The Breakdown
The inimitable and ethereal Fazerdaze (the nom de plume of Amelia Murray) has just released her first LP in seven years – ‘Soft Power’ – via Buttrfly/Virgin Music Group, and it is a wondrous return. Beset by the vicissitudes of life after the universal acclaim that met ‘Morningside’, Fazerdaze withdrew from the world for a while before returning with the defiant EP ‘Break!’ last year, which delivered a barbed wire repost and a declaration of resilience. ‘Soft Power’ heralds more than just a return to the glorious debut, but indicates rather an exponential growth and maturity that has simply resulted in a masterpiece.
Of the new album, Murray says:
Welcome to ‘Soft Power’. This is what I created during the darkest, loneliest, most tumultuous years of my life—entering womanhood, navigating the world, the music industry, and what I thought was love. In my scariest moments, this album was my anchor for hope, purpose and light. I am so relieved and content to finally share ‘Soft Power’ with you.
While there continues to be a shoegaze dream pop blush to the cheeks, Murray’s songwriting has become more nuanced and complex – mixing in other genres and soundscapes that create a distinctive sonic kaleidoscope that enchants and mesmerises.
With a voice that recalls the dulcet tones of Dusty Springfield at times, Fazerdaze’s strength has always been her ear for luminescent pop melodies that bury deep inside your mind, laced with a yearning melancholy and a sweet almost naive schoolyard chant in some parts (see ‘Dancing Years’), while maintaining strength and growth throughout.
The instrumentation has become multi-layered and complex, without making the songs themselves too intricate: perfect foils for the melodies and vocals, bubbling and shimmering in the distance like echoes in the mind. The vocals are slightly set back: distant and observant, icy, sometimes antarctic and yet antithetically deliciously velvet and inviting. Fazerdaze introduces spoken words at times that add to the feeling of delirium and creates a psychedelic fugue that runs throughout the album. It’s like an extended dream weaving through the air like a silken veil: slightly surreal at times, sometimes unexpected, always hypnotic.
The title track opens proceedings in a stately understated manner befitting the title. The guitars chime as if through a distorted radio playing in the distance, before the synth riff cuts swathes through the fuzz. Murray’s vocals are layered and mesmerising, reaching enchanting levels of range and expression, soaring like an eagle on the wing. The vocals are defiant and bold.
‘So Easy’ sets forth with an ebullient trot, slightly distorted and twisted sounds on a bedrock bass, a sense of hopeless romanticism as a call and response chorus sounds feisty and challenging amongst the twists and turns. It’s a hazy fugue with Murray’s vocals almost filled with disdain as they deliver a rousing anthemic chorus.
With a restrained drive at the beginning redolent of The Motels or Silversun Pickups, the chorus to ‘Bigger’ has a hazy swoopy synth that washes through like a lazy wave on a beach. Murray’s vocals never sounded better – delicate and dreamy throughout, and with a half spoken section that has a fifties doo-wop tinge.
And then there is a sense of lush dewy-eyed romanticism in the lyrics which reflects a more open and mature Fazerdaze – looking outwards and upwards, and yet still inflected with a melancholy blush that evokes a wistful, yearning tone:
we’re caught between
this life and dream
but you and me
we’re bigger
let’s try to figure this out
‘Dancing Years’ introduces a funky riff and a pattering hearbeat percussion with a stop start flow while Murray sings of dancing years in a tone that would suggest otherwise, with references to sublimating yourself to another – following their lead in the dance that is life. The wildly oscillating riffs adds to this sense of distortion compounded by the heavily melancholic delivery.
‘In Blue’ with its motorik beat and wispy wavy synths creates a misty fugue compounded by Murray’s layered vocals, echoing and duplicated, backed by banks of voices. The song builds up with its enigmatic riffs and ethereal, insistent drive.
‘A Thousand Years’ is driven by a pattering electronic drum and a softly eloquent dappling piano that floats like a silken veil in the wind. Murray’s velvet hypnotic vocals are like a dream sequence, switching at times to a spoken voice delivery. The instrumentation swells like the vast Pacific Ocean at one point: becoming grand and theatrical redolent of The Cure.
The surreal and hazy impact of the sounds is augmented by the lyrics that drip with a certain anxiety: a fear of being subsumed by the passage of time but a need for permanence and perhaps acceptance of giving all to a demanding audience.
I watch the world go by and
days start to multiply and
months start to disappear I
fold into a thousand years
And yet hope, resilience and stoicism threads its way through the maelstrom: as long as I stay still it’s almost nearly bearable.
‘Distorted Dreams’ delivers something akin to the label – slightly distant, disorientated vocals delivered over a wandering guitar.
‘Cherry Pie’ expands the many vivid colours in Fazerdaze’s sonic palette – there is an electronic thrum laced with a motorik beat that is nuanced and layered with the sort of ethereal grace we last experienced with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. And yet it is Murray’s voice and melodies that creates its own space: dreamy, almost ghostly, a laconic insouciance that is still febrile and mesmerising. The trademark chorus and melodies scrape the skies like the great Southern Alps: bold, dramatic, breathtaking.
The lyrics reveal a deep poignancy about the fleeting nature of life:
Youth is running out
we finally feel it now
the years from here get faster
as the lights keep blurring past this car
my mind is changing, forever is fading
so we search for something else
and as we watch the sun go down
everything that we knew then
we don’t know now
there’s a silence breathing through the car
my mind is changing, forever is fading
so we search for something else
Murray says of the track:
‘Cherry Pie’ began as lyrics on my phone during my first overseas trip to LA almost ten years ago. Now, at 31, this song has journeyed with me through many different versions of myself.
It’s epic and statuesque – a thrilling upwards trajectory in Fazerdaze’s progress. On the accompanying music video, Murray says:
Frances and I crafted the video around a character who travels solo, letting go of what no longer serves her to finally take the wheel and steer into her next era.
‘Sleeper’ has an enchanting acoustic guitar dapple with Murray’s vocas following the delicate pattern – a deeply personal treatise on personal travails. The melody is majestic and soaring, expressing pain and resilience and is an altogether too short an interlude, heartbreakingly beautiful.
The final track ‘City Glitter’ is a perfect conclusion as Murray captures the neon lit night in a perfectly formed contemplative track – a sonic version of a Nicolas Winding Refn film: dark, moody, enigmatic and impossibly beautiful, while providing a chill through the spine. Murray’s vocals are heart rending, passionate, repetitive backing vocals adding to the haunting refrain.
‘Soft Power’ is a magnificent, ethereal work of art that seems to encapsulate the pain and suffering of life while defiantly emitting an incandescent ray of beautiful, breathtaking light in response. Murray’s vocals are majestic – light, velvet and sinuous at times, defiant and challenging at others, wrought with feeling and expression, soaring on indelible melodies and choruses. This is an album to be treasured and cements Fazerdaze’s place in the pantheon of great musicians.
‘Soft Power’ is out now and available to download and stream via all the usual places and through the link below.
Fazerdaze is embarking on a US tour with the magnificent Australian band Pond. Details below and tickets available here.
Fazerdaze is also supporting FINNEAS in his Australian tour – tickets here
Tuesday 7 January – Town Hall, Auckland NZ^
Thursday 9 January – The Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane QLD^
Saturday 11 January – The Hordern Pavilion, Sydney NSW^
Monday 13 January – The Forum, Melbourne VIC^
Tuesday 14 January – The Forum, Melbourne VIC^
Feature Photograph: Joey Clough
No Comment