sol seppy - the bells of 1 2
sol seppy is the new solo project by child protege sophie michanlitsianos, who from the age of 16, has been involved with making music, whether it was sound tracking tv documentaries or scoring orchestras, before ending up on 2 sparklehorse albums and becoming part of the touring band. from these not-so-humble beginnings, sophie obviously had a desire to craft her own sound. thankfully, gronland have given her the artistic freedom to do as she pleases on her debut album, so, there are no radio friendly pop songs, no r-n-b touchups, no dance remixes to get the indie groovers in check, instead the music on this quiet delicate album is self played/engineered/produced. subsequently most of this album is of the calm, understated, beat-less form, but hidden amongst the waiflike beauty are a couple of tracks where she flexes and demonstrates that she can rock out with the best of them. to start the ball rolling, opening tracks, '1 2', and 'human' hardly register on the woofers, all breathy vocals and lovely piano treated ambience, which, if you enjoyed the recent lori carson solo album, then jump in here for more of the same other world experience. then we get to 'come running'. a drum beat, a guitar, and a great use of twang, the melody is just classic indie pop, making me pine for my old faves joy zipper (a comparison that springs to mind in other places as well throughout the 12 tracks on offer). so, just as things are beginning to settle down, the listener is then subjected to a totally different vibe with 'move'. starting off with some scary primal scream therapy vocal distortion, the track will have your blood curdled within seconds, sophie sounds angry, and the noir trip hop mood is rather intense and foreboding, a collaboration with tricky is surely her destiny.
the other highlight is the centrepiece, 'slo fuzz' in which the title of the track just about describes the core of the song. layered doubled up vocals, the piano, and the ever loved fuzzed up guitars (in a delicate manor of course), are strapped onto a wonderful low slung groove making for a perfect six and half minutes. a few more tracks like this and the album would be a stone cold classic in my world, as the dominance of the david lynch-esque serenity can make the album drift away for too long, which when in the right mood is rather special, but can sometimes be too slight during the cold light of day.
so, if you fancy an album for late nights with which you can revisit the ethereal charms of the cocteau twins ('album closer 'enter one' will have you checking the thankyous for references to the twins), or the soul scraping heaviness of pj harvey, then sophie may have just made the best album of the year for you.