Soap&Skin Lovetune for Vacuum. This person is young, very young and as such is still at some points quite ridiculous as is the wont of the adolescent and so the story surrounding the selection of her recording alias is best left untouched. Surely she believes her reasoning is profound and meaningful and undoubtedly she believes the reason for the existence of this music is pure catharsis. The story isn't, not really, and if the music is therapy who cares because it sounds grand. But let not a future of young girls and boys carving soap and skin into their forearms with a pen knife deter you or prevent this from being treasured as most marvelous. There doesn't seem to be much arable property between the vague and the vulgarly personal these days. There is either a random free association of references that do not add up to coherence(see this entry) or 'my wounded existenstialism laid bare' sensibility to modern "art". Apparently this person is hotly tipped by people like the Guardian so my own transformation into cultural skimmer as filtered by the staff recommendations at Borders books is ongoing. First track is thumping piano and ambience and a stern, hollowed out vocal, very very nice. Second track now, more piano, softer, more reminiscent of say Nocturne? Ha, I have no idea. The feel compels and her voice detached, Piana-esque, pitched higher, more "alien"/Japanese and a solitary whistle and rustic music box effects. It's very similar to the last RockettotheSky album which was also splendid if you remember back a few months ago. There seems to be an abundance of these sorts of records these days. The kooky art chick is in vogue. Whereas before this tag meant unlistenable and yet highly literate and impulsively angry feminist schtick, see Jean Smith, and later see Peter Jefferies after he became Mr. Smith. Angry feminists stalking their audience in contempt for their cosmetic vegetarianism and patriarchal submissiveness. Oh dear Jean Smith was a comic genius. I don't know what these words signify. I can't make them out. It is not Sunday morning music except that it is at this moment grey and a stark comedown from the springlike weather of the previous week so there is a palpable sense of disappointment in the tense northerly wind and the expected snowfall hanging beyond the horizon. Her aesthetic is bleakness, it is a spare accounting of the heart's domain over the mind. Filled with the monuments of the age, narcissism, isolation of the heart, the futile assertion of uniqueness against the homogenizing effect of global culture. It sounds foreign. She is from Austria which means she is Austrian and she is thus transformed into a foreigner when it comes to pop music. The biggest thing from Austria since Falco? Third song now, I can comprehend the words, unfortunately, but the music is dramatic and haunting and elegant and her singing compels, it is at turns rather powerful even among the silly platitudes. It's a bit of Sinead O'Connor whispering in an ancient library. Austria is a strange country what with their comfort among neo-nazis and former nazis. Do they not share the angst and deprecating guilt of Germany and so feel more self assured in their aryan rightful heir-ness? Possibly. Kurt Waldheim was possibly an odious sort along the lines of say Pope Benedict and then there was Jorg Haider, bred from Nazi's, elected, isn't it funny how it is enlightened Europeans that flirt so openly with fascists like Haider or Le Pen and yet we troglodyte Americans have to make due with paper tyrants like Dubya. Haider is dead, a M.A.D.D. statistic. Fourth track, back to minimal piano accompaniment. It is reminiscent of the last PJ Harvey record without the burden of expectations. This is a wonderful record, really, enjoy it in spite my incessant dismissals of her motivations and tender aspirations. It is very serious and it is not suffering one jot because of that. Now arrives a crescendo of strings and wind and her piercing voice, struggling in the vague undercurrent of malady and melancholy. Life is hard. It does have a bit of Thom Yorke overwroughtness in it. I bet if he wasn't so wrapped up in Alice Coltrane and his magnetic refrigerator then he'd be a big fan. Me and Thom share many things in common my friends. Superfluous H's are not among our shared traits. I am, actually, rather atached to my H. Next track, skeletal piano thumping, as dramatic as the last track. It is rather good and things improve even more greatly when a desperate violin joins the fray and introduces a sublime melody into the darkness. It's winter and the age is filled with heartache and tumult, the world is sh*t don't you know. Is this all the work of one person? It sounds clever beyond the years/means. But then Austria does have a pedigree that extends beyond Falco and the soil infuses the tubers and legumes with a proud heritage in the arts. That sounds like an aryan postcard! Well done! I am racist. It is true. I did not vote for Joebama. But honestly have you watched the man's recent performance? Tell me that this foolish little man has the temperament to be leader of the free world. He is perfect for the age a narcissist who views himself as a character out of literature but then i suppose he must imagine himself as Sam Fong introducing America to his global brand with Fong's roles reversed as we the public are berated for not appreciating his genius and his wife receives the fawning treatment at home. This is an elegant instrumental called Turbine Womb, reserve comment on the title, it means little outside of the context of her angst but the music is sublime. All of the songs are brief, compact interludes of darkness that induce a fragile melancholia and then depart before having fully consumed the collective soul of the room. The chair, the lamp, the window remain sentient. Next track. Cynthia. This record could be compared to the first Frida Hyvonnen record but not convincingly even as each record is mainly a fierce and agile female at the piano. This is less conventional than Frida, it is teen anthems for the harrowing and filled with a semi-brutal composition of the scarred landscape of the age(hyperbole) rather than the conversational colloquial pouring forth of the heart. I don't know the technical terms for describing the music currently on display but a lower register melody line carries the rhythm of the track and above a tinkling higher pitched line pierces the rough exterior. It is at once glamourous and romantic when combined with her diseased, smoky, unkempt appearance. Next track, more of the same, spare, Fall Foliage. The song titles are mainly silly. This is perhaps alienated rather than alien. In the era of golden weather this might have been released on Too Pure or at the least 4ad. It's off, an outsider with an agenda or a fine record collection or perhaps a hip elder sibling to tutor them in the ways of the world outside of the mainstream. I am an inhabitant of the mainstream. Or so I think when I read the internets but then I interact with real people who all have shared popular culture reference points and I don't understand and there won't be any Soap&Skin jokes at work on Monday morning. I can keep up with references from the Office and how many terrorists Jack Bauer has killed and that is about it. Song over, more electronics in the future, please. It was very nice. Next song, more of the same, pretty, ethereal, seemingly full of substance but really rather twee. She's like 13. Are Austrians capable of twee. I don't recall many Austrian indiepop records. Not even on Apricot or Marsh Marigold. It's getting faux-dramatic, an anatomy lesson lyrically. When she is older she will be more subtle, she will turn the dynamics of pop colour wheels on the thrills of splendid arrangements and not on the constrained terseness of emo bleatings about the hollow pits of stomachs. She could be a child of the generation that Anton Webern claimed would revel in humming atonal melodies while delivering the mail. Or some such. I didn't actually read that article that was linked to on ALDaily so I am being vague but then I am aware of some pillars of the Second Viennese school and St Rupert's and Kurt Godel and the Austrian School of Economics. Ludwig V would be appalled at this monstrosity about to be delivered still born by the gynecongressmans. Another lovely song now, vague, impressively so, piano, whispers, some strings, pretty. Next is a bit of teutonic goodness. Some non-english title. A repeating loop of strings and electronics at the entry, her multi-tracked voice, it's a bit Cloudboy this. Perhaps when Cloudboy did their European theater tour 5 or 6 years ago they influenced an entire generation of young girls to lean passively against walls and murmur the contents of their dream journals out into space accompanied by people classically trained. This is gorgeous and epic seeming. It once required some fair share of money and effort to sound epic but no longer as surely this was recorded in her bedroom under the stars in a haze of cigarettes and tea. Her bedroom could be a possibly frightening place for outsiders where dream poets and oneironauts plunge headfirst into battles for Soap&Skin's soul. A dream staged death to equal a hit pop song, St George, Ivan the terrible, Lemony Snicket. Over. Now back to the sedate playing, all very Cloudboy. Demarnia was clearly not the first of a line. There was all of the silliness promulgated by the likes of Projekt records and perhaps that is the more accurate classification, this belongs to that ethereal genus that binds like minded toilers such as Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Love Spirals Downwards, etc...there was something Fortunate hazel mentioned about Norwegian Cold Meat Industry or... A lovely middle section now with squiggly effects, tempered melodrama and a rollicking Noel Coward pop tune on the piano so out of place as to be absolutely delightful. There may also be bits of Danny Elfman. Yes. The Sun is the title, the most mundane title camouflages the most uncommon track on the album. Next, now to something more modern, glitch, overexposed electronics, very Hood circa 2001. This would fall nicely among the pastoral singlemindedness of Make Mine Music. Did she send them a copy? I don't know which label this is about to be released on. Perhaps the web sheriff could clue me in. This appears to be an instrumental, it works alright in context within the album as a whole but if she were to have released an entire album of this it might have been unfortunately overlooked. Still it's isn't as dull as the term dabbling might indict it as. Repetition is key. Uneasiness. This is not well known or is it. I am currently pining over Vivien Leigh. I've watched Waterloo Bridge three times and can't shake loose of its intense melancholy. It was Vivien's favorite of her films, apparently, it's got a ridiculously affecting ending. Last track, Brother of Sleep, gorgeous, once again, this is early contender for one of the albums of the year. It's better than the Polly Scattergood record, that much is certain. Loads more repetition and strings and beautiful things all mixed together to form a tinsel'd heart of darkness.