Dutch multi-instrumentalist and singer Stefanie Janssen has adopted the stage name STASJ for her new album Soft Forces. With electronics and classically trained vocals at the foundations for her music she goes for abstract, surrealistic lyrics, populating her world with kids, commuters and an aloof feline. It is not a pop record as such, neither is it a (modern) classical one. If anything it is a collection of highly personal stories and fairy tales, meandering travelogues and observations.
Jansen likes to surprise her audience, herself included, which makes Soft Forces a multi-layered tour de force. She embraced every glimmer of an idea she stumbled upon and - after close inspection and many trips back to the drawing board - turned it into a poem set to the appropriate kind of music to enhance the words. Jazz, piano pop, ambient and noise - everything is in its right place. Recommended if you like Anat Spiegel and Dési Ducrot.
Soft Forces is available thru Nijmegen's finest record store Kroese.
Tracks:- Do You
- Certified Copy
- Despicable Green
- Imitating Spring
- Monogamy
- Little Girl
- Good Fire
- Soft Forces
- Commuter
- Cat
