Rhye – Woman

And again, silent is the new loud. I can’t help but notice that a lot of the next-big-things the hype machine spits out these days is of a quite surprisingly sublte character. A quite pleasant shift from the in-your-face-shoutings and here-i-am-ravings usually regurgitated by said machine.
Robin Hannibal from Denmark and Mike Milosh from Canada met by chance in Berlin and spontaneously recorded an album together. And no, the vocals aren’t delivered by a guest vocalist, the tender meanderings are provided by Mike Milosh himself, a rare example of a voice illustrating gender-ambiguity without squealing and screeching and overacting. As mentioned before, sublety rules on the ten songs of “Woman” – reduced and minimalistic love-songs on a grounding of hushed house-beats, elaborate harmonies and unwound grooves. Although as the songs sometimes may seem almost a bit too discreet, the delicacy of the bands’ work always finds their way back to the listeners attention.  They already gained a lot of media interest and have often been compared to Air or Sade, but i let you be the judge – watch this wonderful video and just see for yourself:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sng_CdAAw8M&w=560&h=315]

They also are a quite impressive live-act and i dearly hope to see them sometimes soon. Here’s a recording from a live session at the Boiler Room in L.A.:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdicqmac5J0&w=560&h=315]

I have seldomly heard such an intriguing and sublte mixture of melancholy and eroticism. I can only recommend this album as a great soundtrack to the arrival of spring.
Listen to it with someone you love …

Yours sincerly,

Mikka