Stockholm songbird Vanbot is getting ready to release her debut album digitally this Friday, and in one of our more exciting emails of the week we managed to get our hands on a copy. If you’re new to Vanbot, it’s the project of serial pop pioneer Ester Ideskog and is just one of her numerous and confusing alter egos which belt out awesome electro pop.
The singles from the album, “Make Me, Break Me” and “Lost Without You” are super-synth tracks with awesome melodies and ingenious harmonies to match. They’re exemplary of the attention to detail which makes uberproduced albums like this a pleasure to listen to. Think somewhere between Ellie Goulding and Robyn – the songwriting’s good but it’s the production that really gets you.
Away from the headline tracks there are unexpected beauties like “Numb” and “By the Side of This Road” – they’re distorted and grungy and a little less dreamy, but give Ester the chance to show off her lyrical genius, too. They provide a sensible balance to all that sparkly stuff, yet still have the impressive choruses which you’d expect from synth hits.
Quieter tracks like “Bitter is the Sweetest Part” give Ester’s vocals the prominence they deserve. They’re ghostly and ethereal and paranormally good – this stuff’s just better than real life. And after all that it builds to something bigger and better and fully-formed – it’s worth the wait.
“Bad Day” is another minimalist track – we’re approaching James Blake territory here. It’s a simple duet which acts as a perfect breather before the finale: a closing showstopper which combines those brilliant melodies with a calmer and less synthed-up backing for a measured but entirely satisfying closer.
If you want to hear it for yourself – and trust us, you do – you can listen to the album in full at Vanbot’s SoundCloud when it’s released on Friday. Or listen to her latest single, “Lost Without You”, below.