Lovetune For Vacuum painted Anja Plaschg behind the shadows of her work. Veiled as Soap&Skin, Lovetune are like ghosts of memories for Plaschg, like entries in a notebook drafted in yearning and heartbreak about relationships gone wrong. With no intention of getting bigger than her work, songs like “Thanatos,” “Spiracle” and “Mr. Gaunt Pt 1000″ are towering ballads that measure the then teenager to a higher order among her contemporaries. She sounded serious and immediate, and Lovetune was in no time became a cult favorite for people that care less about the name but are big on art grandeur.
It took Plaschg three years to serve a follow-up for Lovetune. The events between that and her current release, the mini-album Narrow, grew bigger than the persona she has created as Soap&Skin and as a woman of immense intensity. The death of her father, her seclusion in Italy and her artistic quest arched up to the height that no other catharsis can fulfill than music. Narrow assumes Plaschg as a grown up dealing with wordily problems, most especially death and sorrow. These themes were explored in her debut; it is only that in Narrow she is less confessional but more moody and strangely relative.
Filed under: Album Commentaries, Review Soap&Skin Narrow, Soap&Skin Anja Plaschg Narrow, Soap&Skin Narrow Album Review, Soap&Skin Narrow Review, Soap&Skin Vater Wonder Boat Turns Toward The Port"
April 16, 2012 • 1:14 am 0
Beach House: Bloom
No introduction needed as to who Beach House are. We know who is Victoria Legrand with her equally important musical partner Alex Scally. Reigning throne bearer for dream pop circuit with the arrival of the important Teen Dream in 2010, Legrand and Scally defend the title with their latest Bloom. With a quarter of a million followers in Facebook, the mystery that looms over Legrand’s ethereal presence on stage and Scally’s shy-shoegazing appeal is a major key player in the band’s increasing popularity known to only few prior Teen Dream, and with Bloom the band is set for a wider audience.
Most of us, including this writer, has fallen in love with the fact how the first two records’ moodiness were shattered apart by the emotional honesty shown heard in Teen Dream. Not that the lyrics in that record were all out, the accessibility to the band’s music was heralded, much like gates opening to a showroom of vintage and potion. That openness grows further in Bloom, as heard in “Wild,” the second track after the earlier released “Myth” where Legrand opens with “My mother said to me that I would get in trouble/ our father won’t come home ’cause he is seeing double.” Comparing with how bleak yet emotionally attaching “Silver Soul” and “Zebra” are, the directness the band approach the songs in the latest record is a step up which occurs, too, in “Troublemaker” and “Other People” among others. It is clearly evident that Legrand took the time to hit the books and work on her narratives as compared to how Teen Dream‘s set was made in between tours.
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Filed under: Album Commentaries, Album Review Beach House Bloom, Beach House Album Review, Beach House Bloom Review, Review Beach House Bloom