Ms. John Soda
Notes and the Like
Morr Music
The Germans have managed to brand electropop so well listening to it is like experiencing one's own personalized Volkswagen commercial. That may sound like a bad thing, but in the case of Ms. John Soda, the super cute robotic vocals, clicks and clacks, winding beats and riffy little guitar licks inspire the vision of a car loaded to the brim for a never-ending road trip.
Stephanie Böhm's almost minimalistic lyrics are happy when the music is sad and sorrowful when the music is upbeat, making the songs perfect for rainy days reading at home or prancing about town ready to take over the world. Whether she is halting the words abruptly or cooing them into the microphone, her inflections give the impression that she is trying to suck the words back into her body as soon as they begin tumbling out. Unfortunately when Micha Acher tries to match this musically the transition from song to song comes off a bit more sticky than retrogressive.
There exists a quality to these songs that is so simple, both in the music and lyrics, that it feels almost like anyone with a laptop and English language phrase book could make a comparable album. But simplicity is an acquired skill. These songs aren't actually simple at all; instead, layer upon layer of instrumentation all work together to feature one set of sound at a time. Even the vocals play backdrop to the rhythm at times.
The pop sound is complemented by lyrics like
Sometimes Stop, Sometimes Go
's "To leave now /Or move on /You say yes /You say no /We're waiting /We just can't go." These seemly artless words are not intended to be poetically grand, but rather a musical skipping of sound and word which juxtaposes the melancholy with the lightheartedness of a single moment.
Once the final track starts spilling from the speakers a sound that is so common to electronic music is suddenly introduced for the first time, making the prior pieces on the album an anomaly in the genre of electropop. That sound is a deep bass, so deep that it rattles windows. That this penetrating tone has been unnoticeably absent for 8 tracks only adds to the complexity of a seemingly simple album.
