Beabadoobee — Space Cadet EP (15 Oct., 2019)
℘ Třetí EP „Space Cadet“ charakterizuje drzý, moderní zvuk z 90. let, jako když vykřikne Stephen Malkmus a vypadá to, že Bea Kristi se stane nezávislým hrdinou.
℘ „Space Cadet“ staví na Beatině promyšleném psaní písní a je odvážnou revolucí pro jasnozřivého mladého umělce, který předvádí přístup Gen Z, aby vzala něco předtím otestovaného, vyzkoušeného a dala mu nový život. Podle tohoto úsilí je připravena stát se hrdinkou sama o sobě. Je tu však více než jen rozbíjení singlu. V úvodní písni ‘Are You Sure’ je přichycena při nejistotě a úzkosti („Je zřejmé, že jste se nikdy takhle necítili / můj mozek je sám a nikdo mu nerozumí“) a spárována se stejným druhem energie a úrovní decibelů, které maximalizovaly Pixies na albu „Doolittle“ (April 17, 1989). Ve třetí „Sun More Often“ nasměruje pozornost k další ze svých hrdinů: zpěvačce v anti~folkové skupině Moldy Peaches (Kimya Dawson) a její sarkastické a kousavé vokály. „Plays Bass“ je zatím sladkou poctou ještě bližší inspiraci: její živé basistce Elianě. Ostatně, Thomas Smith z NME dává albu ★★★★★. Londýnská vycházející hvězda konfesního DIY nám přináší hvězdné melodie.
℘ The Gen Z songwriter’s sad, dreamy songs revive the spirit of 90s indie pop.
Birth name: Bea Kristi
Born: in Iloilo City, Philippines
Location: London, UK
Album release: 15 October 2019
Record Label: Dirty Hit
Duration: 19:47
Tracks:
1 Are You Sure 4:04
2 I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus 3:51
3 Sun More Often 4:01
4 She Plays Bass 3:27
5 Space Cadet 4:24
℗ 2019 Dirty Hit
Review
Beabadoobee wears her heart on her sleeve and doesn’t care who sees it.
By Cady Siregar / 14 OCTOBER 2019, 17:29 BST / Score: 8
Beabadoobee — aka 19~year~old Bea Kristi — wants you to know that she loves the ‘90s.
♦♣♦ She loves Tom Hanks (specifically in Big). She loves Pavement, the pre~eminent indie rock band of that decade, so much so that she screened one of their 1992 sets at her headlining Oslo show instead of having an opener. In fact, she loves Pavement so much that she has dedicated a track from her latest EP, Space Cadet to the band’s iconic frontman, with an ode titled “I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus”.
♦♣♦ In the song, Kristi declares she wishes to be Malkmus so badly that she sits in her room, crying to Pavement (Pavement aren’t a sadcore band — perhaps she cries because she is that desperate to be him?). Further listens to the five~song EP, which contain shimmering, cinematic indie~rock numbers drenched in the kind of fuzz~happy, distorted guitars emblematic of beloved ‘90s indie rock gods such as Built To Spill, Dinosaur Jr and Guided By Voices, might make you wonder how Kristi, at 19, managed to be born in the wrong generation. And yet, Kristi is at the forefront of a massive Gen~Z fanbase of the Instagram era, having soared to obscene popularity after uploading an acoustic song to YouTube two years ago. Having Kristi sing so passionately about Malkmus and yet having a pool of fans who were only born at the turn of the 21st century makes for an interesting juxtaposition. Malkmus’ influence on Kristi, at least based on her musicianship and guitar work, is clear. There are feral jam~outs that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Slanted & Enchanted, and her music evokes a unique nostalgia. It’s reminiscent of the past, but her voice and lyrics — very “dear diary”, often a stream of consciousness and delivered in a way that makes it seem as if Bea is half~making them up on the spot (in “Malkmus”, she wonders if she made the right choice dyeing her hair blue) — challenge something fresher and younger.
♦♣♦ On half of the EP, Kristi sings about wishing to be someone else. On the other half, she sings about space — being in space, nothing mattering because you’re in space, outer space — hence the EP title. After dreaming of emulating her Pavement hero, she dedicates “She Plays Bass” to, you guessed it, her bass player and best friend Eliana. “It hurts my brain / this chick who plays bass / nothing matters ‘cause we’re both in space / pretty sure we can never date”.
♦♣♦ “I wish I was more like you,” Kristi proclaims at the end of “She Plays Bass”. Kristi wears her heart on her sleeve, and she doesn’t care who sees it.
EPs:
♦ Lice (2018)
♦ Patched Up (2018)
♦ Loveworm (2019)
♦ Loveworm (Bedroom Sessions) (2019)
♦ Space Cadet (2019)
♦♣♦ https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/
Also:
Jude Rogers, Sat 7 Sep 2019 14.00 BST
℘ The heady sound of 90s alternative pop is being well scrubbed and shined by 21st~century teenagers. Enter Beabadoobee, aka 19~year~old Pavement aficionado Bea Kristi, born in the Philippines and raised in west London. From there, she writes sweetly sung sad songs that recall the dreamy sounds of Belly and Lush, and more contemporary touchstones such as US singer~songwriter Florist. Kristi’s lyrics peer inward, tearing gentle lines around subjects such as lost love (Disappear), self~harm (Bobby) and realising you love people (“Wait, I do — fuck!”, she sings on Apple Cider).
℘ Her story sounds too good to be true. Kristi wrote her very first song, Coffee, in her bedroom in 2017, after her dad bought her a secondhand guitar (she’d already spent seven years playing the violin). A friend uploaded a muffled recording of it to Spotify and Bandcamp, where it received hundreds of thousands of plays within days. A cover of Karen O’s The Moon Song and an EP, Lice, followed, before she was signed to Dirty Hit, label of the 1975 and Wolf Alice. Two lusher seven~track EPs, Patched Up and Loveworm, appeared in December and April, and another one, Space Cadet, arrives next month, complete with Kristi’s fleshed~out live band. Its lead track, She Plays Bass, is a sugar rush of a song, a lovelorn ode to a female musician.
℘ Kristi also had a busy summer playing festivals including Green Man and Latitude, disrupting them only to complete another teenage rite of passage: getting her A~level results.
℘ https://www.theguardian.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/radvxz/
Label: https://dirtyhit.co.uk/