It is fair to say that it is currently fun and rewarding to see so many promising indie-pop releases coming from Austria. Another example of this most welcome development in the domestic pop scene is the debut album of the Styrian songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Thomas Petritsch, also known as “Effi”. “Astronaut” is the title of his new album and offers everything that sophisticated pop music lovers appreciate: beautifully arranged indie-pop songs with melodies that go straight to the ears.
For the past three years, Thomas Petritsch has been meticulously tinkering on the thirteen songs of his new album. An investment in time, which has definitely paid off. Co-produced by Alexander Nefzger (Clara Luzia, Mika Vember, Kommando Elefant), “Astronaut” has become an optimistic feel-good album. The music comes with a casual ease and sweeps the listener away to a sweet escape. The powerful three prior singles “Happy”, “Bye Baby” and “Sinnerman” that were played in heavy rotation on the Austrian radio station FM4 already hinted the musical direction of the album. The entire album showcases a very high and sophisticated musical level of the 23-year-old Styrian singer-songwriter, who apart from the drums and the wind instruments, played all the instruments himself.
It is particularly impressive with how much ease Thomas Petritsch masters the span between sophistication and radio suitability. The unconventional approach of the singer-songwriter is shown by the fact that he truly understands how to unite and connect rambling individual differences of various pop genres. He doesn’t seem to care about any genre boundaries. The complex overall sound includes elements from electronic music, as well as from alternative guitar music and singer-songwriter-pop. In addition, his wonderfully variable voice gives each song a special and unique character.
With his debut album, Effi has succeeded in creating his own version of pop music, which is characterized by an extremely diverse and highly original musical language that is clearly distinct from conventional pop approaches and has a very international sound. Let’s hope to hear a lot more from this young and talented singer-songwriter in the future.
Links:
www.myspace.com/effimusic