Sophia Knapp - Into the Waves Review

"Way too many things happened last year, too much cake, too much wine," Sophia Knapp opines on "Glasses High", the opening cut from her solo debut, Into the Waves. Like most thinking adults, Knapp is preoccupied with the passage of time, with the proper ordering of a life: in a cottony whisper, she laments the way memories dissipate, how love wilts. "It's so hard to tell just how to make the good things last," she coos on the title track.

In the Brooklyn-based Cliffie Swan (a band still better known by its former name, Lights), Knapp's voice acted as a wispy counterpoint to her bandmates' distorted garage-guitar. Here, the instrumentation is almost self-consciously goofy-- the strings are tinny, the beats are pre-fab, and fade-outs prevent several of these tracks from ever having to actually resolve-- but Knapp's sweet and craggy vocals still manage to temper (and, in some cases, even justify) the goofiness of her backing tracks. The easiest analogue is Julee Cruise, who famously collaborated with David Lynch on the "Twin Peaks" soundtrack; Knapp's singing imparts a similar ghostliness, a sense of odd, unsettling discontinuity. The lush "Nothing to Lose", especially, feels like it was reverse-engineered to soundtrack a Lynchian moment: something absurd, something sinister, a high, breathy voice cutting through the darkness.

Mostly, though, the record's AM gold-aping sheen is the aural equivalent of smearing a camera lens with Vaseline: these are tracks for dreamily circling a roller rink in tiny shorts, or gently waving your bell-sleeved arms in the air (see Stevie Nicks circa 1976). The atmospherics are paramount, but periodically overwhelming, and when Knapp duets with labelmate Bill Callahan on two tracks-- "Spiderweb" and "Weeping Willow"-- his voice lands like a brick, leaden and heavy. It's a welcome presence-- an anchor in the fog-- and when Callahan ducks back out, you'll feel yourself craving his unmistakable corporeality....full text Frozen in time for over a year now, a crowdfunding page used by Sophia Knapp to help produce her debut solo LP is full of interesting insights. Besides listing supportive friends and family, the page entices contributors to donate $200 or more and receive a “tarot reading by Sophia in person or on the phone depending on location.” Although, sadly, no-one took advantage of that opportunity, the funding target was nonetheless reached, and Knapp’s flair for the magical has impacted strongly on the resultant album. Although softer and more personal than Knapp’s work with Brooklyn outfit Lights (or Cliffie Swan, as they are now known), Into the Waves is just as dreamy and thoughtful. The result is a comparatively light but always satisfying solo effort, and a worthy investment for Knapp’s backers.


Knapp’s track record must have inspired confidence in her supporters. While known as Lights, her band released two acclaimed records which ranged widely in style; after the renaming, Knapp fronted last year’s impressively coherent Memories Come True. Although the record was largely neglected by the music press, its more settled ‘70s radio rock approach was carried off with aplomb. Into the Waves is cut from the same cloth, to a significant extent, but if Cliffie Swan’s LP was their Fleetwood Mac-inspired record, Knapp’s solo departure is her tribute to the witchy rock LPs Stevie Nicks put out in the 1980s.


Fortunately, Knapp is no carbon-copy imitator. Just as she did with her bandmates in Cliffie Swan, Into the Waves sees her hat-tip her influences – not only Nicks but also Kate Bush, Françoise Hardy, and Carly Simon – just as she injects a modern sensibility into the songs. While the serene lead single “Nothing to Lose” certainly wouldn’t have sounded out of place on pop radio 30 years ago, “Close to You” makes a deft about-turn early on, morphing from a maudlin acoustic piece into thumping neo-disco by way of Swedish experimental duo Studio. Lending extra individuality to the album as a whole are the able collaborators Knapp has recruited, not least R&B veteran “Bassy” Bob Brockman on bass and Eric Gorman in the producer’s chair....full text Sophia Knapp‘s solo debut on her home label, Drag City, is a peculiar offering. Knapp’s floaty vocal style is lively, creative and appealing – but all too often the songs are deflated by the inexplicable substitution of genuine ambience for soulless polymer pop: drab beats and tinny tinkles. This is a shame, because Knapp’s voice is not at all afflicted by affectation (knocking any spectre of LDR into the most cocked of hats).

Into the Waves has Sophia Knapp singing over the sort of backing that you might expect to create with a keyboard presetting called “70s Pop Soul” or “Kool Jazz 2″. If you’ve ever heard Sheffield hipster and radio raconteur John Shuttleworth performing ‘I Can’t Go Back to Savoury Now’ on the Yamaha, however, you’ll know there’s more emotion to be prised from the keys than is achieved anywhere here.

That said – and despite two duets with labelmate Bill Callahan failing to counter either the oddity or the anaemia – even on the aptly creepy ‘Spiderweb’ – there are signs of life. First track ‘Glasses High’ opens encouragingly. The title song could be an Empire of The Sun single and ‘Close to Me’ breaks out of an early torpor into a meandering but attractive soul/disco/pop pastiche. The strongest song, however, is ‘Nothing to Lose’, where the atmospherics finally equate to atmosphere. It is chilly and shadowy, gentle and arresting. The resultant goodwill just about survives Callahan’s reemergence on the following track, ‘Weeping Willow’, another pretty ballad falling victim to the muzak. Short of timeless cool and shorn of Cliffie Swan’s guitars, Sophia Knapp’s melodic solo set is sunk by its MOR aesthetic.

We are living in a receptive time for albums like the one this seeks to be. Guardian Guide scribe Peter Robinson christened this phenomenon “The New Boring, a ballad-friendly tedial wave destroying everything in its path”. Albeit tongue-in-cheek, it is a useful way to frame the cultural and critical acclaim offered to obvious renaissance acts like Rumer and Duffy in the last few years. How far Knapp intended to tap into this rise of the imitators is unclear – Stevie Nicks is an obvious influence but Knapp’s earlier work is more avant-garde and Into the Waves was supposed to be “a pop vocal record for our time”. The result is rather more an ill-fitting combination of droid-penned autopop and bygone balladry with a Best Before End date circa 1975. For a pop vocal record of our time, try Tracey Thorn, Kathleen Edwards, or indeed Adele. Into the Waves simulates as much as stimulates....full text Sophia Knapp‘s solo debut on her home label, Drag City, is a peculiar offering. Knapp’s floaty vocal style is lively, creative and appealing – but all too often the songs are deflated by the inexplicable substitution of genuine ambience for soulless polymer pop: drab beats and tinny tinkles. This is a shame, because Knapp’s voice is not at all afflicted by affectation (knocking any spectre of LDR into the most cocked of hats).

Into the Waves has Sophia Knapp singing over the sort of backing that you might expect to create with a keyboard presetting called “70s Pop Soul” or “Kool Jazz 2″. If you’ve ever heard Sheffield hipster and radio raconteur John Shuttleworth performing ‘I Can’t Go Back to Savoury Now’ on the Yamaha, however, you’ll know there’s more emotion to be prised from the keys than is achieved anywhere here.

That said – and despite two duets with labelmate Bill Callahan failing to counter either the oddity or the anaemia – even on the aptly creepy ‘Spiderweb’ – there are signs of life. First track ‘Glasses High’ opens encouragingly. The title song could be an Empire of The Sun single and ‘Close to Me’ breaks out of an early torpor into a meandering but attractive soul/disco/pop pastiche. The strongest song, however, is ‘Nothing to Lose’, where the atmospherics finally equate to atmosphere. It is chilly and shadowy, gentle and arresting. The resultant goodwill just about survives Callahan’s reemergence on the following track, ‘Weeping Willow’, another pretty ballad falling victim to the muzak. Short of timeless cool and shorn of Cliffie Swan’s guitars, Sophia Knapp’s melodic solo set is sunk by its MOR aesthetic.

We are living in a receptive time for albums like the one this seeks to be. Guardian Guide scribe Peter Robinson christened this phenomenon “The New Boring, a ballad-friendly tedial wave destroying everything in its path”. Albeit tongue-in-cheek, it is a useful way to frame the cultural and critical acclaim offered to obvious renaissance acts like Rumer and Duffy in the last few years. How far Knapp intended to tap into this rise of the imitators is unclear – Stevie Nicks is an obvious influence but Knapp’s earlier work is more avant-garde and Into the Waves was supposed to be “a pop vocal record for our time”. The result is rather more an ill-fitting combination of droid-penned autopop and bygone balladry with a Best Before End date circa 1975. For a pop vocal record of our time, try Tracey Thorn, Kathleen Edwards, or indeed Adele. Into the Waves simulates as much as stimulates....full text