Soap & Skin

The Austrian singer-songwriter’s long-awaited third album radiates a quietly devastating beauty, woven from vivid poetry & compositional ambition that fuses classical, electronic, gothic, avant-rock, torch song & singer-songwriter traditions.

The album is about separation, forgiveness, states of healing & frightening throwbacks. If Anja’s search for shelter has created a restorative oasis, a more balanced adult view than the rawer, angrier aspects of her earlier work, the stunning, wide-reaching ‘From Gas to Solid…’ still reflects the struggle to find meaning, answers, & a place to survive. Over the album’s opening five songs, she embraces becalmed, almost hymnal piano & vocal (‘This Day’), spellbound, electronic-flecked tranquillity (‘Athom’), ‘Italy’ coloured by organ & militaristic drums, the choral ambience of ‘(This Is) Water’ & the tense grandeur of ‘Surrounded’, ethereal & earthy. Fans of agnes obel, Susanne sundfor & Dillon will love this.