The sounds seem to appear from nowhere. At the beginning, there is a light voice, filling the room with only a few tones, resonating, circling around itself in loops. »I wait for you / in the fall / I want you«, it keeps repeating over and over. With her debut »Sympathy«, Gabrielle Herbst a.k.a. GABI submits evidence that chamber-pop by educated composers might be strict but doesn’t need to be bloodless. In order to prove her point, she uses her voice as the center of the record’s nine tracks, making them appear ethereal without being esoteric. She needs nothing but piano, violin, viola, guitar, trombone and percussions, mostly applied sparingly, but sometimes densifying in the compact shape of a chamber orchestra. Herbst, whose first actual opera »Bodiless« premiered last year in New York, has a clear idea about how to use her instruments – including her own vocals. Brought forward without vibrato and without excessive affect, it doesn’t serve as a vehicle for personal sensitivities but rather fits into the arrangements unresistingly, even when it acts as the main instrument. The impression you get derives from the composition’s structure, in which the most important elements are the pauses. This way, there’s enough room for the listener’s fantasy to unfold.
Sympathy
