| It must be exhausting being so brilliant, really. Marc Bianchi has been recording as Her Space Holiday for the past 10 years, wearing reliable electronic impressions into indie rock’s veneer, a la Postal Service, and seasoning with tongue in cheek lyrical content, making him a Magnetic Fields or Mountain Goats driven by Daft Punk. Modern music with a real heart and an organic cotton shirt, basically. Which makes his sudden and unexpected hand break twist into the rough a bit of an eye opener, this album opening with the snappy '60s psychedelic, harmonic pop complete with hand-claps and mellotron vibe. “If they tell us that we’re doing it wrong / turn up the sound of our song” goes the coda, which stands firm throughout the record as it strays barely an inch closer to the modern age. Or it would be an eye opener if it didn’t become apparent that his form doesn’t slip one jot or that he is such a master of the retro pop song. Parallels could easily be drawn to Brian Jonestown Massacre, but where Anton Newcombe becomes embroiled in conveying an amber-preserved context, Marc Bianchi concentrates on churning out instant, effortless magic – complex enough but never really seeming so – on tune after tune after tune. On derivative yet decisively character-laden tracks like the circular Hammond-stomp "No More Good Ideas," infectious psychedelic Hobo-folk "The Boys & Girls" and twee Sgt Pepper mandolin barn-dance "One For My Soul (Good Night)" he emerges as a perfectly fitting peer for one of this year’s most exciting discoveries, Benji Hughes (aka, round these parts, The New Beck). And as this album proves to be such a reinvention, Her Space Holiday can tack onto that bandwagon too. - Crud Magazine |
