In April, Viennese alter pop star Soap&Skin will envelop us in melancholic darkness. Upon her return to Šiška, she will present her new album – “another extraordinary set of songs” (The Quietus), her first new album in six years, during which she recorded “Goodbye”, the opening credits song of Netflix’s series Dark, with Apparat, as well as paid an emotional tribute to David Bowie alongside Anna Calvi, Lætitia Sadier and Jeanne Added.
Since Austrian composer and musician Anja Plaschg aka Soap&Skin first visited us in 2011, much has happened. She faced the death of her father on the album Narrow, the successor to her equally successful debut Lovetune For Vacuum. Her collaboration with Apparat on “Goodbye” gave us one of the best opening title sequences today in Netflix’s series Dark. She prepared the musical accompaniment for numerous theatre and film productions, including the award-winning Sicilian Ghost Story. She published the excellent Sugarbread EP and a praiseworthy cover of Omar Souleyman. As part of the esteemed s t a r g a z e collective, she, Anna Calvi, paid a moving tribute to David Bowie. And she gave birth to a daughter.
It was the latter that left a strong mark on her third album From Gas To Solid / you are my friend, “another extraordinary set of songs”, as the album has been praised by The Quietus. Whereas her previous releases were driven by anger and anguish, the new album sees her working from a shelter she had constructed out of a withdrawal from sudden stardom, motherhood and more mature views on life and seeking meaning. Her subtly demolishing, devastatingly beautiful compositions still combine classical, electronic, gothic, avant-garde and singer-songwriter approaches, calming spiritual plateaus and grandiose plummets into the darkness. The final touch is provided by a cover of Louis Armrstong’s “What A Wonderful World”, and it’s hard to imagine a more fitting conclusion to the record. Anja’s world is special, unusual, unique – but truly wonderful. We’ll dive in in April.
The path will be paved by German youth Fabian Altstötter, who began his musical career as an adolescent, when he founded the band Sizarr, which made it as far as the famed SXSW on the back of two acclaimed albums. With his new solo project Jungstötter, he’s evolving the story further, into even more mature and dark corners. His music expression is found somewhere between the severity of the Bad Seeds, the pain of Tuxedomoon, the nightmarish landscapes of Scott Walker, the intensity of Neil Young and the delicacy of Mark Hollis, and his debut album Love Is is slated for a February release via PIAS.
Tickets on sale online and at Eventim outlets.
Organisation: Kino Šiška.
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