The Norwegian-born, Berlin-based duo Soft as Snow will release their debut album ‘Deep Wave’ on April 6th, via Houndstooth. It was created by Soft as Snow members Oda Egjar Starheim and Øystein Monsen, with additional mixing and production by WIFE (of Tri Angle Records).
Their oblique leftfield pop recalls Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, deep Detroit techno, 90s IDM, Fever Ray, cold wave and the ‘Mutazione’ compilations, but is simultaneously fresh, original and groundbreaking, crowned with Oda’s esoteric and otherworldly voice.
‘Deep Wave’ follows two EPs for the same label – and as with those, the duo still avoid laptops, preferring analogue machinery, samplers, live drums and processed guitars – but this album marks a creative development, with their sound now deeper, more detailed and less simplistic than before.
“We’ve been experimenting with arrangements and production. The sound is rawer, more experimental and noisy”, explain the duo. “What maybe differs most from the other releases is that we decided to keep a lot of recordings from the raw material and initial jams. Several of the tracks are more or less kept in the original form.”
“We kept a lot of the initial takes from the jams. There’s something with that first immediate and spontaneous energy that’s really essential and hard to recreate later on. It’s more important for us that the vocals have the right energy and feeling for the song, than being recorded properly and having to refine the lyrics”, says Oda.
