(2022) Albertine Sarges - Family of Things EP


Review:
Family of Things is a beautifully literal album about addiction and hope, but explored with a refreshingly comedic edge. Through her perky lyrics and parading basslines, Sarges filters out the salt from tears and washes her music in a powerful tide of self-acceptance. Social commentary just got fun. Delicious birdsong starts the album in “Wake of a New Dream”, doubtlessly inspired by Sarges’ adventures in bird watching. She encourages herself to “abandon my phone” and take time to enjoy nature (the irony of watching a YouTube video of the Hudson River while writing “the wake of a new dawn I’ll see things as they are” was not lost on her). In true Sarges style, the gravity of the sentiment is lightened by the self-confessed “goofiness” of the lyrics. “Hold On” is the meat of the album, not to mention the accompanying music video that lights a fire under the already entertaining single. We watch a tobacco-stained Sarges stuck in a life-sized cigarette packet, as she encourages herself to keep trying to quit, despite the ever-present propaganda of the nicotine industry. However, under the self-effacing humour of being addicted to smoking long after it’s cool and you’re “wearing clothes like a granny”, is the pain of not having the free will to stop something you know is mortally harmful. “ETIHL” centres around a timeless riff which came to Sarges in her sleep. It sounds like she dreamt that Manu Chao was spending some time in Agincourt and swapped his bongos for a lute. Anna Savage collaborates on this track, and compliments the mystical melody with her haunting Vashti Bunyan-esque vocals. Like the whole album, “ETIHL” is a melting pot of genres, and I wonder which one, if any, Sarges will choose to pursue next. Family of Things explores everything from queer poetry to instrumental jazz. It’s a concretely solid album disguised in a feather boa, that encourages us not to take self-reflection too seriously. Sarges is an artist destined for an explosion of attention, and like the ice-cream in “In a Minute”, her music is soon to melt everyone into fans. — thelineofbestfit


   


Track List:
01 - Wake of A New Dawn
02 - Hold On
03 - Bird's Life
04 - ETHIL feat. Anna B Savage
05 - In A Minute feat. Amanda Monti
06 - Deep Well feat. Kat Frankie


Media Report:
Genre: art pop, indie-pop
Country: Berlin, Germany
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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