Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - Through the Devil Softly
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Hope Sandoval & The Warm InventionsEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2009-09-29
Music Label: Nettwerk Records
Soundtracks:
- Blanchard
- Wild Roses
- For The rest Of Your Life
- Lady Jessica and Sam
- Sets The Blaze
- Thinking Like That
- There s A Window
- Trouble
- Fall Aside
- Blue Bird
- Satellite
Free Music Notes for Through the Devil Softly
Free Music Review: Hope is Faith holding its hand out in the dark.
Hit: 5 Stars
I don't listen to Hope Sandoval when I'm happy. No, Hope's cds are playing when it's a lonesome autumn night, stars are in the sky, I'm thinking of that girl I used to know, and the bottle of Pinot is getting near empty. Why sleep when those memories are gonna keep you up anyway? So I hit repeat, and sink into the soft caress of The Warm Inventions one more time...
That's the funny thing about sad music: it's almost homeopathic in the way that through reflecting your emotions, it makes everything seem ok. Well, if not ok, at least better. Sadness often comes with its close cousin, loneliness, and oh-so-down music offers the reassurance that, a.), you're not alone in this, and b.), look at the beauty that can come from it.
Like Tom Waits' "Early Years", Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" or The Velvet Underground's 3rd album, Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions' latest, "Through the Devil Softly", is what you play when you need an album that will put its arm around your shoulder and hold you close. Like those albums, the performances here are incredibly intimate; this is not music that jumps out of your speakers; rather, it's music that casts a spell through its softness, its fragility, its restraint, and the way it flows through your body like liquid morphine. It's a sound where you actually hear fingers sliding on strings, where the vocals seem to be whispered straight into your ear, and where a single drum hit echoes like a gunshot in the forest...
Playing Hope's latest, my first impression was that it sounded a lot like her last one, "Bavarian Fruit Bread", also with The Warm Inventions. Now if there were dozens of vocalists out there doing this sound, that might bother me, but there aren't. In fact, there's just one, Hope Sandoval, who -- love her or hate her -- has carved out an absolutely distinctive style, as unique as any Norah or Bjork or Amy, all feline dragged-out slurs and slides and breathy blues. The other thing I knew, based on past experience, was that these songs would start to blossom over 5 or 10 listens, and sure enough they have.
The album opens with a clear "single", "Blanchard", which features more of a full band sound: Strummed acoustic guitars, rolling piano chords, a touch of Velvety bent-string twang, and a subdued rhythm section establish a tres Mazzy Star vibe -- all bluesy-junkie-acid-folk -- over which Hope purrs and whispers her reverb-drenched vocals: "And I'm not ... gonna say ... I forget... cuz I remember ... every day ... every day... " The vocals, though, seem deliberately blurry, hazy, just one step beyond comprehension unless you really, really listen. Which may be the point.
"Wild Roses" drops you deeper into the album's vibe -- just a finger-picked guitar line with Hope's voice following it, running from it, following it again... "to leave, or to come back..." A lonesome Neil Young harmonica will join in later, but when the entire band kicks in on the chorus, it will just grab your soul and refuse to give it back...
An echoing, fuzzy bassline in a loping 3/4 rhythm establishes "For the Rest of Your Life", with some vibraphone (or maybe xylaphone) keeping a subdued feel until some fuzz guitar crashes in like a foot through your ceiling. Hope plays the siren here, taunting a lover like Patricia Arquette in that empty house in David Lynch's "Lost Highway" ("you'll _never_ have_me...") Dark, dark, dark...
"Sets The Blaze" is a stunner, with a very creative arrangement that's typical of the way Sandoval & The Warm Inventions polish a song till it shines like a gem, not a single note played unless it's absolutely necessary. So much of their sound is about space, about refusing to clutter things up, and this song is a perfect example. Delicate finger-picked guitar lines and tentative plunked keys set the mood, with a shimmer of cello that emerges like a mirage. No drums. Hope's vocals dance around the other lines, and every now and then the vocals double up with a harmony that seems like a reflection shimmering on the water ... the lyrics remain impressionistic, full of mystery, suggesting much without getting pinned down. Hope's voice, sensual and breathy, hits you like a dream, with fragments of imagery that resist explanation.
"Blue Bird", like "Sets The Blaze", also references the devil -- which seems to me the code word for madness and breakdown here, or perhaps temptation and desire -- and like that song it's sheer perfection. This is the one you can put on repeat and just listen to over and over again, sinking into its mysteries... just listen to that opening. A strummed chord, a line of vocals, the chord again, another line, then ... a beautifully placed pause leaves you dangling, waiting for that chord to make things right... they tease out this intro, with each line, each chord, seeming like it's being dragged into existence, and then Hope asks, "is that the devil in your eyes?", and the band kicks in, and it will leave you floored, an absolutely breathtaking moment. "Should I just laugh/ and pretend you were never there?" The song builds to a languid climax with a falsetto-backed chorus that would make Air die with envy. A beautiful breakdown at 3:30 leaves that chord hanging again, with one more question from Hope, and then it builds all over again, sucking you back in. "Never ... let me go" sings Hope, and you wish the song would do just that.
It's kind of mind-boggling to realise I've been listening to Hope's voice for about 20 years now. Some people might say she hasn't changed all that much, but I would argue that it's pretty amazing how fully formed she was as a vocalist already on Mazzy Star's debut, "She Hangs Brightly". The fact that she has only recorded 5 albums in a 2-decade span testifies to the love and care and real feeling that goes into each one, and "Through The Devil Softly" is no exception.
Hope has defied industry (and fan) expectations throughout her career, refusing to speed up her release schedule to fit marketing needs, refusing to play louder and pander to the audience live, refusing to play the coquette or market the band on her (very striking) looks... in an age where "punk rock" wins Grammies and "independent" means next to nothing, you can still look to Hope as an artist uncompromised, with creativity and integrity intact. In a better world, she'd be as popular as Norah Jones, but for those of us who know, she's our secret pleasure, our purring chanteuse & intoxicating muse. So slip the headphones on, open that bottle, and slide into the amber netherworld of The Warm Inventions...
Through the Devil Softly Poster
Since the release of Mazzy Star s debut album She Hangs Brightly, Hope Sandoval has defined the soundand style of California psychedelic dream pop. The world took notice when the surprise breakthrough
single, Fade Into You, hit the airwaves and heavy rotation at MTV. Sandoval s trademark vocals and
beauty helped to make her a modern day music icon. Now the revered singer returns with her long awaited
post-Mazzy Star sophomore album, Through The Devil Softly.
Since her time with Mazzy Star, the sought after vocalist has collaborated with artists from across the
musical landscape: The Jesus & Mary Chain, Air, Death in Vegas, The Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack
and Bert Jansch.
In 2001 she joined Colm Ó Cíosóig (of My Bloody Valentine), and backing Irish band Dirt Blue Gene, to
form Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions, and released their debut Bavarian Fruit Bread.
Now on Through The Devil Softly, the definitive star of the Paisley Underground scene reignites her
trademark sound in an epic journey across the 11 song album. The project continues the laid-back, slowcore
sound they are renowned for and places Sandoval s sensuous, hypnotic voice in the forefront. Recorded at
home in Berkley, the spare, subtle arrangements reinforce Sandoval s gentle vocal style.
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