After opening with a flurry of wobbly, woozy, Durutti Column-ish guitar, A Different Life travels through nine distant, foggy ruminations which suggest dissociation. Titles like “Far Apart”, “It’s Getting Better”, “Dive” and “Drive-by” posit Olivier Heim as a songwriter displaced from the day-to-day. And, atmospherically, his debut album reinforces the impression. With his sigh of a voice, it’s clear Heim’s music mirrors his moods. Indeed, on “Ocean”, he sings of a sleepy feeling he thought was left behind.
A Different Life makes its case with sparse instrumentation: the treated guitar to the fore is augmented by bass, drums, odd supporting vocals, sprinkles of keyboard and a light employment of strings. Heim’s defeated vocals are the focus and fill the space between instruments like a cloud descending to earth. The Sarah Records band The Orchids come to mind as a precursor. Overall, like Denmark’s similarly inclined Vinnie Who, Heim has created a gently danceable, post-chill wave pop which springs off from early Toro y Moi. In setting its ambiance so firmly, A Different Life is samey and drifts by.
Heim has arrived at this point and made his solo debut after disbanding his Poland-based band Très.b. Born in America, he lived with his family in Luxembourg, then went to school in Denmark and subsequently formed Très.b in the Netherlands and moved the band to Poland. Fittingly, A Different Life is impossible to pin down geographically. It could be by a songwriter from America, Denmark or one based in Poland. If the soundtrack to a reverie induced by rootlessness is needed, this is it.
Watch the Last Year in Marienbad-influenced video for “Ocean” from Olivier Heim’s A Different Life
