Martha Rose + LeRoy at ACUD / Wednesday, 15.12.2016

Martha Rose is an english musician from Brighton. She currently lives in Berlin. She has played the violin since childhood, and been in bands since she was 16. Her music is a mixture of casio pop and old english folk song.

The texts unravel slowly, accompanied by charming melodies. “Spit” is Martha Rose’s debut album, produced by Thomas Zehnle (Wolf Mountains, Levin Goes Lightly) and mastered by Ralv Milberg.

Hard to believe, but it’s only been a year since Skläsh, Munich-based LeRoy’s debut offering, made a huge splash, when countless trend-savvy media outlets dubbed it an electrified joyride, likened it to the discovery of an all-new orbital speed – or rather: a whole new dimension of time, space, everything. Indeed: Skläsh was (and remains) a globally-minded sonic time machine, fuelled by a refreshingly wayward and slack form of idleness.

Bambadea sounds both desolate and sun-drenched, gloomy and ecstatic – a para-doxical state that, in this current climate of extremes, actually has a subversive element of indetermination to it: These tunes feel both warm and cool, sexy and somber, sometimes even both high and heavy-hearted. Seen in this oscillating light, “Advantage of Nothing” with its slow-moving bolero vibes is, well, pretty hardcore: A disturbed, sweetly insane tune with a wicked dash of Brian Wilson-ism: all the happy-happy sounds are merely foregrounding, a feel-good lid to cover the pit.

Underneath, there’s a steady downbeat push, a breezy marine glaze, as if time was indeed suspen-ded for an instant: A lacuna, the kind of blank space that adds three-dimensional depth to the inter-locked syncopation of these tracks – and that makes Skläsh’s tunes almost seem clunky and clumsy in comparison. A more grown-up approach then (despite the fact that his debut release ended with ‘Niemals erwachsen werden’)? Not really. But clearly aged and matured. And severely so.