Narrow is an album that positively drips with misery. Soap & Skin is the project of Anja Plaschg, a glum-looking Austrian 21-year-old whose sonorous tone and stark beauty bear comparison with the exquisitely miserable Nico, muse to Andy Warhol and the first lady of existential despair.
Plaschg has reasons to be miserable. Her father died suddenly of a stroke in 2009, a tragedy that she responds to on Vater, the best song on the album. For those of us who don’t know German the meaning of the words is lost, but as Plaschg’s sonorous voice floats over a minor key piano melody that builds up into crashing discord before Plaschg screams in agonised torrents, you get the feeling that she hasn’t quite dealt with the situation yet.
She does a cover version of the chirpy Euro-pop hit Voyage Voyage by Desireless and turns it into an anthem of gloom. Cradlesong, sung in English, is about being alone and lonely at night.
There are too many misunderstood goth moments to take Narrow entirely seriously, but it does show how unhappiness can be put to productive use. The argument that happy people can’t make great art buys too easily into the myth of the artist as a tortured soul, but what is needed is a restless drive towards self-expression. (Pias)