string arrangements.

That steady rumbling heard in the opening “Rainbow J” comes from the recorded heartbeat of her younger son, Jaden. The voice of her older son, Tyler, is also interspersed into what is essentially a string-driven overture, replete with samples, loops, Charles’s wordless, layered vocals, and Harris’s mallets. “Ground” is a two-minute arco bass solo from Oh, that retains the ethereal quality of the opener with a solemn, perhaps prayerful tinge. Oh’s solo ends by presaging the melody of “Discovery,” a tune that begins with cinematic-like orchestral strings. Group members then seemingly enter one by one before the strings again swell behind Charles’s poignant lyrics about the birth of her first son. With “I can’t hold you / time to be true / time to be who you are,”  she speaks to both herself and him. “Miracle” is meditative, but like its predecessor, subtle nuances and layers in the accompanying music and string arrangement emerge as Charles sings about Tyler’s birth.

“Kick” depicts the full ensemble at work without Cherner’s string arrangement. It is a musical capture of the first sensation of Tyler’s in utero movements. Charles delivers ethereal echoes, pronounced scats, and challenging vocal techniques in addition to singing her lyrics (“Generations move through me”). Keren shines on the Rhodes while Steele and Hughes form compelling harmonics around the leader’s vocals.

The strings return for “Plans,” a piece about the unpredictability of birthing. Charles was unconscious for her son’s first moments and didn’t meet him until hours after birth. She recounts these personal moments herself as she expresses gratitude for the care she received. But she also acknowledges the realities of maternal health inequities, as racial minorities face disproportionately high rates of complications and preterm births in America. “Rainbow T” is the counterpart to the opener, creating that same mood replete with an in utero heartbeat, toddler expressions, and improvisation in slightly over two minutes.

In “Mother,” Charles breaks free of otherwise ethereal tones to sound more commanding and more like a pop singer as she celebrates the work, sacrifices, and other things all too often taken for granted in mothering children. Solos – very unpop-like by the way – from Keren, Oh, and Harris contribute to this uplifting piece. By contrast, the tone of “Angel Spark” is aptly mournful. Charles repurposes the song about miscarriage – of which she has had two; in her mind, both were daughters – that she originally recorded with her ensemble SCOPE. Cherner’s string arrangement frames the talents of Steele and Hughes, forming a crescendo toward the end as Charles sings, “Can you love a thing that never was? / Can you mourn anticipation lost? / Can you hold that love so close and let it go? / Oh, let it go.” The music then fades quietly behind Keren’s piano outro.

The closer “Questions” is the most reflective piece on the album. Charles duets with Oh, pondering the loss of her brother and the wonder of the new lives she has birthed. Love gone becomes love found in this mysterious cycle of life.

Few artists would have the courage to make themselves as vulnerable to the listener as Charles does here. Dawn is a compelling, singular, and deeply memorable project.

‘Dawn’ is out now on Ropeadope Records. It can be purchased on Bandcamp.