JENNY ON HOLIDAY Quicksand Heart (Transgressive) — Jenny Hollingsworth contributed to a lot of deliriously odd music as part of the duo Let’s Eat Grandma. For her first solo outing, recording under the name Jenny on Holiday, she largely opts to keep things lighter and more direct. Simply look at the names of the two projects; they do tell the story. Jenny on Holiday is buoyant and bright. Any darker sensibilities are hidden in the joyful beats and punchy pop. Hollingsworth has definitely gone through some personal challenges in recent years, and this album plays like a homeopathic balm. A good read of the temperature is “Every Ounce of Me,” which is reminiscent of early solo work from Jane Wiedlin. Quicksand Heart might be comparatively straightforward, but that doesn’t means it’s always simple. “These Streets I Know” suggests True Colors–era Cyndi Lauper as produced by Kate Bush, and “Do You Still Believe in Me?” is structured around a thick, pulsing electro beat that builds to a tinging swirl of sound. At its best, the album sounds like a grand getaway that’s meant to last forever. Sink into the following cuts: “Good Intentions,” “Pacemaker,” and “Push.”

AMANDA BERGMAN Embrace for a Second As We Die (The Satchi Six & Arketyp) — There was an eight-year gap between Swedish singer-songwriter Amanda Bergman’s debut full-length, Docks, and its follow-up, Your Hand Forever Checking On My Fever. So the arrival of her third LP, Embrace for a Second As We Die, only a year-and-half after its predecessor feels like its rocketing off of a speeding conveyer belt. The compacted time doesn’t signal diminished quality. If anything, this might be her best work yet. Bergman says the songs were inspired by a new urgency that came from the scare of having Petter Winnberg, her spouse and musical collaborator, almost die in a car crash. The lyrics carry some of fretfulness that naturally emerged, but the music is far from mournful. “Groby” recalls the spectral, tingly folk of Rickie Lee Jones, and the album generally has a pristine lushness that is the province of acts such as the Blue Nile. “Is That How You Said You’d Be Gone” even sounds like Fleetwood Mac if Christine McVie had taken command and pushed the band to make their own The Hissing of Summer Lawns. “Never Known Like That” is beautifully spare in a manner that is familiar to fans of Bergman’s earlier recordings, which serves to accentuate the ways she’s expanded artistically. Only now could she craft “Common, Like the End.” It’s stately and warm at once, like Marianne Faithfull without the weathered weariness. Here’s to hoping that the next albums comes even faster. Embrace the following cuts: “Mexico,” “Sick of Time,” “A Mindless Dark,” and “The Moon in E Minor.”