Narrow

The expression ‘an old soul in a young body’ has been attached to Anja Plaschg, aka Soap and Skin, more than once. The teenage wunderkind whose 2008 debut album Lovetunes for Vacuum charted all across Europe, attempted to look twice her age in the cover portrait, and if she didn’t quite pull it off she certainly made a convincing widow in weeds. The double tracked vocals, a Plaschg trademark, are unsettling and eerie, while the piano-led arrangements, owing more to modern classical than run of the mill singer-songwriters, slips into appropriately dissonant and discomfiting areas Still only twenty one, Plaschg still retains the fearlessness of youth, and if Narrow is more vulnerable than her debut then it’s proof that self-doubt comes with experience. The young Austrian remains a talent to be mentioned alongside Kate Bush and fellow farm girl Polly Jean Harvey.