No Album Left Behind: ML Buch Steps Into the Light on Suntub
The Copenhagen-based composer’s sun-soaked second album is a curious psychedelic experiment in indie pop with sublime guitar tones.
Expected or not, ML Buch’s debut album Skinned brought the decade in with an eerie prescience. In her whorling world of sticky, artificial synths, Buch cooed about shiny things: glossed lips, a sparkling ocean and spit like ambery sap dribbling down someone’s neck. For as sensorial and bodily as Skinned is, Buch’s interest in technology is just as present, if not inextricable from how we interface with it. Her utopian perspective felt less didactic than much of the work coming out around the same time; instead of assigning value to our newfound reliance on devices, Buch positioned herself as an observant participant. The album came paired with a video of a personal endoscopy, described as a “literal way of internalizing modern technology.”
If Skinned was a hard pill to swallow, a synthesis of the primeval sinew that binds our physical form to the plastic-encased fibers that keep us connected (especially during the summer of 2020, when the album dropped), then Buch’s sophomore effort—Suntub—is like a new, wondrous being released into the world, dazzled by its simple earthly pleasures. Many, myself included, have had to learn how to enjoy their own company over the last few years, to feel at peace with solitude as a means to reinvigorate the social essence hardcoded in every human. Buch is no exception, having fled the city to live in isolation out in the country, a haven where much of the writing for the album took place. Buch’s predilection for flesh is on immediate display—“Nails pop off / Pores chatter / Here we go / With our temporary bodies,” she shouts with vigor on “Flames shards goo,” layered over the lazy patter of her guitar. Buch’s synths here feel more alive than ever, too, propulsively carting us along a scenic highway on “Somewhere” and giving way to a gleaming twilight on “High speed calm air tonight.”