Sophie Lillienne
Immigrants EP
IRMA Records

And, it is back to Trip-hop-ia! Electronic trip-hop-land. The Italian rhythmic chanteuse, Sophie Lillienne... No! Wrong. The electro-alternative band project Sophie Lillienne dives into the deep end of the pool with this spinning, scratching, and slowly flipping down-tempo songs. "Immigrants" is a teaser from the up-coming album, The Fragile Idea, and alongside "Immigrants" comes four more songs (not to be included on the album).

Sophie Lillienne operates the axis Venice-London-Amsterdam, but actually all across, all over Europe. The mind behind Sophie Lillienne is an artist called VeZzO (who started out as a solo project, under that moniker). This VeZzO, being a musician, singer and producer (a he, I guess), got a bigger project started, involving more souls (producers, musicians and singers) spun in a web of variety, with collaborators from all over Europe. The first recording came in 2006, with the Sophie Lillienne EP (self-released, written/performed entirely by VeZzO). March 2009 saw another Sophie Lillienne EP/mini-album, entitled The End Of All The Circles (on Core:Back Records). The next year, a new EP appeared, Singe EP (on Garage Records/Goodfellas). Then, in early 2011 came the first album, Lies, Kisses and Redemption (Garage Records/Go Down Records/Audioglobe). April 2013 saw the release of Lonesterdam (Hypotron/Irma Records), and now is album number three soon to be released.

"Immigrants" is a swirling, haunted, and slightly ska-dub-rhythmed song, which takes some minor and slow house-jungle steps, and it is an exciting taster for the album to come. It's got some feverish and mystic dream sequences in it. 'Your grace is moving away from here / In this place you're losing your favourite dream...'. There's quite some drama and passion alongside/among the rhythmic steps: 'Your grace is moving away from here / In this place you're living your personal lie...'. "Mine All Mine" is slightly more pulsating and sparkling, but it sneaks its way rather slowly, and it acts and appears in a dazed (and somewhat confused) way. "Girl Next Door" is sort of a song recalling a more electric David Sylvian (like Sylvian's stretching backwards towards his Japan days of ghost-dancing, the exotic and pale-painted faces). "Stage" brings some more of the slow-motion, theatrical, controlled drama. It is spinning, and it is pulsating in a comfortable way, yet it feels a bit like it's stalling. Like it's almost coming to a standstill. The final track, "Questions" sounds like it is sort of (at least now and then) running on idle speed. The Immigrants EP makes Sophie Lillienne sound both intriguing as well as somewhat monotonous. Sometimes the EP is moving dangerously close to the borders of boredom. Yet, the track "Immigrants" is refreshing enough the keep the tension for their next move, The Fragile Idea.

Copyright © 2015 H. Triphopøyen