“Anna Madonna” – Max Blansjaar
Crisply mixed and brightly melodic, “Anna Madonna” offers just enough major- to minor-key transitions to read as bittersweet, despite its foot-tapping vibe. Blansjaar’s voice is particularly clear in the mix, which steadily acquires layers of sound–first just a muted guitar, then some snappy drum (machine) beats, later a glistening keyboard, all leading into a kazoo-like synthesizer solo halfway through this perky yet melancholy composition.
“Anna Madonna” turns out to be coincidentally related to the Waxahatchee song likewise featured this month, being another tune about the value of holding onto a long-term relationship. Mature thinking for a 21-year-old, but singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Blansjaar is nothing if not precocious, having begun performing and recording at 15.
Born in Amsterdam and raised in Oxford in the UK, he released two self-recorded and self-performed EPs of lo-fi indie pop in the late 2010s. For his first full-length album, he worked with Katie Von Schleicher, a singer/songwriter/producer with her own recording studio in Brooklyn, along with her frequent producing partner Nate Mendelsohn. The producers have done a spiffy job maintaining Blansjaar’s quirky energy while adding some shrewd dynamics to his repertoire, such as the stripped-down moment we get at 1:42. (Von Schleicher by the way was featured on Fingertips back in 2013.)
“Anna Madonna” is a track from the forthcoming album False Comforts, due out in June.
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