Sóley's Ask the Deep a complete and compelling journey

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      Sóley 
      Ask the Deep (Morr Music)

      It’s been four years between albums for Icelandic indie-pop composer and singer Sóley Stefánsdóttir, but giving birth does tend to put a monkey wrench in your long-term plans. With that task completed in early 2014, Sóley came back that same year with a piano-based mini-album called Krómantík, drawing on her years of classical and jazz education, but her second solo album, Ask the Deep, returns to the dark fantasy of her debut, only goes much deeper.

      Lines like “You must face your fairytale” (from “Ævintýr”) and “Tell me how can I wake up again” (from “Halloween”) ignite the imagination with the complexities of dreams within nightmares, evocative lyrics bubbling forth from indie-electronic soundscapes rich with accordion, Omnichord, guitar, drums, and synths, most of which Sóley played herself and recorded in her garage.

      Her piano work on this record often dissolves into her haunting yet effervescent arrangements, appearing partially obscured by the gothic church organ and marching snare drum on “Follow Me Down”. Yet piano bookends the album, with its driving presence in “Devil” followed by its contemplative minimalism in “Lost Ship”. The symmetry of Ask the Deep is hammered home with the lyric “Does he still love me?” from the opener and the line “I never loved you” that brings the album to a shadowy close.

      It’s a complete and compelling journey.

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