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OK, this is what I envision when I listen to the Introspective Raincoat Student Music: steamy, warm bubble baths amidst cool summer nights; long, leisurely walks on crisp fallen leaves; sipping Chablis while gazing at waves crashing on sandy shores; Intimate sessions filled with passion and love-laden eye gazing along candle-ridden backgrounds. The funny thing is, although the music is peaceful, melodic and sultry, the lyrics have a dark, mysterious theme throughout. Yet isn’t love - no matter how pure - dark, mysterious, and almost always abstract in content? The Sugarplum Fairies is the kind of music you want to share with that special person in those intimate moments where connecting is fundamental.
Track listing:
01 Lunchbox
02 Touchdown Or Fly
03 Sugarfree
04 Tomorrows Always One Day Late
05 Sticky Summer
06 State We're In, The
07 Sun
08 Tuesday Headache
09 Some Girl
10 #2 Kraft Paperbag
11 Void
12 Sleepover
13 4 Am And Nothing New
14 Geek
15 Common Sense
16 Crossroads Of My Mind, The
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I find myself being nothing but overly charmed by this Vienna-raised and California-based duo, Silvia Ryder and Ben Bohm. Although there is an ever-rotating supporting cast, this pair of talented musicians is the heart and nucleus to the brilliantly crafted sound contained within. In their second release, Introspective Raincoat Student Music, the team has joined up with drummer Keith Mitchell of Mazzy Star, electric bassist Miiko Watanabe, upright bassist Warren Kaye and keyboard player Louis Durra, all of various musical arrangements. Although the instrumentation is warm and inviting, the lyrics and haunting vocals are what lingers behind.
The compositions are continually laced and infused with ideas of relationships, life and the inner most thoughts and struggles that everyone deals with, but few can articulate into words. The second track “Lunchbox” is a slow, melodic tune with cryptic lyrics stating “another illustration of diverted desperation has left you kind of jaded/you hold your head up high but sometime you cry.” “Sugarfree” seems to be a love-lorn tale with verses cooing “And I know she’s your kind of girl/sweet but sugarfree/in your world she’s the perfect girl.” My favorite track, “Sticky Summer,” has accompanying vocals from Georg Altziebler, AKA Son Of The Velvet Rat, which creates a tune that is haunting in sound and melody, and contains a vibe very akin the wondrous Nick Cave. “Some girl” is a touching; deep melody with dejected lyrics that carry a melancholy story. The dreamy number contains verses stating, “everyone loves you girl/but nothing’s good enough for you/ you sabotage your own cure/nothing’s good enough for you/all the boys that wanted to nail you in the trophy room/they never knew what you have been through.” “Common Sense” a nostalgic ballad looking back on the past youth and naiveté echo’s words of “putting words around a thought/wish I could trade the traits that I have not/ if life has knocked you off your feet it’s time to get down on your knees.”
Although their sound has been frequently compared to Mazzy Star, Belle & Sebastian, The Cardigans, and even The Carpenters, I find them to be in an entire league of their own. There is moments where I hear a twinge of Aimee Mann, or a touch of The Sundays, or a musical vibe close to Cat Power, but then the music washes over me and I find them nothing but divinely unique. The music seems to be surreal or teeming with qualities of a dream like state. Sugarplum Fairies is nothing less than delicious arrays of brilliant, introspective lyrics, vocals that are calming and hypnotizing and instrumentation that is superb and soothing in effect.
Overall, the album is a magnificently, glowingly composed masterpiece. Long strolls along dewy, green grassy pastures. Spring days filled with puffy, billowing clouds and fresh cut lilacs. That queasy feeling of butterflies that sets in when infatuated with a new romantic love. All these pleasurable scenarios are what come to mind when enjoying the exquisite works of Sugarplum Fairies. Their talent is apparent and there future bright. The material is so refreshing and inviting, and the tracks abundantly full of longing for true love and a deeper, more enlightened understanding of life. It’s the kind of music that makes you feel like sharing it with that special someone, then taking it home to mama.
-Christine Beals 04/07/04
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