NEVER SOL - Under Quiet

We've known for a long time that one of Denovali's defining traits is the sheer variety of its catalogue, and to be honest we've repeated it ad nauseam in these very pages too, but try to find anyone who'd have expected the German label to sign a Czech singer-songwriter who keeps as far away from drones as possible. Back home, Sára Vondrášková had actually already carved out her own space, enough to land a featuring credit with Floex and to have this “Under Quiet” released by local label Supraphon, before this “classic” reissue operation carried out by the wonderful Wenden crew.

Never Sol, the stage name the musician adopted a couple of years ago, is where a whole series of languages meet – languages that, taken individually, would justify the whole project far more convincingly: electronically-tinged singer-songwriter fare, contemporary jazz, so-called baroque-pop and Northern European folk, blended together under the common denominator of a strongly theatrical attitude. So much so that it's almost impossible to believe her when she flaunts her conservatory piano diploma and proudly claims that in the beginning it was “all there”. Hard to believe, yet the classic question of “what would have happened had she stopped there” does arise quite spontaneously.

Not because the quality and originality of the project are in question, but because, put to the test of actual listening, the coexistence of all these elements proves far less easy and harmonious than expected. The record in fact runs at two distinctly different speeds, determined by Sára's talent for writing songs of real impact: “Hands” is the paradigm of when things come together at their best, balanced between a verse cradled by electronic gusts and a majestic, memorable chorus. Equally lovely are the pastoral litany of “Run With The Wolves” – somewhere in the territory of latter-day Goldfrapp – the heartfelt release of “Breathe” and the dark fairy tale of “Eyesskinmoves”.

These, however, are episodes that stand in contrast to the ailment afflicting the record, of which the possessed, dark opening of “Lake” is symptomatic: mannerism, deployed in doses that are frankly excessive, also in the whispered “Places” and in the esoteric passage of “The Dive”. “Lay Down” ambitiously tries to bring a thoroughly classic form of songwriting back to its senses through clarinets, oboes and harp, ending up just as tedious as the murky mantra of “Breathe”. Add to the list the scratchy passage of “Zero” and the equally bold, noisy closer “Femme Fatale”. Aesthetically flawless tracks, but short on feeling – shadows set against the light in an album that slips by without leaving a trace of itself.

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19/06/2014