Italian musician Gioele Valent has released four official albums under his Herself guise, the latest of which is this eponymous effort and it reveals a talent that we're ashamed not to have heard about before. 'Herself' is a quite beautiful mixture of dreampop, folk and the more ethereal aspects of shoegaze, such as those explored by Slowdive or The Radio Dept.'s more reflective tracks. Valent displays a great understanding of how certain sounds compliment certain melodies, which means this album is without question the work of a someone who knows what works and what doesn't. As well as bleary-eyed , dreamy numbers, he also ventures into barque and folk whilst always maintaining an otherworldly appeal.
A perfect example of this would be the wonderful 'Tempus Fugit' which from the beginning you expect to venture into more traditional and organic sounds, but instead it heads the other way becoming a piece of hypnotic beauty. Some of the more delicate tracks, for example 'Strangler Who's Me', are maybe what Lambchop would sound like had they been the product of somewhere altogether more magical, transplanting their US imagery for those of dark nights spent further north being dazzled by the northern lights. 'Funny Creatures' is the same kind of softly engaging music that made Galaxie 500 so revered. Even songs that initially appear to be routine album padding end up capturing the imagination, with 'Violence Is For Leaders' and 'The River' being prime specimens.
You're tricked into thinking 'Outside The Church' could be a conventional folk/acoustic track but after a few seconds you realise it's nothing of the sort. This is high quality dreampop we're dealing with here, from start to finish. Fuzz drifts in like mist from the sea on 'Tempus Fugit #2' and you wonder if 'Luna Park' is a tribute to the band Luna; much of this album is built from similar materials. The electronic beats employed by The Radio Dept. show their face on the woozy 'Sugar Free Punk Rock' which gradually builds to something of subtle majesty. It would be easy to drown in the vast oceans of dreampop that are currently flooding the music world (particularly the online music world) but Herself have provided a welcome life raft for us to hide in and weather the storm until the pale imitators die away and we're left with the cream of the crop once again.
Herself's website
Buy the album
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