My Review: Sofsky - Sofsky

 My Review:

Sofsky - Sofsky

A pile of books, two encyclopaedias, the desire to light the fire of memories left to rest and an infinite need to listen to how the night sings songs to the heart.

These are years of electric torches, of neon, of unnatural illuminations that deceive and therefore hurt: I want the lights of lucubration and emotion coming from the sky.

I take my memory and pretend to be on a trip to Lugano, a town I really loved a long time ago, and I crouch down to listen, something that immediately becomes an experience of the senses flirting with each other without hesitation.

In this valley that seems like an ocean at high altitude, five souls completely satisfy me: their name is Sofsky and they have a degree in Beauty and Perfumes.

Because, when music is really beautiful, it smells of uniqueness, invigorating and strengthening the most intimate desires.

In these ten compositions, shades of blue dwell on the skin of grey, because softness and infinity meet melancholy and loneliness.

One jumps in one's seat since questions and amazement grow, in these diamond seconds full of edges softened with wisdom and skill, to convey the feeling that every moment can escape from our ability to understanding.

We should give the word 'delirium' a beautiful meaning: Sofsky modernise the terms because they govern everything that is stale, dirty, unimportant. 

There are sonorous embraces of decades and genres that like cunning wisemen show only hints: it is up to us to become truffle dogs and get our hands dirty to find the secrets of the art of the Lugano guys in depth.

And so, like a book that lights up the heart, in these electric shocks we find the colours of time, the flights of images that separate beauty from filth, we enter the tunnel of night light which illuminates the increasingly dull conscience.

You find yourself crying profusely, you dance like yellow sheep in front of the moonbeams, you reflect like human beings who are constantly brought to light  with this album and you lose yourself with tons of pleasure and spasms.

You listen to it and it seems that places arise in that moment after an earthquake that has silenced everyone. You continue to be silent but this time with shivers, a sensory act that is activated by these voices that are subtle and soft cramps, by this guitar and keyboards that are the queens of enchantment, by the bass and drums that specify everything like dancers with time firmly in their fists, in very capable hands.

Everything is refined, cultured, free, structured so well that it seems you are drinking a red wine produced by the vineyards of the clouds.

Small hints of electronic music give this work the specification of a spectacular debut, where the guitar reigns but without overdoing it.

In silent Lugano, this celestial identity and propensity to create miracles emerges, to close one’s being with the conviction that the true opening towards oneself is represented by the welcoming of all this.

Everything that seems familiar and well-known lasts very little: it is useless to waste time on quotations and comparisons, because we are fed by the show of a mountain swimming in the universal basin of clear and brilliant emotions.

Now in the silence of listening we can witness what sound and smell a monologue of sensuality and polite impetuosity has.

We visit these creatures as students with a stylus pen and the awareness that music is the only miracle that can be repeated without pause and that does not need invocations and prayers: Sofsky are a sign of peace in the belly of a night that through rich melodies electrifies and suspends anxiety.

Off we go then: because talking about perfect things is the right occasion to feel life again as a plain where the wind carries drops of sea and not only of lake...

Song by song

Sleep Cat

In just a few seconds the guitars and voices become streamers for a flight that with an initial Postrock, which includes a nice change of pace, glides towards the final coda with a resounding Shoegaze vortex.

Slowly Breaking

They are able to be versatile and surprising: this song is a poem that colours the skin, a classy performance for the ups and downs, the flights that bring us intense views full of nostalgia. Flavio Calaon's keyboards with Stefano Chiassai's guitar are a frenzy of light, where the other two members know how to delight us in an equally amazing way.

Clusterphobia 

The richness of their talent leads us to open our wings, like a golden eagle that is capable of being gentle. Giona Mattei's bass is a polite but powerful witch, while Nicola Poretti's vocals remind us that one can do better than in the past: they manage to make shoegaze even more interesting by this method that gives it more pathos.

Paradox

The hat flies high because of the emotion, the astonishment, the sense of lightness that embraces heaviness: in this seductive and powerful track, which includes a change that makes you cry like children who have been deprived of their jam, everything happens when there are two minutes and fourteen to go and you are catapulted with an initial Postpunk approach on a new planet. Then it's shoegaze guitars that show their beauty, in contrast with vocals that are Alternative, almost rock. A gem.

Her Shoes Are Wings to Fly

Mouth still wide open, the surprises continue with this song with a bitter taste, a lead arrow that pierces our fears. Undoubtedly their highest moment for the ability to combine their talent with their artistic planning. You can't resist this flash that takes in different musical genres and turns them into a blue, eternal diamond. 

Keyboards seem to suspend your breath, the guitar is a wound that like an oil painting suspends your fatigue, the rhythm section is simply perfect and vocals an extraordinary dreamlike experience.

Different Keys

Indie rock knows how to change its skin with the guys from Lugano and here it goes for a ride in the 90s and then jumps into the present with extreme ability. It's a track that expands our lungs and once again makes us feel the depth of the lyrics, which to tell the truth is such throughout the album. And falsetto, unexpected and soft, gives everything an elegant dress. Class.

Mon Ologue 

How beautiful is the intense amazement that we experience with the beginning: we are enraptured  by keyboards and vocals. Then, as if trip-hop could become less predictable, here it is associated with a guitar that is a drop of water in the air.

Origami Dog

Jeff Buckley's most secret postpunk appears in the first few seconds and then goes away like a Dreampop dance appearing in the beautiful Swiss mountains.

These guys know, have studied and have found their style, which is remarkable and gives joy and dreams.

Traces of Adorable from the album 'Fake' in vocals offer even more magic. Immense.

Tennis Table

Ask who Roxy Music, Can, Durutti Column were, and then look to Lugano: everything evolves to take a path of great excitement mixed with melancholy, a run that is first slow and then faster, and we find ourselves among the clumps of ecstatic grass. You can't be without this rich display of beauty.

Whirlpool 

For a moment we fly back to England, to the early 90s, when Shoegaze and Dreampop could coexist without problems.

As the last track of this gem, the atmosphere sounds like a "bye, see you soon", giving us a listening addiction that we bless.

Generous and heartfelt vocals cling to a music that, starting with a syncopated rhythm, reaches a lightness that makes us think.

A debut to be applauded continuously, a standing ovation more than deserved: come on, take your bags and have a nice trip in the mountain of dreams and thoughts that these five guys can offer with great generosity.

Alex Dematteis 

Musicshockworld 

Salford

March 30th, 2022

https://sofsky.bandcamp.com/album/sofsky