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(2022) Eerie Wanda - Internal Radio
Review:
Internal Radio, the third Eerie Wanda album, is something of a departure for the project. No longer a band as such, this time singer/songwriter Marina Tadic takes full control and steps away from the sparse, sweet, and nearly twee sound of the past in favor of something darker and moodier. Working with Adam Harding, her partner in the grunge revival band Kidbug, and legendary producer Kramer, Tadic sought to write songs that plumbed the depth of her feelings instead of writing lyrics that were more observational. She also worked to make every song stand alone sonically; sharing a core of Twin Peaks-ian grandeur, but taking care to give each one a special arrangement that matched the themes of the words. All her attention to detail and heavy emotional lifting results in a record that is painfully pretty, well-constructed, and honest to the core. It’s clear from the opening “Sail to the Silver Sun,” a darkly repetitive, piano-led ballad that features Tadic’s vocal harmonies swirling like a spooky lullaby paired with chunky power chords, that they were looking to stretch the parameters of Eerie Wanda and they do a fair amount of that throughout. “NOWX1000” adds synth washes, “On Heaven” turns the 50’s influence of earlier records inside out like it was being reflected in a funhouse mirror, “Birds Aren’t Real” features swarms of hovering, echoing guitars that ficker and swoop in shoegaze-meets-dub fashion, and “Bon Voyage” ends the record with warped and overlapping guitar loops. Most of the rest of the record drifts on a soft cloud of gently struck pianos, clouds of reverb and Tadic’s hummingbird light vocals. “Sister Take My Hand” is the best of the lot, featuring Tadic’s otherworldly harmonies twined over a steady heartbeat-like drumbeat and faroff synths. If this is an audition to be included on a future This Mortal Coil album, she no doubt will be getting the call soon. It’s not all murky melancholy though; a couple songs have some of the lightness of previous albums. The almost bouncy “Long Time” sounds like a Paris Sisters single, only the sisters are replaced by ghosts, and “Puzzled” is a nice moment of spare crackle and pop that would have been the saddest song on Pet Town. It’s nice when an artist can match their lofty ambition with sterling results and Tadic does that and more on Internal Radio. The first two Eerie Wanda records were delightful diversions that were nice the way looking at photos of mid-modern architecture or old cars is; nostalgic and sweet. With this album, there is some real emotional foundation beneath the retro sounds, songs that will stop one in their tracks, and overall, a sense that one has wandered into a place that’s familiar, but strange and worthy of investigation. — allmusic
Track List:
01 - Sail to the Silver Sun
02 - NOWx1000
03 - Long Time
04 - On Heaven
05 - Confess
06 - Nightwalk
07 - Someone's in My House
08 - Sister Take My Hand
09 - Birds Aren't Real
10 - Puzzled
11 - Bon Voyage
Media Report:
Genre: dream-pop, indie-pop
Country: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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