Y2K style is unavoidably resurgent, and while you might prefer that low-rise jeans, flip-phone fetishism and pop-punk remained in the past, Portuguese-born, Denmark-raised producer Erika de Casier’s affinity for the era’s Timbaland/Darkchild nexus of R&B is a welcome throwback. Her second album (and first for 4AD Records) echoes its uncanny glimmer of sophistication, a fitting contrast to the trash men she excoriates with poise and sly humour.
The album runs like pleasure on silk. De Casier’s voice is reminiscent of honey, blessing each track with its transparent yet crucial presence. The album avoids overtly borrowing from the 90s / 00s R&B playbook and plays its own rules. It’s sensual, subtle, but most importantly, confident.
They sound almost nothing like each other, but the second album by Erika de Casier – that rarest of musical phenomena, an R&B artist from Ribe, a small town in southern Denmark – feels like a spiritual counterpart of another recent acclaimed album. Like Rina Sawayama’s 2020 debut, Sensational has its roots in childhood hours spent watching early-00s MTV. But while Sawayama reflected the channel’s scattershot bombardment – a world where nu-metal, Britney Spears, hip-hop and Evanescence all jostled for your attention – Sensational is more intensively focused.
The Fat Angel Sings 