[SOUNDSCAPES] Is the “sophomore slump” an American
concept? Because Pikara godhead Sara Johanne isn’t from our
country—she’s from Sweden, though she has spent the past three years in
Portland, where both her band (Dead Cinema) and label (AIO Records) also
reside—and she might not have been dodging expectations with her second
album,
Constellations, an entirely improvised, near-ambient collection ripe with plucked violin and warm fuzz.
Either way, Johanne’s
first effort as Pikara took a more formal approach to songwriting—songs
like “Few Hit Wonder” and “Over and Out” were flush with classical and
experimental influences, but they maintained a healthy dose of form and
structure. The improv fare of Constellations tends toward
wandering, string-heavy space-jams—with a lazy, dark tone that has more
in common with indie film scores than underground pop albums.
A minimal,
eight-minute instrumental opening tune would usually be a cue for me to
fall asleep or turn off the stereo (patience, sadly, is not my strong
suit), and improvisational music is generally best left to be
appreciated…well, by other improvisational musicians. But Johanne is as
adept at constructing these sparse, trippy and largely instrumental
compositions from scratch as she was at writing the slow, dark, pretty
pop of her previous disc. That’s because these songs, however
off-the-cuff, have personality. The five-minute “Tucana” dabbles in
tango before disintegrating into tape-loop hell; “Svanen” finds ghosts
of Delta blues in its slides and vocal moans.
I know where Sara
Johanne literally came from (Sweden, remember?), but I don’t know where
she came from. And how I ever missed her. Now that I’ve spent some time
with Pikara, I just know I’m not letting her out of my sight.
SEE IT: Pikara plays at Valentine’s on
Tuesday, Feb. 8, with Double U and Empty Seas. 9 pm. Cover. 21+.
