Her Space Holiday: "Sleepy Tigers"

Marc Bianchi’s trying to affect a pond change; the bedroom haze of electronica—a style with an admittedly limiting return, especially if the primary songwriter can’t get past how easy it is to obscure a want for ideas with atmospherics—now gives way to the simulated yokel of an alt-country excursion. The move is about as chameleonic as one can expect, especially given that Her Space Holiday have spent five albums establishing themselves as purveyors of hushed sounds and herded bloops.

“Sleepy Tigers,” then, is either a brave new direction or revelation that those electronic swooshes were in fact about as substantial as this song’s two chord shift and simpleton lyrics. It’s not to say that this is done badly, by any means; up until recently, Islands served fistfuls of this hooey and silliness to much love and laurels. Only that it will be interesting to see how the Her Space Holiday faithful react.

Which is a notion that might have answered my own question: are there any Her Space Holiday faithful? Bianchi’s music seems neither loathed nor loved by large numbers of anyone. Their perfectly likable chill out mix material might have made sense of Johnny Rotten’s preference that you hate him rather than love him; better to entice a response—any response at all—than to dreamily pass by without anyone noticing. It’s difficult to see “Sleepy Tigers” registering a ripple in an ocean of similar material had it arrived out of nowhere. But this is signal to real change. It deserves, if nothing else, to be acknowledged.