JOLT MUSIC 012:


Corridor


Nico Lepeska-True and Helly Manson came together again as the experimental pop duo, Joann Fabrix, in 2021. They'd each just finished solo projects, and found voices by turns sincere, mythic, spikey, and clear. Corridor began with sounds and phrases passed from ear to ear: a puffing sigh, a question from a journal, or a strong, thumping percussive loop. Neither artist wanted to explain too much to the other. Instead, each brought just the curve of a thought and asked how it might swell, fill to the round "O" of a mouth open in song, or to the quick stretch of a smile.



Corridor features five searching, precise, and glimmering songs. The opening track, "Soft Smiley Rose," tells of a flowering walk in Philly and the strange cohesion of light and dark, of a familiar specter spotted along the road home. The song ferries between the synth-line, textural percussion, and gauzy vocals, finding in its passage a cosmic dialogue and sound all its own. And in "Round Sigh" and "Grasping," Nico and Helly make their voices elastic, asking the listener to pluck just one out, hold it heavy in the palm, and then release it back to the shared thrum and unison of their collaboration.

Joann Fabrix's influences play and shapeshift on their way to "Never Forever," the album's earnest, youthful, and magical pop anthem. Waiting at the album's close, a cartoonish surprise, "Never Forever" is a dizzying creation about impossible love. It's inspired by karaoke, horoscopes, and the glinting sound of Discovery Zone, Chairlift, and Bjork



Following Fable (2020), Corridor is a confident, ambitious album about two voices maturing and changing. In the final track, one voice insists "Tell me how you want to know me," and the other can't say for certain, but replies with hope.

LISTEN:


Bandcamp
Spotify
Apple Music

TRACKLIST:


1. Soft Smiley Rose
2. Round Sigh
3. Grasping
4. Never Forever
5. Candle





CREDITS:


Music by Joann Fabrix
Mixed by Helly Manson
Mastered by Sam O.B.

Cover painting by Clara Curbera
Layout by Nico Lepeska-True
Photos by Marshall Hanig
"Soft Smiley Rose" music video by Serena Hocharoen