LOS ANGELES, CA - June 25, 2010: On this mild summer afternoon, the girls of Smoosh ride into the Speakeasy at the Bootleg Theater, Echo Park
As a whole, the new material has a boundless quality to them, carefully wrought with hauntingly lovely melodies, delicate harmonies and lush atmospherics layered over rhythmic flourishes then woven into intricate arrangements that change with the weather, aptly representing the landscape of the rural Swedish countryside where the majority of the songs were composed. They reflect an airiness, freedom and new found confidence mirrored by the band's on stage presence as well. Whereas their earlier offerings reveal a slight uncertainty, seemingly searching for a direction for themselves and the way in which their songs develop, the time and space afforded by the change in scenery from their native Seattle to Stockholm made for a more self assured perspective and contemplative observation of their new environs.
For Asy, the elder sibling and primary songwriter, mundane strolls presumably past unassuming landmarks through a woodland village and other travels and encounters always brought her back, it seems, to a window, of a home perhaps, which became a place of solace, a literal vantage point to gaze out and ruminate about the wonder and unfortunately the inequities of the world around her, consequently resulting in some very poignant songs and corresponding instrumentation with discerningly dispirited beginnings that somehow eventually ensue in triumph and optimism, culminating in a mature body of work abound in charm and an irresistible appeal with enough emotion and catchy hooks that ebb and flow for the tragic and blissful among us.
Indeed, for this trio, the days of hastily written, underdeveloped songs born in the confines of a studio are behind them. They have taken a bold and brave step out of the box, in a manner of speaking, truthfully promising to soar like an 'aaarplane' through limitless skies unhindered by time and other obstacles in this strange but hopeful world, into a vast new sonic reality that four walls, including this one, simply cannot contain.
As a whole, the new material has a boundless quality to them, carefully wrought with hauntingly lovely melodies, delicate harmonies and lush atmospherics layered over rhythmic flourishes then woven into intricate arrangements that change with the weather, aptly representing the landscape of the rural Swedish countryside where the majority of the songs were composed. They reflect an airiness, freedom and new found confidence mirrored by the band's on stage presence as well. Whereas their earlier offerings reveal a slight uncertainty, seemingly searching for a direction for themselves and the way in which their songs develop, the time and space afforded by the change in scenery from their native Seattle to Stockholm made for a more self assured perspective and contemplative observation of their new environs.
For Asy, the elder sibling and primary songwriter, mundane strolls presumably past unassuming landmarks through a woodland village and other travels and encounters always brought her back, it seems, to a window, of a home perhaps, which became a place of solace, a literal vantage point to gaze out and ruminate about the wonder and unfortunately the inequities of the world around her, consequently resulting in some very poignant songs and corresponding instrumentation with discerningly dispirited beginnings that somehow eventually ensue in triumph and optimism, culminating in a mature body of work abound in charm and an irresistible appeal with enough emotion and catchy hooks that ebb and flow for the tragic and blissful among us.
Indeed, for this trio, the days of hastily written, underdeveloped songs born in the confines of a studio are behind them. They have taken a bold and brave step out of the box, in a manner of speaking, truthfully promising to soar like an 'aaarplane' through limitless skies unhindered by time and other obstacles in this strange but hopeful world, into a vast new sonic reality that four walls, including this one, simply cannot contain.
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