Subtle Song

In a recent interview, Masato Saito of Pervenche explained the roots of the group’s sound, their key influences: The Velvet Underground, Beat Happening, and Young Marble Giants. You can hear elements of all those bands in Pervenche’s Subtle Song, but it’s often at a molecular level, as though they’ve understood the poetics at the core of that music, divining a thread of minimalism that’s woven between, say, VU’s third album, and YMG’s Colossal Youth. It’s a sound that isn’t tidy, exactly, but it’s smart in knowing just what’s needed to make guitar pop of deceptive fragility and naivete. Vocalist Masako Nagai delivers the lyrics in a way that’s almost distracted; she’s present in the music, but only just, as if she’s about to disappear into the songs.