Wtorek 18 Sie 2009, 14:55
Track: DDMMYYYY
Artist: Soap&Skin
Album: Lovetune For Vacuum
Tags: instrumental, IDM, ambient, dark ambient, glitch, electronica, experimental, my gang rotw
Video: Click the pic…
http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/fXnQzrTD_rY/default.jpg YouTube
In the last couple of days, I have had less than four hours sleep. I can't tell you how good this sounds and feels, jangling on my nerves and reminding me of nightmares.
The Guardian describes Soap&Skin as ambient music for torture chambers and it's not hard to see why. Listen carefully, and you hear screams rending behind unsettling and jarring melodies and rhythms.
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/2420883/SoapSkin+from+myspace.jpg
Soap&Skin is nineteen year old Austrian artist, Anja Plaschg currently living in Vienna. She is classically trained in piano and violin and learnt basic sound programming on the computer from her brother. Lovetune For Vacuum is her debut album, released in April this year.
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/8293549/SoapSkin+lienbacher2.jpg
DDMMYYYY is an instrumental electronic track that's more percussive than ethereal, bringing to mind artists such as Aphex Twin. Beginning with drums, it is largely repetitive and instead of building to a crescendo, it introduces distressed vocals in the background, which close the track with horrified screams.
This track is an unusual one for her. Normally, her music is piano-led with lyrics being part-sung and part expressed. The last track on the album, which comes straight after this one, Brother of Sleep, sits at the other extreme: soothing, gentle, "I dreamed of you / every day / every night" which in repetition sometimes sounds like "fairy tales / very nice". The second half of the piece is lost in a haze of drone and birdsong.
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/4480039/SoapSkin+soapandskin.jpg
Sleep, nightmares, horror, terror, death, the drama of the macabre are all themes explored in the album. Her style recalls artists such as Julee Cruise for Angelo Badalamenti in the Twin Peaks soundtrack, Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins (Elizabeth Fraser), Scott Walker in Drift, Joan Wasser, and Björk of course, but I'm casting around for an anchor. This is the kind of music that's more of an art piece than a pop album. Not being able to pin her down and struggling to find an exact niche is a disconcerting exercise that remains with you throughout the album.
Anja Plaschg has contributed to two Austrian films: the horror sequel Dead In Three Days 2 [ trailer ] and the adult FILM IST. a girl & a gun (Film is: a girl and a gun).
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/174s/24914399.jpg
'Lovetune For Vacuum' is an album rich with imagination and childish fears that never leave us, that only become more disturbed and distorted as we get older. Don't tag this 'goth', it's much more than that.
And so to sleep, perchance to…
Babs My Gang
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/26540951/SoapSkin.jpg
Admin - Stats as of today:
Last.fm listeners of this track - 5,483
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm - 22,640
Position in Last 7 Days: 12 / 372
Position in Last 6 Months: 12 / 4,455
Video
Date Added: 22 April 2009
Views: 5,782, Ratings: 17, Comments: 5, Favourited: 29 times
Stats after 7 days:
Last.fm listeners of this track - 5,613
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm - 23,253
Position in Last 7 Days: 12 / 355
Position in Last 6 Months: 12 / 4,455
Video
Views: 6,530, Ratings: 18, Comments: 5, Favourited: 31 times
370 Unique Visitors
420 Page Views
http://www.e-zeeinternet.com/count.php?page=313253&style=small_black&nbdigits=5 Unique Visitors
http://www.e-zeeinternet.com/count.php?page=313254&style=small_black&nbdigits=5&reloads=1 Page Views
.