Almost three years passed since their last recording. Marvellous Life Lover, which I had the pleasure to write about before. That struck me hard and I was waiting for more since. Three years might be a long time but she made some recordings with different squads as well as being present on the stage. What did she learn over that time then if she already was well matured when her voice hit me at first? A LOT, I’ll tell you.
This album is different than the previous one. It contains echoes of the mood that made The Life Lover but it also expanded into completely new territories. An opening Let Me Call You River and closing, sung in Hungarian Vetettem Violat (I Took Viola) are probably the closest to that feeling. But there are also a lot of new forms of the expression which she incorporated into her vocalise. I am saying vocalise as it goes beyond just singing. Vast engagement of the electronics made it also more experimental.
In charming Little Yellow Fish for example she explores lyrics in that particular way. Deeply emotional singing, little like Siouxie , little like Bjork , with para-theatrical interludes when she turns all down to plain speech and flirts with building tension brakes of electronic samples shifting place with upcoming verses.
Wait and See holds similar mood, but it is as plain as it gets from guitar and voice duo. Still knowing each other’s intentions on the fly pays back with getting incredibly fully emotional tissue from purely Lento simply sung ballad with incredibly sensitively dosed accompaniment.
Give time brings more vocal tapestry which makes a choir in the background on which Veronica can weave her charm to get you to the net. Her voice here is tempting and warm, modulated slightly darker that her usual register is. She wraps you in her intimate lament which lyrics bring and leaves with unavoidable longing once the poetry stops.
Little philosophical Hello Vertigo with brings things back to simplicity but these are the great lyrics in fact which are responsible for ability to create such a tension. One can talk about love in a trivial way. Other, like Veronica can reveal such a layers that it makes you asking yourself if you even ever loved ?
Here I am is a lovely show off. Lyrics are magic. Rhythm she sings it with plus a guitar supplying the second one is like a rhythm section framework. Rhythm alone flirts a bit with an almost bossa melodic structure, when Balint can drags it down to purely modal figure on demand.
Piece called Coma is to me the peak of that recording. Sung with Lauda like discipline and Gnostic mystery tension is simply hypnotising. Lyrics are act of breathing. They clear your mind and hold you in time. It only lasts three and half minute but it feels like an eternity.
The biggest surprise comes with 2 tracks. I See You is first. I Never heard them before playing Blues like that. It is a bit harshly, loose string like played guitar with carefully kept messy bit to counterpoint Veronica’s flying from the clearly bluesy lines up to free fly with no borders. Fantastic arrangement and even better execution.
And the title Tell Her next. That’s Blues again, but even more twisted with psycho-rock like guitar chords accompanying here an incredibly dark voice she is singing with. Emphatic and hymnal in verses it turns into sublime climax in choruses. It has the same kind of demonism like Ute Lemper is capable to muster up. And the same sort of Noir erotism which Jenifer Charles acts are bringing in. She can read you your shopping list and will make you crazy.
God ! It was worth waiting for.
You can buy this music here.