Sporting bleached blonde hair, the earings of Billy Idol and a leather jacket whilst having a body that is cut out carelessly like a scrapbook and placed over the idiosynchratic palm trees of LA, the album cover illustrates the new musical direction and cool rebel image of Bordeaux's SoKo with informative clarification. It's also a drastically surprising costume change for an artist previously associated with minimalism but one that uncovers a different side to her personality, her artistic inspirations, her new found home and her growth as a person and musician.

 

First materializing in 2007 with her EP Not Sokute, SoKo was an anti-thesis to overly produced, polished and egotistical recording artists. Sweet as Bordeaux wine, her music was also instrumentally efficient, intimate and sung with brutal honesty. Uncensored swearing added realistic anger to songs such as the European sleeper hit I'll Kill Her but it was delivered through a talk-singing french accent that made it charming and distinctive.

 

Although her voice had a sad and fragile personality and a fractured style that made it human, unique and recognizable, her unconventional voice sometimes lacked a consistent tone, sounded like she had a saw throat and didn't display classically trained control, which may have resulted in a lack of anglophonic interest. She wasn't ready then musically or lyrically to take the next step into full length album exposure and therefore after a 5-year hiatus and a consumption into her side project as an actress she finally released her debut  LP I Thought Was An Alien  a while later in 2012.

 

The album was welcomed by fans for continuing the second-person intimacy that makes listeners feel like SoKo is speaking directly to them in their headphones. It also kept the D-I-Y production, folk-storytelling and humble vunrebility. Her voice also remained husky and whispery like compatriot Charlotte Gainsbourg. Even though it still contained the weepy vocal fragments on Treat Your Woman Right, the majority of the time her voice was smoothed out to create a more consistent melody and backed by vocal harmonies. The instrumentation was still sweet and efficient with acoustic guitars remaining an important asset to her sound but relevant instruments: electric organ, ukelele, mellotron, banjo and violins helped express her emotions more beautifully and gave it a tropical undertone especially when it was complimented by her Emiliana Torrini-esque vocals. 

 

Her second album My Dreams Dictate My Reality willingly reflects a more hopeful, less lonely and self-assured chapter in her life, in which she has moved to Los Angeles, soaked up American lifestyle, adopting immitational vocals and has started feeling less like an alien, comfortable, secure and confident with her own demons, whilst becoming friends with the local musicians in the process. One of the natives is psychedelic-pop multi-instrumenalist Ariel Pink who has become her perminent tour guide and sings along side her on duets on Monster Love and Love Trap. Although the majority album adopts a nostalgic mixture of gothic post-punk (Ocean of Tears), grunge (I Come in Peace), new wave (specifically Frankie Goes To Hollywood on Visions) and 90s alternative rock that fits her new identity, Monster Love fits more in the bracket of shoegaze and alongside new acts like pinkshinyultrablast and September Girls, with the consistent-tempo vocals blending in with the dark guitar steadiness. Their chemistry is also well matched on the haphazard Blood-Orange-meets-Gary-Numan- flavoured new romantic of Lover Trap but this time the duet has become a major seperate part of the entertainment, most noticable in the mid-song bridge where Pink and SoKo flirt with each other imagining they are Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot. Furthermore, SoKo also talks in the introduction to the Javiera-Mena-esque Visions, providing wise words in a Madonna-Erotica-style: "Forgive the ones you hate the most.", proving that her intriguing insights still exist.

 

Despite Los Angeles being a major part of the recording process and hints of Blondie influence, The Cure is the biggest source of inspiration on the album. A self-confessed fan of Robert Smith and occasionally calling herself a "white goth", SoKo managed to get Ross Robinson (the producer of 2004's The Cure) to help realize her dreams. The spirit of the band runs throughout the veins of the album. A Primal-Scream-esque sample of a woman exclaiming "You guys are so 80s, you are so warm" introduces Temporary Mood Swings, the best example of The Cure's typical drum machines, light jangly guitar, spacious atmopshere and jolly compositions. It is also reminscent of Sugarcubes's Motor Crash with the crescendo building of Kaiser Chiefs. Although SoKo's lyrics seem to tease at a deeper meaning that seeks transistion approval from her fans, a still evident hint of insecurity and suggests that it's just a stepping stone in her career: "I want to be good, do you like me better?" and "It's only temporary."

 

Things are a little rougher on the alternative rock of the dark epic Peter Pan Syndrome and  Who Wears The Pants? , the latter bares similarities to the B52's Rock Lobster and Hot Night Crash by Sahara Hotnights. It is the best example of the greatest change in her vocal delivery and attitude. Almost unrecognizable from her French-accented and low-key tone, SoKo's voice has evolved into a tough, rebellious, confident and powerful beast, although she has always had a hint of a tomboyish demeanour. Fans still adjusting to the ambitious style change and who miss the confessional side to her lyrics will appreciate the inclusion of tearjerker Keaton's Song, an heartbreak rhapsody that is compositioned like a track from her last album I Thought I Was An Alien and acts as a response to another break-up song by her former boyfriend Keaton Henson. It contains fantastically endearing lyrics such as "I will kill the worst of me to be the best for you."

 

All of this retro fandom is made further convincing by an array of home-made videos recorded with wonderfully relevant low quality and containing hedonistic scenes, picking up on a successful technique used recently by psychedelic rockers Pond. The enterprising and diverse My Dreams Dictate My Reality is much more fun and free-spirited than previous ventures and shows the inner Peter Pan in her. As exemplified by her intoxicating gloomy epic Peter Pan Sydrome, she feels like she doesn't want to grow up and wants to be suffocated in her music collection. The album is great example of how an artist can grow into new territories of exploration whilst maintaining the element of themselves that makes fans want to build a personal connection. Which she proves with her meaningful lyrics. Let's hope she never goes on a hiatus again.