10"
Mariska Baars soccer committee project has been in action for a couple of decades now, but it feels as if her star has really been in the ascendancy these past few years, a turn of fortune perhaps attributable to the success of like-minded ghostly lo-fi-folk singer/songwriter Joanne Robertson and the general increased interest in the kind of post-grunge low-lit song form she specialises in (just check out those Julie Doiron streaming numbers…). Such an understanding certainly provides context for the existence of AM Reworks, a - you guessed it - set of re-workings of past material especially for the label. These are subtle re-inventions (worry not, there is no sudden epiphanous affinity for hyperpop or dubstep expressed here), fashioning a distinct kind of spectral ambi-folk song that might end up qualifying as a best of, of sorts. And after twenty years, perhaps such an exercise is a fair one. If you’re just discovering soccer committee now, there’s certainly worse places to start, seven structurally tight vignettes that only rarely pass the three-minute mark, but are coded with a memorable world weary quality that might not hide the influence of (early) Cat Power, but undoubtedly channels it very convincingly. With a bit of luck, Baars is probably one judicious TikTok video from virality fame, but why wait until then? Heartbreak sure won’t…
FFO: Joanne Robertson, Cat Power, Lois, Mira, Julie Doiron
