Eerie Wanda - Pet Town (2019)

For fans of Beat Happening, Broadcast, Young Marble Giants and Allah-Las. For Dutch / Croatian songwriter and visual artist Marina Tadic, Pet Town represents time well spent in one’s own shell. Her second LP as Eerie Wanda (and first for Joyful Noise Recordings), Pet Town is a stripped down spectral manifestation, anchored by Tadic’s wistful lyrics and self possessed vocal delivery. Mixed by producer Jasper Geluk, the album is perched in warm, homespun recordings live drums are replaced with handclaps, finger snaps, and a Roland-CR 78 drum machine, enhancing the music’s tactile and intimate headspace. Using minimal recording techniques, Tadic shaped these ten songs on sheer intuition, while drawing inspiration from solitude: how it can be both a state of euphoria but also one of loneliness of inner meditation and outer yearning. Echoing the sonorous gleam of West Coast pop, opening song Pet Town initially sounds like a love letter to one’s hometown, as both a tangible and emotional sanctuary. Between the lines, Tadic grapples with the sudden absence of shiny beacons that once enriched her life. Hands Of The Devil casts spells of attraction with its hypnotic flamenco cadence, whereas the humdrum amble of Sleepy Eyes evokes a rude awakening from those very spells.