Tag: Hope Sandoval

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions Return with a Sparse and Sublime New Track

Best known as the hauntingly ethereal voice of Mazzy Star, Hope Sandoval has had a lengthy solo career, collaborating with a number of renowned artists including Massive Attack and My Bloody Valentine’s Colm O’Coisog in her long-running post Mazzy Star project, Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions. And if you had been frequenting this site last year, you’d likely recall that Sandoval’s Warm Inventions is a subtle yet decided departure from her Mazzy Star work in terms of overall theme, instrumentation and arrangement; whereas Mazzy Star’s sound is famously based around a sparse arrangement shimmering guitar chords paired with gentle drumming and Sandoval’s imitable vocals, The Warm Inventions sound while being based sound fairly sparse arrangements, draws from 70s AM radio — at least as you would have heard on the duo’s third full-length effort together Until the Hunter. 

Son of a Lady EP, is the highly anticipated follow up to Until the Hunter and the EP,  a which is slated for a September 15, 2017 release through Pledge Music as a 10″ with an exclusive track along with other exclusive items. As the members of Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions explain “‘Son of a Lady’ is a song we wrote and recorded some time ago and rediscovered it recently by chance. We worked with this really great upright bass player Damon Anderson, who we’d never worked with before and I believe it was the first time he’d ever played his bass over a cello part. He was really inspired by Ji-Young Moon’s exquisite playing. It’s a strange and lovely one; just the way we like it.” 

“Sleep,” the latest single from the Son of a Lady EP is a slow-burning, hazy and sublime dream of a song, in which Sandoval’s imitable vocals are paired with gently strummed guitar and twinkling percussion and much like the preceding single, it’s an odd yet haunting track. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps best known as the haunting and ethereal voice of Mazzy Star, Hope Sandoval has had an equally lengthy solo career, collaborating with a number of artists including Massive Attack and My Bloody Valentine’s Colm O’Coisog in her long-running post Mazzy Star project, Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions. Interestingly, Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions is a major departure in terms of theme, instrumentation and mood. Whereas Mazzy Star’s sound was shimmering and moodily atmospheric and featured sparse arrangements of guitar and drums, The Warm Inventions’ sound at times is reminiscent of twangy 70s AM radio and soul as you’ll hear on “Let Me Get There,” the first single off the project’s forthcoming third, full-length effort Until the Hunter, slated for a November 4, 2016 release.

Featuring a guest spot from acclaimed and prolific singer/songwriter Kurt Vile, the song consists of the sort of tender, slow-burning, Sunday morning soulful and hypnotic groove that you can two-step to with a lover, paired with soaring and trembling organ keys and Sandoval and Vile’s call and response vocals evoking both the warm, comfortable and playful familiarity of a long-term couple as they’re about to make love or as they’re in the middle of making love — and that sense of curiosity and discovery those first few times you’ve begun to see a lover naked. Interestingly, the song also manages to suggest that when it’s right, a relationship should feel much like musicians who automatically have a sense of simpatico and can intuitively follow wherever the other leads.