Annie Achron - Never Paradise LP

After Nic nodded towards the recent past of Siltbreeze last week with his Sic Alps write up, I figured it would be fitting to point towards their latest release; another entry  proving that label head Tom Lax has got to have one of the best and most enduring ears in contemporary DIY music.

This is the first LP release for the musical project known as Annie Achron (the moniker of Philly artist Nicole Siering). Lax points to familiar strain of 4AD and Mute records as a touchpoint for ‘Never Paradise’ (in his perfect words, from a time that “the stench in the clubs of the industrial north was from the stale beer rather than MDMA induced vomit. Yes, THAT brief, Edenic window of time”).

To my ear, these sparse, melancholy tracks consisting of synths, drum machines, and occasional vocals recall similar sounds from Sex Tourists, Karen Marks, Scraps, or the kind of private press pop that is reissued by the likes of Dark Entries. That is to say that this is beautiful, affecting, and human synth pop music rather than the kind of detached, post-ironic dross that I all too often associate with a solo-synth-pop-under-a-psuedonym album! –Mitch