2023-11-01 12:01:09
By Christoph Sepin
There is no intro and no long wait when Viji’s debut album starts. There’s a guitar chord, a drum and a sentence: “I hope you’re watching, am I mysterious?” And then there it is, the hook, the tension and the moment when you know: this is very good and will continue to be better.
“So Vanilla” is the name of Viji’s album, a kind of reference to Viji’s first name (Vanilla) and also the shame of knowing that they have released such a special record, there is nothing basic and vanilla regarding it. Viji has a lot of humor, knows everything and comes from a musical family: her father builds instruments, her grandfather was a pianist, her cousin played in a band, Viji herself started with classical guitar. And then Avril Lavigne showed up.
“I think a big reason was my first record, which I bought at a school festival. That was Avril Lavigne,” she says in the FM4 studio. She learned “Sk8er Boi” with barre chords and then it was clear which direction she was going in: Viji makes music that has good words for it in English: fuzzy, shoegazy, a bit emo. “Indie Sleaze” is written very well in the press release.
The best music people are multi-faceted: Viji was born in Vienna, then went to the USA and Brazil to be with his family. Now she lives in London and works there, for example, with Dan Carey, twice Mercury Prize nominee for his production of albums by Black Midi and Fontaines DC. If you ask Viji who would be on her dream festival line-up, she says Elliott Smith, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Frank Ocean. If you know these artists, then you know what Viji’s songs sound like. Yes very good. When recording the record, Viji listened to Bikini Kill or „Totally Crushed Out“ von that dog.
There are songs regarding life with and next to each other on “So Vanilla”. It’s regarding missing and wanting to be in love, regarding who you are and what you would like to be. Ennui is the key word, tiredness of the mundane. “This is a topic that I’ve seen a lasting impact on, that I’ve written regarding.” Song line examples: “Now that I’m happier I never say a thing” and “maybe now I’m here it’s time to get down and roll” . “Days can be so beautiful in a dream, I can keep my mind from waking” and “a world mundane, impossible to understand”.
Good rock’n’roll isn’t just regarding what you sing, but also regarding how you sing it. A word can mean a lot depending on how it comes out of the headphones or the radio. “If I really love something, then I also love it because of the lyrics and because of the voice, that’s also very important to me.”
What you want to hear in great music is what you often want to play. It is the feeling or, once more more meaningfully in English, that feeling. “The euphoric feeling of the song has something only comes when you play and then you look at each other and then you have the feeling. It’s just in the room. The human thing is that you have someone who gives you that feeling back.” Feedback there, feedback back. “So Vanilla” is on now Speedy Wunderground outside. Viji will definitely be live in a venue near you soon.
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