Odd Beholder – Feel Better (2023)  


Review:
It's hard to fathom that a record so sensual and chromatic, a record that seeks to possess every cell of your body with kinetic energy, was born as a response to losing someone to assisted suicide. "Feel Better," the third full-length from electro-pop outfit Odd Beholder (aka Daniela Weinmann), was penned shortly after Daniela’s grandfather took his own life as a part of a program called EXIT.* The material that resulted is an attempt to exorcise the spectres of grief and investigate the cultural and familial mechanics that led to his untimely departure. In Daniela’s own words, "this is the record where the Odd Beholder travels back in time, back to that small town, to confront the circumstances that made her who she is today. It’s a coming-of-age story, a genesis." While writing this material, Daniela posted a statement to her social media channels stating, "Songs write themselves, in a way, and there is only so much about them that you can control." She described the process as an act of translation, where the biggest challenge was to have the discipline "to allow the music and the words to come as they may.” The result is some of the most candid, emotionally infused material in the Odd Beholder catalog to date, set to a coercive melange of body music. There is a bit of Shoegaze, Electro-Pop, New Wave, and Techno here, but the end result is something wholly odd and fully beholderesque. Needless to say, the material came in a flash. It was recorded in Berlin with Douglas Greed behind the boards. “Feel Better” is a record that was designed with the logic of a modern novel in mind – a non-linear series of vignettes that map the life-mosaic of the main character. The action takes place in the nineties, in a small provincial town in Switzerland, a place full of "bullies, marching bands, and peeping toms" (Rifle Club). Where “every time we had a family meeting, I thought I was a loser, I thought I was freak" (Dogs Like Me). 'Woolen Sweater,' is a portrait of a family waiting for the day of an assisted suicide procedure: “We could hold hands and say nothing together, you look so thin inside your woollen sweater.” 'Insecurities' deals with love knotted in all sorts of awkwardness and anxiety: “I’ve always been but an awkward dreamer." 'Dirty Secret' speaks to brutal lessons that only love can teach: "Will expose you, teach you how to cry, and tell you all your dirty secrets." On 'Just Because I Regret It,' we find out that regret doesn't necessarily "mean I won't do it again and again." 'Patchwork Girl' looks at how society uses a woman's body as a screen to project all sorts of fears onto: “A man like Frankenstein just wasn’t able, to love his ugly daughter how he loved his ugly son.” ‘Then You Forgive Me' speaks to emotional codependency and the art of manipulation: "First, you taught me how to blame myself, then you forgive me." The record closes with a song called 'Stupid Walk:' "Healing takes more time than you have thought. Please just try to listen to your heart. You might wanna take a stupid walk in the park, your friends are wondering why you're missing." “Feel Better” is a record about finding the courage to explore the dark spaces inside of you so that you can finally move on and live a life on your own terms! — bandcamp


   


Track List:
01 - Then You Forgive Me
02 - Rifle Club
03 - Woolen Sweater
04 - Patchwork Girl
05 - Insecurities
06 - Dirty Secrets
07 - Dogs Like Me
08 - Just Because I Regret It
09 - A Stupid Walk


Media Report:
Genre: dream-pop, synth-pop
Country: Zürich, Switzerland
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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