They do pop music differently here on the continent. Case in point: the Swiss - and not Scandinavian, as the press release rather bafflingly states - artist Sophie Hunger. The evidence? The title track to her latest album, "1983", sung in German (unusual if simply because a foreign language usually serves purely for novelty values in the Anglophone music industry); an album cover inspired by the painting "You And Me" by Austrian "body awareness" artist, Maria Lassnig; a cover of "Le Vent Nous Portera", from the massively successful but darkly infamous Noir Désir. Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, then how about one song sung in Alemannic German on every album? And that's just straight off the bat.
A closer look reveals "1983" (the album) to be a decidedly mixed bag of styles, influences and languages. A closer look on her MySpace just adds to the "odd" factor. Hidden away amongst the praise from Le Monde ("excellent" is all they have to say, clearly in an unusually succinct mood) and the German edition of Rolling Stone ("Zeitlose, ortlose Jazzmelancholie, durch die sich Hunger seufzt und schreit, singt und kauzt"), we have someone called "Elk" writing on a Swiss website that they "can't take her seriously anymore and will boycott her music" and some random lunatic in Zurich involved in what can only be described as a drive-by bad-mouthing. That's not to say that including "negative" reviews on your MySpace is unheard of: some bands go in for that sort of post-modern take on the influence of the media. It's just that generally it's a little bit wittier. Perhaps something was lost in translation...
Anyway, whilst her last studio album did well enough to hit the top of the Swiss charts (her studio debut, 2008's mostly low-key "Monday's Ghost") and earned her an "important newcomer" tag from Rolling Stone, "1983" sees her in a more expansive mood, clearly aiming at a wider audience than simply her landlocked, polyglot brethren. Whilst the English language dominates, that's about the only consistency. Rather like a butterfly, she flits between genres but never really settles. And with fourteen tracks, this is one decidedly busy butterfly. For the most part, the breadth of styles available is a definite positive. Opener "Leave Me With The Monkeys" is a soulful, slightly barking, and sparsely-populated, hinging almost exclusively on choral harmonies and Hunger's voice, which is undoubtedly impressive. "Lovesong To Everyone" is skitty, scratchy and, with an insistent middle-refrain, not a little bit discomforting, a feeling that continues into the title track. Horn and harp play a feverish game of cat and mouse, and the whole thing cops a big band swing generous enough to keep the hippest of felines happy.
Further down, Hunger trades in lyrical perplexity for snarl on "Your Personal Religion", an exchange that feels a little bit lazy ("your t-shirt says punk/you're so rock 'n' roll... it doesn't speak for me") but shows a far crunchier side to her musical persona. The only cover on the album - the aforementioned "Le Vent Nous Portera" - radiates a fatalistic beauty whose troubling lyrical juxtapositions ("The caress and the hail of bullets/this wound that torments us") offer a suggestion as to where Hunger should be directing her energies for the next album. She ably handles Cantat's drawled utterings, which waver between blind hope and bleak passivity, flipping the original's highly-charged edge on its side and letting it drift along in a carefree amble more suited to its subject matter.
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It soon becomes apparent that the album's combination of variety and brevity is both its strong point and weak link: never left long enough to stagnate, each track is a small window into Hunger's - and I'm quite happy to admit this - often baffling world: the troublingly beautiful "Headlights" is all woozy drones, hushed piano and whispered lyrics of preachers' hearts and misplaced identities, whilst "Citylights Forever" grows in urgency, but leaves the listener in an uneasy haze of fading sax, Hunger nothing more than a shape disappearing into the fog. From the gentle languor and harmonica tones of "Broken English" via the dance-pop immediacy of "Invisible" and the Alemannic funereal piano-folk of "D'Red", it's clear that pinning this one down is nigh on impossible.
And therein lies the slight issue I have with the album. The shortness of some of the tracks leaves some ideas feeling a little underdeveloped. The only real understanding we have of the artist that is Sophie Hunger is the multiplicity of her musical personality. A sense of self is notable by its absence. On the whole it works, taking the listener on a pretty breathless ride through a veritable cornucopia of alt-pop styles, leanings and moods, but without the ability to settle, one wonders how long she can keep moving before the wheels fall off. Until that moment comes, however, I recommend you enjoy this while you can; such a varietal blend doesn't come along very often...
Sophie Hunger on MySpace
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