Following the recent announcement of her new album From Gas to Solid / you are my friend, Soap&Skin aka Austrian musician and producer Anja Plaschg today shares the video for new song Italy.
The video, directed by Ioan Gavriel and Plaschg was filmed in Malta and features former athlete and actor Talisa Lilli Lemke and Plaschg. The video also includes the album track ‘(This Is) Water’ which soundtracks the video’s devastating finale.
Speaking about the video, Plaschg explains; “female symbolism plays a big part in the video (giving and taking life, liquid and water as a symbol for living) whilst the backdrop reflects the isolation, and conversely the illusion of yearning for another place in the world.” Taking inspiration from writer and essayist David Foster Wallace, she quotes from This Is Water “freedom and the really important form of freedom involves attention, awareness, discipline and effort. Being able to truly care about humanity and to make sacrifices amidst our everyday lives – the minutiae of the modern age. That is real freedom, how to think, the alternative is being uninformed resulting in the rat race default setting for life.”
From Gas to Solid / you are my friend is the first album outing from Soap&Skin since 2012’s Austrian No 1 Narrow which in turn followed 2009’s breakthrough debut album Lovetune For Vacuum.
The lack of a new album since Narrow could be down to one simple feeling: “My music is so personal, it comes from experiencing life, so I always knew I’m not the kind to release an album every year,” she admits. “I need to collect and grow.”
In the interim Plaschg has embraced motherhood and kept artistically busy acting along with composing/performing various theatre and film scores. The latter including the film Sicilian Ghost Story, which includes a version of the song Italy which was nominated for a prestigious Italian David Di Donatello award earlier this year for best use of song in film. She also released the brilliant Sugarbread EP in 2013 whilst in 2015 came her inimitable cover of Omar Souleyman’s Mawal Jamar more recently have been performances as part of Andre de Ridders Stargaze ensemble (along with Anna Calvi and Laeticia Sadier) paying tribute to David Bowie’s Blackstar.
Soap to Skin, gas to solid, absence to presence - Anja Plaschg has kept moving, working it out, and she’s returned stronger than ever.
From Gas to Solid / you are my friend
- This Day
- Athom
- Italy
- (This Is) Water
- Surrounded
- Creep
- Heal
- Foot Chamber
- Safe With Me
- Falling
- Palindrome
- What A Wonderful World