Mazzy Star - She Hangs Brightly (1990)

Chyba nie da się słyszeć wszystkiego, co w branży muzycznej piszczy i pewne albumy i wykonawcy umykają uwadze albo cieszą się tylko przez moment chwilą sławy po czym znikają gdzieś zapomniani. Mnie umknęła gdzieś bardzo ciekawa, amerykańska grupa Mazzy Star, na której album natknąłem się po prawie 18 latach (aż trudno uwierzyć). Nie będę owijał w bawełnę, ale jestem oczarowany urodą wokalistki - Hope Sandoval - ale przede wszystkim jej niesamowicie ciepłym i uwodzicielskim głosem. Kiedy słucham nagrań zawartych na płycie moje pierwsze skojarzenia nie są wbrew pozorom muzyczne, ale filmowe i plastyczne. Muzyka Mazzy Star przypomina mi klimat filmów Davida Lyncha albo Zagubioną Autostradę. Ciekawe czy Lynch znał nagrania grupy i wokalistkę? Samo brzmienie imienia - Hope - Nadzieja - jest już intrygujące. Nie wiem, co się teraz dzieje z karierą wokalistki. Przez pewnien czas kierowała własnym zespołem - The Warm Inventions, z którym nagarała jeden album i kilka EP-ek. To był zupełnie inny projekt i chyba niezbyt interesujący.

Mazzy Star was an American dream pop band. They formed in 1989, from the band Opal, a collaboration of guitarist David Roback and bassist Kendra Smith. Smith's friend Hope Sandoval became vocalist when Smith left the band. Mazzy Star is probably best known for the song "Fade Into You" which brought the band some success in the mid-1990s and was the group's biggest mainstream hit, earning radio and MTV airplay. Roback and Sandoval were the creative center of the band, with Sandoval writing most of the lyrics and Roback composing most of the music.

Disappear

Mazzy Star's roots in the California Paisley Underground movement of the 1980s are deep. Roback, along with his brother Steve, was one of the main architects of leading Los Angeles psychedelic revival band, the Rain Parade. Leaving that band after their first LP, he founded Opal in the mid-1980s with ex- Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith. Opal's quasi-psychedelic ruminations, with their guitar drones and hints of blues and folk, weren't far off the map that Mazzy Star would follow, and indeed Roback met Sandoval through Smith. Sandoval, still in high school at the time, was playing in a duo called Going Home with Sylvia Gomez; Kendra was impressed enough to make a tape of their music and pass it on to Roback, who produced a still-unreleased album by the pair.

When Smith left Opal under cloudy circumstances in the middle of an American tour with The Jesus & Mary Chain, Sandoval was tapped as her replacement. After that tour and a jaunt through Europe were completed, Opal disbanded, and Roback and Sandoval decided to continue collaborating in Mazzy Star.

Ghost Highway

Their 1990 debut on Rough Trade, She Hangs Brightly, was a post-punk take on the kind of dark psychedelia practiced by The Doors on "The End", as well as the massive guitar drone woven by The Velvet Underground on "What Goes On". Most of the rest of their material is devoted to acoustic-flavoured ballads with heavy blues and folk elements, often featuring Roback on slide guitar.

Hope Sandoval -vocals
David Roback - guitar
Jill Emery - bass
Keith Mitchell - drums
Suki Ewers - keyboard
William Cooper - keyboards, violin

She's My Baby

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