Census Designated

In a press release announcing the album, Remover detailed that her time on a cross-country road trip which featured a "near-death experience" inspired much of the material included on the project; when Remover had to stop in John Day, Oregon during the trip due to a blizzard,[5] she felt as though the incident was a "reality check" that made her "want to stop ruining things for [herself]".[6]

Remover cites the music of American singer-songwriter Ethel Cain, specifically her album Preacher's Daughter (2022), as another source of inspiration for material included on Census Designated; the song "Cage Girl", which Remover revealed was originally "a demo that [she] made in an hour" for a creative writing class, is a favorite of Cain's.[4]

While working on the album, which Remover describes as a "darker, more difficult" and "straight up rock" project, she felt the need "to make something else, ... to make something better" with every successive track that was recorded. The second half of the album is largely based on "nightmares" Remover fears will materialize in her own life, and tracks "Census Designated", "Video", and "Contingency Song" are "told through the lens of relationships"; "Video", specifically, tells the story of a woman who becomes infatuated with a man she watched "play with himself online", before he "ends up taking advantage of her" when the two finally meet outside of the Internet.[4]

Census Designated was recorded in both New Jersey and at Studio North in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,[2] over the course of roughly a year and a half. Additionally, Remover handled the album's production herself.[1]

Following the release of her debut studio album, Frailty, Remover felt conflicted over the vocal performances included on the project; criticism directed at the album's recording quality prompted her to "[try] and clean ... up in all aspects" while working on Census Designated. In an interview with Stereogum's Ian Cohen, Remover shared that she re-recorded the track "Lips" roughly 100 times because she was unsatisfied with each vocal take, and this desire to continually re-record the song persisted into the album's mixing stage. During the mixing process, Remover oversaw this aspect of the production in-person to ensure that it was "as perfect as it [could] be" before the album was released.[4]

The album's artwork was shot by American photographer Brendon Burton,[1] and depicts Remover standing alone in an "enormous" field with her back towards the camera as she faces the remnants of a dilapidated house. Speaking with LGBT magazine Them, Remover explained that she chose this picture to serve as the cover art because it represents Census Designated's overarching "of age" theme. When interviewer Emma Madden posed that the empty house featured prominently in the image might embody emotions related to "feeling further away from home", Remover welcomed the idea and expressed her intention for "a lot of the material on this album to be up for interpretation", while also noting that the suggestion "wasn't what [she] was going for" personally.[7]

Census Designated was supported by four singles. "Cage Girl", which serves as the first half of the album's opening track, was initially released as a demo on SoundCloud in April 2022[4] before being officially released alongside the non-album single "Royal Blue Walls"[lower-alpha 1] on June 27, 2022.[9] "Contingency Song" was released as the album's second single on November 16;[10] however, the album features an alternate version of the song.[6] "Lips" was announced alongside the album itself and released as the third single on August 23, 2023.[6] The album's title track, "Census Designated", was released as the fourth and final single on September 20. It was accompanied by the first-ever music video from Remover, directed by her labelmate Quadeca.[11]

The album was leaked in Japan days before its release; in response, Remover shared that experiencing her previous projects, Frailty and Teen Week (2021), being spread online before their respective release dates made her accustomed to the reality of music leaking prematurely.[4]

Pitchfork's Kieran Press-Reynolds described Census Designated as "a feverish mutation of shoegaze and bedroom pop" which showcases Remover's evolution from the bitcrushed vocals and sample-heavy production of Teen Week to that of her "newly expressive style ... [weaving] lattices of vocal clips and skitters between inflections" over tracks characterized as "[scratchy] and serrated". Press-Reynolds goes on to note that he felt certain songs "stretch out for too long" and that, collectively, the album is not as sonically pleasing as Frailty. Still, he argues that the "mountainous unfurling" present throughout the project's ten tracks offers an overall "immersive" experience and calls it Remover's "most poignant and piercing music" to date.[14]

Spencer Nafekh-Blanchette of Exclaim! found the album to be "[retrospective] and [tranquil]" compared to the "contagious energy" present throughout Remover's previous releases; her "subtler and more nuanced sound", he explains, results in a project filled with "droning soundscapes that are equally as noisy but significantly more ambient and meditative". Touching on the album's length, Nafekh-Blanchette calls it potentially the only "truly divisive element" of what is otherwise Remover's "most cohesive work yet". However, he also suggests that Census Designated lacks the "unpredictability" of projects like Dariacore (2021), Remover's mashup album released under the pseudonym Leroy, which made her "earlier work so undeniably one-of-a-kind".[12]

All tracks are written and produced by Jane Remover.

Musicians

• Douglas Dulgarian – additional guitar, bass (2–7, 9)
• Kale Itkonen – additional synths (6)

Technical

• Kayla Reagan – mixing (1–9)
• Jane Remover – mixing (10)
• Hector Vega – mastering (all tracks)

Artwork

• Brendon Burton – cover art, photography

• Official website
• Census Designated at Discogs