By Kevin Scott
With her second album, the Berlin-based Japanese singer Cuushe has created an accessible collection of hazy electronic dreampop that is being released at exactly the right time of year. If there's a perfect time to listen to Butterfly Case, it's as the autumnal sun starts setting, just as your curtains are drawn and the heating begins to warm your wet toes.
The album starts with 'Sort of Light's steady ambient electronic beat. it creates an gentle atmosphere for Cuushe's fragile voice to emerge, like a distant light in the fog. The beat builds steadily, slowly. There's a certain control to the production, with every aspect - from the keys to the drums and vocals all pulling in the same direction. It sets the stall out for an album that entrances, putting the listener into a dreamlike state. The reverb and echo is so slight that it's almost as if it drapes a fine mist over the album.
'Dreamt About Silence' follows in the same vein - vocals and synth combining to create an intricate tapestry of sound that delivers more satisfaction the closer you listen to it. While many exponents of dreampop or shoegaze put guitars firmly in the spotlight, there's less of that going on here with the ambiance created by keyboards doing the work of driving the tracks. Songs like 'Butterfly' are hugely ambitious, multi-layered with backing vocals running underneath the lead like crossed streams, blending into one another and opening the track up into something verging on silent euphoria. It just makes you feel...well, nice, and while that can sometimes be a criticism, in this case it's most certainly not.
To call it dreampop doesn't quiet fit - Butterfly Case sits comfortably somewhere between that and ambient electronica, but it's the melody and Cuushe's voice that raises it to another level. When Goldfrapp are at their most chilled out they're still not quite as horizontal as Cuushe. There are clearer influences: Bjork, Cocteau Twins, Eluvium.
The main criticism is that the tone and pace of the album don't change much, which can lead to distraction, but if you get into step with it and switch off everything else going on the world, it is an enchanting and mesmerising work, which in parts may be almost too gentle but in the main, works a treat.
