搬運(yùn)自：網(wǎng)易云音樂專欄【Music Online Zine Courier】（在原文基礎(chǔ)上添加了英語原文與排版調(diào)整）

翻譯：Beans_Beans

The North Carolina songwriter’s outstanding second album spans grungy rock and colorful, hi-fi pop, illuminating her impressive voice and her ability to wring out every last drop of emotion.

這位來自北卡羅來納州的作曲家的第二張專輯表現(xiàn)出色，專輯橫跨頹廢搖滾和色彩絢麗的高保真流行樂，向世人展示了她令人印象深刻的聲線和她深掘每一縷情感的能力。

Some nights you go out, and along with theusual sky-high Uber receipt, return home with an iridescent, forever-memory.How beautiful your friends look under the soft gel lighting, cocking theirheads back and grinning lazily; how liberating it is to whirl with themdrunkenly as the DJ plays another song. In the right company, you don’t have tosay much to be understood, yet there’s a kind of tacit oath: that you’ve knowneach other then and now, and you will care for the successive versions of eachother that follow.

總有幾個夜晚，你獨(dú)自出門，等再次歸家時口袋揣著天價Uber賬單，心懷著彩虹般夢幻、難以消散的甜美回憶。在柔和的燈光下，你的朋友們懶散地仰著頭，洋溢著笑容，那一幕是多么美好；DJ切到下一首歌，醉醺醺的你又伴著音樂同他們一起旋轉(zhuǎn)搖擺，這又何嘗不是一種自在。和對的人一道，你無須多言來尋得他的理解，這是一種心照不宣的誓言：你們已然了解彼此的過去和當(dāng)下；你們同樣會心系彼此未來的篇章。

This sublime, uncomplicated devotionilluminates “Hold U,” by the 24-year-old Saddle Creek artist Indigo De Souza.Its music video celebrates the communal warmth of a queer party; friends brusheyeshadow onto De Souza’s lids and tangle together on the couch before gettingglittered up on the dancefloor. “You are a good thing, I’ve noticed,” shemurmurs to them—and soon a stylish, tapered groove kicks in to warm up themood, becoming even more triumphant with the addition of clapping percussionand stratospheric wooos. De Souza’s language is minimal, but she imbues herwords with such ardent sincerity that even the most elemental ideas areelectrifying. With just one line, she seems to promise everything: “I will holdyou.”

這位24歲的Saddle Creek簽約藝術(shù)家Indigo De Souza的歌曲“Hold U”就體現(xiàn)了這種崇高而純粹的熱愛精神。它的MV歌頌的是酷兒派對中充斥著的集體溫暖；友人為De Souza繪上眼影、在沙發(fā)上纏綿依偎、然后來到舞池閃閃發(fā)光、耀眼奪目。她低聲對他們傾訴著：“You are a good thing, I've noticed?！薄o接著，一段時髦、愈加精細(xì)的節(jié)奏出現(xiàn)，再加上背景中的拍手聲和和聲，氣氛愈加宜人得意。De Souza的語言尤為簡潔，但卻灌滿了一種熾熱的誠摯，甚至最基本的想法在這里都令人興奮不已。她似乎只用一句話——“I'LL HOlD U”——就承諾了一切。

“Hold U” is a highlight of De Souza’ssecond album, Any Shape You Take, which traces a loose narrative down a rockypath towards self-discovery. Following her charming indie rock debut, 2018’s ILove My Mom, De Souza finally left a long-term relationship that she’sdescribed as like “be[ing] buried and lost in my own body.” And so the songs onAny Shape You Take, written over the course of many years, are about wretched,ravenous kinds of love, love that alerts you to your own mortality. But they’realso about finding compassion for yourself and your loved ones. Musically, therecord refines the roaming fluidity De Souza displayed in her early EPs andsingles, where she flirted with smoky jazz crooning, Sylvan Esso folktronica,and even rapping. Co-produced with Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee), itseamlessly integrates grungy rock and colorful, hi-fi pop elements, with sparelyrics enlivened by her immaculate sense of melody.

“Hold U”毫無疑問是De Souza第二張錄音室專輯《Any Shape You Take》的一大亮點(diǎn)。這張專輯沿著一條崎嶇不平的自我認(rèn)同之路而展開，為我們緩緩道來一段段松散的敘事。2018年，在她迷人的獨(dú)立搖滾處女作《I Love My Mom》發(fā)行之后，De Souza終于結(jié)束了一段她形容為“埋葬和迷失在自己肉體之中”的長期戀情。也因此《Any Shape You Take》——這張關(guān)于卑微而貪婪的愛情，最終讓你自覺已迎來愛情墳?zāi)沟膶］嫛I備了很多年，至今才問世。但這些曲目也在為她尋覓著同情自己或自身所愛的人。從音樂性上來說，這張唱片完善了De Souza在早期EP和單曲中就顯現(xiàn)出的流暢性，在這些單曲中，她融入了煙霧爵士樂的低吟、Sylvan Esso的民謠形式，甚至說唱元素。在Brad Cook（曾與Bon Iver, Waxahatchee合作）的合作制作下，《Any Shape You Take》無縫融合了垃圾搖滾和色彩絢麗的高保真流行樂元素，簡潔有力的歌詞在她近乎完美的律動感的帶動下而活躍起來。

In De Souza’s presence, bare-bones remarkstake on tremendous feeling—and the magic is in how her tactile voice kicksthrough the skin of every line she sings. She can manipulate it into a woundedtremble like Angel Olsen and scratchy, ringing yelps; she rivals Frances Quinlanof the band Hop Along with her vocal agility. Reliving a sleepless night on thesqualling “Bad Dream,” she tosses from tormented pop-punk howl (“I’m AL-LREA-DY GO-NE”) to flat intonation (“Please. Send. Help. To me”), eventuallysoaring into a keening, operatic falsetto (“I’m having a hard timesl-EEEE-ping.”) Unconcerned with places and names, she drills into simplephrases until they’re all-consuming. A haunting, unresolved question hangs over“Darker Than Death”: “Was it something I said?” At the end of “Way Out,” sherepeats “I wanna be a light” for almost a full minute—at first with breezyself-assurance, then with ragged breath that hints at desperation.

De Souza的出現(xiàn)，證明簡潔的印記也可以帶來了巨量驚人的體驗(yàn)——而神奇之處就在于她可感的嗓音能夠貫穿她每一行歌詞的表里。可以操縱它，讓它同Angel Olsen那樣受傷地戰(zhàn)栗，發(fā)出刺耳的尖嘯；她靈活的嗓音可與Hop Along樂隊(duì)的Frances Quinlan相媲美。在充斥著怖人尖嘯的“Bad Dream”中，她經(jīng)歷了一個不眠之夜，從痛苦的流行朋克式嚎叫（“I'm having a hard time sl-EEEE-ping.”）到平淡的語調(diào)（“Please. Send. Help. To me”），最終變成了悲慟的歌劇式詠嘆（“I'm having a hard time sl-EEEE-ping.”）。她對是誰、又身在何處漠不關(guān)心，而是錘煉那些簡潔的短句，直到把它們?nèi)繚撃茚尫懦鰜怼！癉arker Than Death”中有著一個揮之不去卻仍懸而未決的問題：“Was it something I said?”；在“Way Out”的尾聲，她用了將近一分鐘的時間重復(fù)著“I wanna be a light”——即便一開始輕松自信，隨后呼吸卻漸漸急促，暗示了內(nèi)心的絕望。

Because her voice is so naturallyarresting, it’s unexpected to hear her warp it with Auto-Tune and vocoder onthe synth-pop opener “17.” Its saccharine production recreates a kind ofguilelessness, as she casts her gaze at a lover from adolescence. “Darling…won’t you just bend?” she asks sweetly, before her voice seizes into somethinguncannily pinched and chirpy: “This is the way I’m going to bend.” It’s a bitof a red herring; nothing else on the album sounds like it again. From there,Any Shape You Take embraces unpredictability in its sound and sequencing:self-destruction (“Kill Me”) shadows life-affirming catharsis (“Hold U”) andplacid wisdom (“Pretty Pictures”) follows obsessive thinking (“Die/Cry”).Midway through the centerpiece “Real Pain,” which opens with a clear-headedmeditation on the inescapability of grief, the song climaxes in a din ofcrowdsourced screams. It’s overwhelmed by heavy-metal shrieks, barks like arabid dog, and what sounds like someone exasperatedly repeating “fuck, fuck,fuck”—until it suddenly zips back up to crisp indie pop.

因?yàn)樗旧淼纳ひ舯阕匀欢坏匚?，所以在合成器流行樂開場曲“17”中聽到她用Auto-Tune和聲碼器扭曲她的人聲是尤為出人意料的。它精密甜美的制作再現(xiàn)了這種真誠。當(dāng)她凝視著青春期的初戀，她甜甜地問道：“Darling… won't you just bend?”，隨即她的聲音再次變得異常的收緊和歡快：“This is the way I'm going to bend.”但這也僅是一種轉(zhuǎn)移注意力的小把戲；從這以后，《Any Shape You Take》便沒有這樣的聲音，其中的音色和曲序都充斥著不可預(yù)測性：自我毀滅（“Kill Me”）的陰影維系著積極生活的宣泄凈化（“Hold U”）；平靜的智慧（“Pretty Pictures”）伴隨著偏執(zhí)的思考囚籠（“Die/Cry”）。在核心曲目“Real Pain”中，開場是對避之不及的悲傷的清醒思考，但歌曲卻是在此起彼伏的尖叫中達(dá)到高潮——它充斥著重金屬的尖叫元素，像瘋狗一樣，聽起來像有人在憤怒地重復(fù)“Fa(u)ck! Fa(u)ck! Fa(u)ck”——直到它突然又回到了冷靜清醒的獨(dú)立流行樂。

Is there a more honest and real response tohurt than screaming? Doesn’t it feel good to just let yourself cry? It can seemeasier to stay guarded and cool, to furiously maintain control by trying toout-analyze your emotions. But it’s impossible to outrun them. On Any Shape YouTake, De Souza commits herself to being undone, to experiencing the terriblefeelings and the beautiful ones. Even when she’s fucked-up, there is somethingecstatic in her attempts at loving, her hunger to absorb all she can from life.

當(dāng)一個人受傷時，還有比尖叫更真摯、真實(shí)的反應(yīng)嗎？讓自己哭出來不也是一件好事嗎？保持警惕和冷靜似乎更容易——通過試圖分析自己的情緒來看似理智地壓抑克制。但要想真正克服它們是不可能的，在《Any Shape You Take》中，De Souza坦誠地接受自己要被情緒摧毀，去承納這些糟糕的感覺和體驗(yàn)?zāi)切┟篮玫母杏X。即便她搞砸了，但在她對愛的一次次試錯中也能夠收獲一種狂喜。她渴望從生活的每一個角落汲取一切。