Marc Bianchi has been using the alias Her Space Holiday since 1996 after leaving several hardcore bands in his home city of San Francisco.
However this is his first proper release in the UK brought to you by Wichita, the label run by ex Creation peeps Dick Green & Mark Bowen. The album’s a story of a young couple; it’s not exactly your perfect fairy tale relationship though. In fact it’s quite the opposite, they end up resenting each other and the man decides to write songs about how he’s feeling.
He has an incredibly bleak look on the world as you can tell by the album title, the probable cause of outlook on life is on ‘Through The Eyes Of The Child’ where he sings “I know my mum gave me up for a good god damn reason, but I still don’t know” even Thom Yorke would find that pretty gloomy... maybe. The album is littered with melancholy and pain; the lead track 'Home Is Where You Hang Yourself' and the last song ‘Homecoming’ are the climaxes. On the opener he feels very insecure and whispers, “You tell me you love me but there’s hate in your eyes” and on last track he asks Sweet baby Jesus “I was wondering, is my place with you?”
Throughout the album Marc experiments with keyboards, hand plucked guitar loops, programmed rhythm sections, electronic drum’n’bass beats, sassy samples and horn sections, on paper in sounds like a mess but when you hear it you’ll love it. The closest comparisons I can think of are Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized but this is so much more superior to anything they’ve done, as Marc’s lyrics are superb although sometimes a little too miserable.
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10James Moore's Score