A meeting of pure fate led to a marriage and a band.
The existence of this album is built upon a huge series of coincidences. Both Ray Sonder and Saxon Gable are Australians. Both grew up in beach towns on Australia’s east coast, they did not meet there. Both started writing songs from an early age as self taught musicians. Both went to University and uploaded song demos and burned CDs for friends. Both relocated to Germany, Berlin, from Sydney within two weeks of each other. Both wanted to explore and write songs. They met in Berlin and a shared love of 1960’s psychedelia and 1990’s Grunge led to a rapid marriage and the birth of Baby Smith. This album has moved their sound on from the EPs that proceeded it.
The result of this fateful journey together is an impressive debut album. This is an album full of charm and strong musical skill. A fine selection of well written indie-pop.
‘Adored’ washes in with a wave of synths and melody before swiftly morphing into a classic summery indie-pop banger. They have a really clean sound, precise production values that are all about the end product. ‘Limoncello River’ is a slightly woozier dream pop, those superb harmonies to the fore once again. There is something exceedingly wholesome and uplifting about them. The antidote we have been looking for amongst all the grimness of the current news cycle. ‘Walkie Talkie’ slows everything down a little and shows that they can comfortably do different gears, the strong chorus shines through.
Rather than being a front loaded album the quality keeps on coming. ‘Golden’ keeps the fine grooves to the foreground. ‘Take It Or Leave It’ reminds us of about ten different classic tracks whilst being a near classic in its own right.
Of their title track the band say, “The song touches on idol worship and beauty standards. ‘I wanna be pretty, I wanna be sought after, I wanna be someone else, I wanna be somewhere else.’ This comments on the way our capitalist society is built and how it constantly reinforces that we should always want more and we shouldn’t dare to be satisfied with who we are, how we look, where we are in our lives, or our circumstances. Everything is disposable, people are disposable, love is disposable. We honestly think love may be dead right now. The world is in such a dark place, and it’s pretty hard to bear. As people, we are becoming more isolated and individualised.” Despite that negative basis there is such an uplifting through-line to their work that it never becomes introspective. Love and loss haunt the album as a whole, but the sheer joy of the music makes it a more palatable message to digest.
This is a hugely solid debut album from a duo to keep a watch on. There are so many flourishes that speak to great musical taste, like the gentle orchestral instruments added at various moments that elevate tracks such as on the ending of ‘Goodnight Baby.’ The odds of the pair meeting seem astronomically high, the outcome feels like it was always fated to exist.
Essential Tracks: ‘Adored,’ ‘Limoncello River,’ ‘Golden’ and ‘Take It Or Leave it.’
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