Hatchie, AKA Henriette Pilbeam, makes music that's smart and in debt to dream pop forms. There's a lot in her work that feels familiar, but the material is still charming. Her new record, Liquorice continues her exploration of the sort of stuff that most readers of this site are craving.
The tunes on Liquorice are uniformly bright. A shimmering Cocteau Twins-inspired romp like the title cut sits nicely next to the catchy "Only One Laughing", a real highlight, and a Track of the Week here recently. "Carousel" is so in thrall to Heaven or Las Vegas that Henriette might be ashamed of herself. Still, that she can pull off something this pleasant from such an obvious single point of inspiration is admirable in a weird way.
The layered production on Liquorice, the work of Jay Som and a few others, is part of what gives this record's approximations of dream pop pioneers of the past so much appeal. Liquorice just sounds great, and the selections are all sort of chiming and glistening with promise -- take a listen to "Wonder" and you'll see what I mean. The number is crunchy in the right way, and while it's not Cocteau Twins-y like some others here, it's still a riff on dream pop that works remarkably well. It's hard to close your heart to this kind of thing, especially when Hatchie is so obviously full of affection for Cocteau Twins, early Lush, and so on. How can anyone be in a bad mood when a record like this is right there, ready to lift one's spirits enormously?
Liquorice by Hatchie is out on Friday via Secretly Canadian. Details below.
[Photo: Bianca Edwards]