Vanities, the debut full-length by French producer Barbara Braccini, aka Malibu, is equal elements devotion and alienation. Her quick, lush ambient compositions layer formless washes of synth with discipline recordings of metropolis sounds; seamy and ominous, they evoke haunted industrial areas or photographs of deserted enterprise districts throughout Covid. On the similar time, the songs on Vanities spotlight Braccini’s clarion, wordless vocals—hymnlike passages that try and thaw the manufacturing’s frosty veneer. The sensation Vanities evokes has, in my thoughts, extra in frequent with medical, alienating, however finally invigorating movies like Unhealthy Lieutenant: Port of Name New Orleans or Spring Breakers than it does any of Braccini’s contemporaries.
Vanities was made largely in Stockholm however completed in Los Angeles, and it feels unmistakably like a bit of California noir. From the sirens that drift by way of the thickly atmospheric opener “Nu” to the new-age wash of “The Hills” to the voice that whispers, “It’s our secret, you may’t inform anyone,” like a pattern from some ’90s thriller, on nearer “Watching Folks Die,” Vanities revels within the chilly contradictions of the Metropolis of Angels—its pervasive heat and the way in which its structure forces a way of atomization, the obscure spirituality and the potent sense of moneyed privilege. At occasions, the album remembers the ambient-leaning again half of Chromatics’ Kill for Love, one other serotonin-depleted report that seems like a strung-out drive by way of the town within the early morning hours.
This palette isn’t wholly dissimilar from Palaces of Pity, Braccini’s 2022 EP. The distinction now could be that every thing feels crisper and extra expansive: Braccini’s voice is evident and excessive within the combine, versus a whisper beneath the shoegazey wash; particular person samples, just like the crashing waves on “Spicy Metropolis” and “What Is It That Breaks,” could be heard clearly amid the noise. Listening to Vanities after Palaces of Pity, it seems like a weight has been lifted; for each tune on Vanities like “A World Past Lashes,” which feels prefer it’s collapsing in on itself beneath layers of noise, there’s one like “Lactonic Crush,” whose hard-won lightness and gently swelling synth remembers dream trance at its foggiest.
