In the beginning was the bass. Ayşe Hassan gave the power post-punk of Savages, around Jehnny Beth, a great deal of urgency with her instrument in the mid-2010s. The first seconds of »Husbands« are not easily forgotten anyway. Her first solo album now takes some of the pressure out. As Esya, she uses cold machine music, synthesisers and drum machines for a sound between industrial and wave pop, but does not attempt the frosty aloofness one often imagines behind the microphone. Instead, she goes outside.
Really outside. There is something vulnerable about that, even when tracks such as »Heaven« pulse and almost tumble over themselves. Here, she calls the clubs and concert halls whose walls have seen more love and devotion than most others heaven. On Chasing Desire, for whose sunny keyboard beat Jessy Lanza is responsible, Esya cannot quite make up her mind and sings »I (don’t) want to be your lover« a total of 18 times.
What she does know, though, and what suits the album very well, is the slow pull that emerges over its little more than 30 minutes. The drums retreat further and further into the second row, calling up highlights such as »Hiding Place«, which, in the best sense, sounds as though it could lead the next minimal wave compilation.
Chasing Desire
