Sasha Siem
Most of the Boys
(Blue Plum)
Somewhere or other, there’s a line of demarcation between “singer/songwriter” and “composer.” London-based Sasha Siem may be a crafter of unusual pop, but she nonetheless seems to have crossed into composer territory, winning a British Composer Award. She is, in a sense, a superbly skilled creator of music too sophisticated to be dismissed with the label “pop,” yet too friendly in length and familiar in structure to be dubbed “new music.”
Though she’s often triangulated as a cross between other artists, the artists in question are not always the same. She deserves more than that shorthand kind of review; hers is a spacious, intricate, and inviting kind of music that seldom settles for the expected turn. The sounds that underpin her wide-ranging, at times spellbinding vocals are not the stuff of most pop. Clanks, plucks, hits and all manner of noises create pleasant rhythmic backdrops, though such constructions might give way at any moment to distant, keening violins and soliloquy-like excursions.
Most of the Boys feels like the soundtrack to a work of experimental theater. There’s a near-constant sense that something big is about to happen. The music does deliver on the suspense, winding up to dramatic peaks that dissolve into reverie. Still, the sense of suspense seldom leaves for long; Siem is a master of riding the line between conjuring up desire and dispelling it.
This album is in many ways a tour de force. If it has an Achilles Heel, it’s probably that Siem’s lyric-writing, though it’s adventurous in its wordplay, is often the expected stuff of relationships and can’t match her instrumental writing chops. Still, hers is a big and fascinating voice, well worth more than a casual listen.•
