Live at the Konzerthaus

Soap & Skin: David Lynch looked down on them

A show in a minor key: Anja Plaschg aka Soap & Skin at her most important tool.

(Bild: Clemens Schmiedbauer)

Cover songs are good when you make them your own - Styrian Anja Plaschg, aka Soap & Skin, does this brilliantly. In the packed Wiener Konzerthaus on Friday evening, she hosted a sacred winter mass - and soared to new heights both vocally and musically.

It wasn't just lovers of the dark and off-kilter who have been mourning the passing of the progressive film maven David Lynch in recent days. Not only did a wonderful person pass away with him, but also a unique form of art and cultural expression that always placed courage and otherness above the commercial and familiar. In this respect, an arc can be drawn from Missoula in Montana to Katzendorf in south-eastern Styria. While Lynch started his artificial campaign from the 75,000-strong metropolis in the USA, Anja Plaschg was socialized in the same place where the two governing party candidates ÖVP and FPÖ, who were currently negotiating with each other, fought a duel for supremacy in the last National Council elections. As Soap & Skin, she sought an early escape from her parents' pig fattening and cultural confinement - today, a fabric doll decorates her piano and reminds her of home and the past.

Just another finger exercise
When people talk about the here and now, they talk about her "Torso" tour. The Styrian will be performing across Austria, mainly in elegant surroundings, concentrating on her cover album "Torso", with which she caused a sensation last fall. Anyone familiar with the artist's oeuvre knows that nothing here is ordinary. She already tested out many of the songs last summer at Lido Sounds in Linz. Intimate, sometimes challenging sounds at 30 degrees in the shade in the middle of the afternoon. Test passed with flying colors. So the performance in a Vienna concert hall that has been filled to capacity for months is just a finger exercise. With a gallant updo, plaid outfit and delicate piano sounds, she puts the end at the beginning. The psychedelic The Doors classic "The End" is performed first solo, then with the band and lulls the audience for more than ten minutes.

After a cover of Velvet Underground, the artist walked through the audience with flowers.

(Bild: Clemens Schmiedbauer)

The imperial setting of the concert hall has often proved ideal for Soap & Skin's sound art. With the sometimes wildly deformed classics and delicacies from the most diverse eras of music history, the sound experience is also perfect. When Plaschg's vocals soar into light spheres in songs such as the groundbreaking David Bowie cover "Girl Loves Me" or Shirley Bassey's "Born To Lose", you almost feel as if you are in the center of a resounding resonance chamber. With respectful and, at just the right moments, euphoric enthusiasm, the artist is carried through the program by the audience, which is reinforced by her fabulous band. Multi-talented Alexander Kranabetter solos on trumpet or horn, violinist Emily Stewart accompanies Plaschg brilliantly in the polyphonic "Safe With Me", which is reminiscent of a Coldplay rhythm with delicate percussion, and Viola Falb evokes sinister moments on the bass clarinet.

Only rarely out of the norm
Strings and winds are in a constant duel at eye level, while Plaschg expertly guides us through a wave pool of emotions. The Clint Mansell cover of "Meltdown", for example, is a single strobe flickering with hard-hitting sounds, while "Mystery Of Love" by Sufjan Stevens almost melts into a tender cuddliness and the Hans Zimmer cover of "God Yu Tekem Laef Blong Mi" is reminiscent of a sacred experience. In the first half of the concert in particular, the shy artist prefers to sing in the direction of the audience rather than to the audience, announcements and expressions of thanks are few and far between and come across as sympathetically bumpy. The only exception to the perfect norm is the beginning of Cat Power's song "Maybe Not", which Plaschg plays incorrectly on the piano and has to start again from the beginning. Otherwise, the musical perfection is never broken.

The people in the Wiener Konzerthaus cheered, Soap & Skin and their band thanked them joyfully.

(Bild: Clemens Schmiedbauer)

One of Soap & Skin's special talents is their contrariness. The songs seem accessible and warm in their quirky yet gentle style, but they also demand concentration and sometimes have to be worked at. The strength of their own songwriting can be felt in the occasional self-penned songs. For example in "The Sun", where the shadow of her silhouette is reflected sideways onto the pompous marble columns, in the distorted "Vater", sung in German, or in an intense performance of "Heal", where there is still room for a fade out after a brilliant crescendo. It's just a shame that the fabulous "Italy" is only teased very briefly and stopped quite radically.

Flowers and goosebumps
For the final third, Plaschg leaves her piano chair and takes to the stage as a singer. The pop-electronic part of the evening begins with "Gods & Monsters" (Lana Del Rey) and the aforementioned Bowie cover. However, the secret highlight then developed in the encore section. An unleashed version of the Velvet Underground classic "Pale Blue Eyes", which she breathes through the venue alone and covered only in stage fog, gives you goose bumps. At the end, the artist marches into the audience and hands out flowers. Just under two hours later, the art fair is over. Soap & Skin have once again lived up to their reputation of being an Austrian mixture of Björk and Fever Ray and provided an early "concert of the year" moment. Even David Lynch must have looked down and nodded happily. Next live opportunities: on May 24 at the Klagenfurt Festival and on September 5 at the open-air concert in the Vienna Arena. You can find all further information at www.soapandskin.com.