Lovetune For Vacuum

Quite extraordinary this!

Once in a while a new artist springs into the listening
world fully-formed and spitting out sweet, sweet fire!

Anja Plaschg is one such creature.
She is young, bursting with vision
and from this moment on unignorable.

Her debut 'Lovetune For Vacuum' is a work of stunning sonic
maturity given that she has been on the planet for not quite
twenty years. The music moves in some strange and dark places;
unremittingly bleak yet singularly enchanting.

The arrangements bristle with elusive and ambiguous emotion.
Ms Plaschg's skill at giving life to the sounds in her head
point to a finely-honed and prodigious musical intelligence.

These thirteen compositions do not give up their heart easily.
Her ephemeral ghost of a voice, elegant piano playing and use
of subtly applied electronics conjure unsettling and elemental
soundscapes into vivid and curiously affecting existence.

Start anywhere in the project and you will be forced to commit
your full attention to the melodramas unfolding before you!

I'll pick just three to tell you about and hope that curiosity will
draw you into listening to and evaluating the album for yourself.

'Fall Foliage' is a graceful but deeply disturbing construction
shot through with half-heard voices and crackling percussion.
Inconclusive and maddeningly, tantalisingly beautiful.

'Spiracle' is a nighmarish evocation of physical
and emotional disintegration. Absolutely terrifying.

One might hope that a song entitled 'The Sun' would let
a little warmth and light into the landscape but this
savage star only has the capacity to blister and burn.

Litening to the album in one sitting is an overwhelming experience.

Radical. Apocalyptic. Unique.

Essential.

Bolt out of the blue time .One of the very many remarkable things about this debut album is that it that the Austrian artist behind it - Anja Plaschg - is only 18. At 18 years of age I was fumbling around with not a clue about very much at all ,let alone on how to make an album as extraordinary as this. I still couldn't produce an album as extraordinary as this by the way though I do have a rather more informed and rounded approach to life in general.At least i think so anyway.
Enough about me. I came across Soap&Skin quite by chance( just surfing the net ,a good way to discover new music I have discovered) but feel I was fated to hear this music. It is quite breath taking in it's complexity and it's off kilter approach to song writing. It is quite difficult to describe without resorting solely to the metaphorical but I will try. Plaschg is a talented pianist and the piano is the central instrument for most of these songs .These are not however your average torch ballads( though there is an element of that in them ) Each song is an idiosyncratic mini drama of it's own though there is also a jarring juxtaposition of the conventional instruments with non-natural sounds- very much like Scott Walker on his last album The Drift.
"Fall Foliage" sounds like in been recorded in a games arcade with it's rasping bleeps and whooshing sounds. "Sleep ,"Cry Wolf" and Turbine Womb" have a weird clicking sound ,like an insect on amphetamines cleaning itself . "Ddmmyyyy" has the raspy bellows like breathing of some vast entity over pitter patters of electronic percussion and strangulated synths- the soundtrack to a nightmare which given some panicky vocals late is further confirmed. Most pertinent is "Marche Funebre" where theatrical electronic strings gesticulate over rumbling percussion before a piercing whistle blasts across the arrangement. This sort of kookiness could be hugely irritating but on this song it works. Plaschg seems to know instinctively when to play it straight -the classical strains of "Spiracle " or the overcast chamber number "Mr Gaunt Pt 1000"- and when to subvert or twist a song in wild directions.
It's an approach to be admired and it's one she also brings to her vocals Her range veers from almost baritone sombre to airy vibrato to nails down the blackboard dissonance. The lyrics are impenetrable and it's the way a song is sung which is crucial to the mood more than anything. "Brother of Sleep " sounds tremendously sad because of the requiem like vocals ,though the plaintive flute and sympatric piano help. The extended play out with bird song and a deep bass grumble further confirms "Lovetune For Vacuum" as an album constantly on the cusp of a revelation.
Comparisons could be made with Bjork with whom she shares a left -field sensibility and there is touch of Joan Wasser in the more basic piano numbers but really Anja Plaschg is out there in a little genre of her own. What that is ....well how about metabaticpop? Disembowelled torch songs? I dunno listen to this album , make your own mind up. Fill up your vacuum with some of these love tunes and marvel.

This is an album that anyone interested in leftfield/avantgarde music should own. It's not a perfect work, but as debut albums go, it is strikingly accomplished and original. The music at times is odd, but not as odd as some of the lyrics which veer from the oblique to the visionary to the illiterate. Throughout there are some impressive musical touches. Around classically tinged piano pieces, electronics and strings swoop by. The songs are generally unconventional, but occasionally touch base with more familiar female singer/songwriter piano numbers. One of the most beautiful and most accessible numbers is 'The Sun', which through its very simplicity moves and haunts the listener. Spiracle is also a relatively straightforward piano number, though lyrically very peculiar. For me it is when she invokes through her piano playing the minimalist spirit of composers like Satie that she really impresses. At times the music is quite bracing and harsh, although comparing it to Scott Walker's The Drift is somewhat wide of the mark (there's nothing bone crunching here). The penultimate track, an electronic glitch instrumental, is arguably the least original moment, as it is able to be categorised. The rest is singular, and an indication of a musical talent that will expand alot further with age, and perhaps become one of the key musical voices of the 21st century.