It’s International Women’s day! Whether you think this kind of day is tokenistic or not, let’s celebrate all the fabulous female artists in the world, this one is for you!
Austrian Anja Plaschg’s (aka Soap and Skin), 2008 debut album ‘Love tunes for Vacuum’ charted all across Europe it’s bewitching sound and captivating vocals belying her nineteen years she even attempted to look twice her age in the cover portrait, and if she didn’t quite pull it off she certainly made a convincing widow in weeds.
Whilst her first album inhabited the melancholia of others, since this success her father died suddenly of a stroke in 2009 and her response was to write: whether it was traumatic or cathartic it’s this experience that casts it’s shadow over her new long player ‘Narrow’ which out on the 19th of March. The first song to be released as a video is a tantalising glimpse into her world, ‘Boat Turns Towards The Port’, is built around the foundation of repeated typewriter taps (or perhaps a shop till), and lit by a backdrop of unobtrusive arrangements allow Plaschg’s elongated cries of longing space to hint at a great disintegration that lies within, and then it’s over. This is mirrored in the video by a rocket that takes off before spiralling toward it’s descend in a ball of flames in the sky. It’s touching and genuinely incredible.
