Felix : You Are The One I Pick

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1. Death to Everyone But Us
2.You Are the One I Pick
3.Ode to the Marlboro Man
4.I Wish I Was a Pony
5.Where is My Dragon?
6.Waltzing for Weasels
7.What I Learned from TV
8.Back in Style
9.Bernard St.
10.L I F T E R
11.Song About Zoo

 

"You Are the One I Pick is the debut album by UK chamber-pop duo Felix, and it carries a deceptively direct title for such an understated and elliptical collection of songs. Vocalist Lucinda Chua rarely raises her voice to a volume beyond that of a private conversation, yet her frequently arresting performances here have an air of unusual gravity. This urgency owes largely to the steady undercurrent of quiet turmoil coursing beneath Felix's graceful arrangements, resulting in a number of lovely songs that veritably crackle with confused desires, anxieties, and needling self-doubt.

For this recording Felix are comprised of Chua, who has toured with Stars of the Lid and here contributes piano, cello, and vocals, and fellow multi-instrumentalist Chris Summerlin. Most of the essential instrumental tracks are built as a skillful dialogue between Chua's piano and Summerlin's guitar, but the two also maximize their flexibility in the studio, fleshing out these songs with multi-tracked vocals, subtle percussion, and string arrangements. These instrumental flourishes do more than merely add atmosphere, as throughout these pieces the arrangements closely parallel and amplify the interior dramas depicted in Chua's lyrics. Informed in part by Chua's classical training, the album strikes an airy balance nearby the quieter moments of PJ Harvey's White Chalk and the spare chamber work of Rachel's' Music for Egon Schiele.

Felix have cited the work of Erik Satie as an influence, and this is nowhere more evident than on "I Wish I Was a Pony", a piece whose central piano figure seems a direct descendant of Satie's Gymnopédies. This track, particularly when coupled with the following "Where Is My Dragon?" also serves as a fine example of Chua's quietly inscrutable lyrical style, as the simple images of ponies and dragons give way to such conclusions as, "There's a secret you keep and it makes me dance," or, "Everything you lost and everything you found is not worth it." Whether or not these lines work on the page, in her performances Chua is able to make them sound like messages of great personal importance, communicating with an effortless touch the image of someone who will feel much better once she has gotten her words out and her mental furniture all set back in place.

The album's vague sense of unease comes further into the forefront on "What I Learned From TV", where Chua's wry, media-borne list of anxieties are underscored by somber piano chords and scraping, slightly enervating strings. This thread continues on "Back in Style" which juxtaposes its David Lynch references with Chua's self-deprecating but still-caustic appraisal of a relationship ("What if I was kinder? What if I was nicer? What if I was not sick to death of you?")

Virtually every track on You Are the One I Pick showcases Felix's remarkable instinct for knowing when to ramp up their instrumentation and when to hold back. Yet when an album is this carefully arranged, there are also moments when all the fingerprints on a given track become distracting, as when the fanciful "Ode to the Marlboro Man" layers Chua's vocals in such a way that it sounds like a number of competing voices volleying around within a single rattled skull. So it is ultimately not too surprising that on many of the album's best tracks ("Waltzing for Weasels", "Bernard St.") the duo keep things refreshingly simple, with single strands of piano, guitar, and cello in quiet symmetry, leaving the listener ample room to savor Felix's knotty, enigmatic songcraft."