With its international debut album 'Where Is Piemont', the German duo Malky presents a confident sophisticated songwriter album incorporating European folklore, orchestral music and Las Vegas-coolness. An album as confident as 'Where Is Piemont' is unique.
It’s all about the big picture on 'Where Is Piemont', Malky’s first international album release. Thoughtfully crafted nuances and details add up musically and lyrically to the anyway existing substantial musical horizon of this twosome out of Leipzig considerably. For instance: The album’s first song 'The Only One' is scarcely playing for a few seconds when Daniel Stoyanov sings the following words almost accusingly solemnly: »When two give a secret to one, they catch light of the eternal sun«.
On 'Where Is Piemont' Stoyanov and his partner Michael Vanj frequently sound as if they’re actually sharing a special secret with us: enigmatic, intimate, immediate. Succeeding in incorporating a universally urgency concurrently makes 'Where Is Piemont?' a seminal innovative and heady album.
Finding its own way, devising an internationally valid language was a prime concern for this notable band from the beginning. Having met in Mannheim, Daniel Stoyanov and producer/keyboarder Michael Vanja jointly moved to Leipzig where the sound-basis for their subsequent band Malky was evolved in their studio, a converted roof pitch. Two years have passed since the release of their EP ‘Diamonds' in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, followed by their first album ‘Soon', which was enthusiastically received by German critics. The band played more than 100 shows followed by their EP release in Europe and appeared at some of Europe’s major showcase festivals.
Presumably it would have been easy for Malky to proceed with its formula for success by recording something like 'Soon II'. However, the band’s fundamental aspirations demand the very reverse: Malky steadily craves for their art’s advancement. Implementing that desire, the band shielded itself away consistently from influences other than themselves. And it never took to easy solutions. An important key on the path towards the new album was… Italy. However, it wasn’t the country per se, but an imagined, idealized and longed for shape of Italy.
Sizeable parts of 'Where Is Piemont' were developed in Michael Vanja’s house in the middle of nowhere between Berlin and Leipzig. Its weald opened up plenty of spaces for the imagination, which condensed into sounds and words by way of the Italy-idea. »Art’s sense and purpose is to broach the unconscious, to delve beyond the surface«, says Stoyanov. Thus Italy became the subconscious factor for the album. Its architecture, its food, warmth and vastness also served to be an excellent counterpoint to the bleakness of German winters. To elevate the Italy-idea conclusively, the band eventually came up with the dadaistic idea for the album title. And so »Where Is Piemont« has become an Italy-record, albeit one that certainly wouldn’t sound like it actually has been formed in Italy.
'Where Is Piemont' succeeds to be an album that defies the usual categories almost downright. The infatuating duet 'Told I Must Die' can be understood to being a nod to Lee Hazlewood and »Modern Arch« is reminding somewhat of Calexico, whereas other songs show towards Elbow, the young Adriano Celentano or even Georges Moustaki. However, the huge width of those references suggests that Malky have long since outgrown such credentials. Stoyanov and Vanja have found an ingenious sound that is to be located somewhere between the supremacy of a 70’s soul-gala, European folklore, American field-recordings and Frank Sinatra’s Las Vegas. The respective choice of musical tools is following the composition’s defaults in economical manners. As required, Malky oscillate between Big Band-lavishness and attic room-minimalism. That implies an exceedingly and distinctive pop moment in total.
Though 'Where Is Piemont' ain’t no concept album as such, the songs lend themselves quite well to be read as different episodes – each one being a kind of movie sequence – which eventually add up to the big picture. It’s turning inside out from micro- into macrocosm. Though one is being expected these days to take a definite position, even in art, Malky allow themselves nuances and lots of grey shades. This music operates like mind-expanding medicine in the context of modern day’s permanent information explosion. The point is to extravert the inner cacophony in all of us and to turn it into something beautiful and genuine.
That is this album’s virtue.
‘Where Is Piemont’ wil be released on April the 14th through Eighty Days Records and a Sony distribution.
Live
9/05: AB Club, Brussels