Involution/Evolution

Judging by the artwork for Vague-à-bonde’s debut album, Involution/Evolution, the eight-song LP should have a lot more icy, Nordic wobbling and maybe some creepy, Björk-style incantations. But, turns out, it’s just a weird picture. Because the wistful-eyed, hood-clad, anime character on the cover (singer-songwriter/producer Nicole Brenny) is sunnier, bawdier, and more apt to use a glockenspiel than implied by the picture’s frozen lake and distant ice houses. Last seen singing about French soap operas over discobeats for the Mark Mallman-anchored Waxx Maxx, Brenny goes solo here on a project she describes—perhaps functionally—as “bedroom pop” (she recorded and produced the record in various Minneapolis hideouts) and—more sonically—as “K Pop meets Fleetwood Mac.” A narrower description might be young Stevie Nicks backed by the keyboards of Rainbow Road (from Mario Kart, duh), particularly on the single “MV.” Brenny’s airy Nina Persson impersonation is a little reaching at times, but her ambitious production on songs like “Ghost” (wine-glass clinking, 808 thumping, and—why not?—some showing off from a college French class) helps pixilate the digitron-dancehall cartoon projections. 

It’s true that part of Brenny’s appeal is her coquettish flightiness—she’s writing love letters from bed and then matter-of-factly informing you she’s just fine thank you very much while smoking cigarettes the whole night by herself (“Best Nights”). But, Brenny feels most honest and compelling on album closer “Sky,” when she turns down the reverb and soberly laments over an Interpol-like guitar line, party dress on the floor, and closed shades blocking off morning sun. “Oh life, what I’ve wasted my waking hours on ... Did I wake up late? Did I wake up on time?” These confessions carry the album and maybe justify her artwork’s depiction of the singer wandering a cold, desolate, and disorienting place: love in your early 20s.