sophistication. — pink flower (2019)

Frankly speaking singer-songwriter music is not the most common genre in Ukraine. I can recall just a couple of names: Igor Sidorenko`s Voida, Konstantin Poshtar`s Postman, and Sasha Boole with his blend of folk and country. I can even add a couple of less mentioned ones, like Vlad Gnatenko or Sergey Turovich and his земля живих (Land of the Living). But either these people deliberately froze this projects, or partially went into more popular styles, which can attract more listeners. If, speaking of singer-songwriters, we mean Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake or at least soulful indie folk in the a la Eliott Smith, then any distant echoes of this music in Ukrainian scene is already worth mentioning. At least for this reason, I couldn’t just get past new sophistication. record without giving it a try.

In our case sophistication. is a moniker for solo project of Sofia Schwager from Kiev, a literary critic and author of articles about cinema, books and music. Now we are more interested in her music, but Sofia’s love for texts is a characteristic feature that quickly catches the eye on this short record. In the annotation for pink flower, she describes this work as her own Odyssey, or "a flashback, daydreaming, fantasy. it is a music after the journeys, between them and instead of them." The very name "pink flower" evokes some extremely carnal associations with the feminine character of music; quite possibly, the author intended it: the lyrics of the songs presented here, as well as the character in which they are performed, try to push us to experiencing deeply feminine life and attitude. All these stories are about women, and even the word "woman" is repeated 9 times over 5 short songs.

Besides the fact that Sofia was seen as a guest vocalist in Blooms Corda and electronic project Heinali, this is her second release under the name sophistication. The first, one, which goes under the name "looming", doesn’t seem like it is really tries to impress us very much. Sound meditation with a voice and a guitar without visible changes in intonation and rhythm for the whole time is, rather, a record for internal use, where the listener will most likely be dispensable. However, here we can already notice that Sofia can produce a pleasant guitar sound and has a nice piercing voice.

In "pink flower", we nevertheless see a more song-oriented approach, presence of structure and characteristic vocals, which tend to remain in your head after listening. The melodies of acoustic guitar searches became more noticeable, and the clarinet that appeared in this regard was also very helpful. But Sofia does not refuse to approach the song as a "meditation": in this sense, these litanies remind of the work of the German diva Nico, if Christa Päffgen used something easier than heroin. At the same time, if the songs of "pink flower" had a more conservative form, then they would remind of the works of the indie singer of cold eternity named Marissa Nadler. So far, Sofia is not trying to smash us with hits, but with songs like "copper", she probably goes in that direction.

Musically, these five songs offer us fragile peace and spontaneous bursts of sensual melody, but with the lyrics everything is even more elegant. Each song brings up a story with an open interpretation: "wooden swing" tells us about the fear of loss with Homer`s Odyssey on background; "mavi" is about travel and romance; "copper" follows a woman who doesn`t know how to cope with her own nature; and second century woman is literally about a woman from distant past, who appeals to us with same existential questions, as heroine from copper. Despite the fact that the author may have meant something completely different, it is interesting to follow these stories, as well as try to guess what is hidden behind them. One thing is clear — these are fantasy stories and they work perfectly as such.

So what is the purpose of this record, really? Our peace and pleasure, of course. After all, five small stories told by a smooth voice are exactly what many of us need in order to heal a couple of emotional wounds. And if the author made his own little evolution of the soul along the way, then this is a win for all of us.

The opinions expressed in the reviews convey the views of the authors themselves and do not necessarily reflect the position of Neformat.com.ua

sophistication. in social networks:

https://sophistication.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/sophisticationmusic/
https://soundcloud.com/sophisticationmusic