For many, the living room is, appropriately, where we do a fair amount of our living, be it sat watching TV, playing video games, cosied up to a fire reading a book, or just gathered with others. But for some, a living room is something of a luxury; a safe haven to return to each day isn’t viable when you’re on the road touring or flitting between locations for your work. Fe Salomon seems to pine for one, a place to settle. Her debut album, Living Rooms, was written on planes, in hotel rooms, for friends on the other side of the world. It’s a garish, clattering jumble of ideas that wants to throw caution to the wind, but needs so much for something to tie it down and together.
After leaving Theatre College in London early, the Northampton-born singer spent time cutting her teeth in the Camden music scene. Her debut album bubbled away in the back of her mind for years, and the end product pops with a plethora of ideas akin to a child creating a new game and making up the rules along the way. Attempting to fuse all the ideas together on the album’s 11 tracks is contemporary classical composer Johnny Parry, sounding like he’s trying to temper the excitement while also making the tracks as glossy as possible. Interests and ideas are pulling in all directions, and rarely do all the parties involved sound like they meet in the middle.
Regardless of what’s happening musically, Salomon is in the centre of it all, a cumbersome presence who goes for Björkian intonations but often comes up instead sounding like she’s singing while surrounded by a bad stench. Her theatrical flair may point towards Paloma Faith, but doesn’t quite have the engrossing star power to keep you fixated for more than a few minutes at most. On “Interstate 10” she goes to spread and stretch out, but does so with zero grace and finesse (and it isn’t helped that her lyrics of traversing America as a backing singer at 19 years old have the depth of a travel agency’s buzzword list), while on “Polka Dot” her attempt to bridge the gap between youthful innocence and adulterated enchantress comes up as nothing more than an ineffective snarl.
The worst offender is “Quintessential England”, offering a glimpse into Salomon’s time spent living in Rutland, the titular country’s smallest county. Mashing together the sound of a keyboard being typed, a violin part transcribed from the wails of the studio cat, repeated robotic warnings of “stiff upper lip”, and squeaks akin to a rusty weathervane in a gale, the end result is about as listenable and appealing as you can imagine that combination of sounds to be. Embarrassingly gaudy, it’s a shame that the song also offers the album’s central theme concisely: “I don’t know if I belong anywhere,” Salomon sings with a lighthearted lilt, weaving together the strands of displacement the album points at every so often.
One might assume that Parry’s orchestral chops are wasted here, but even he comes up lacking for the most part. The beefy horns on “Wired On Caffeine” and “Super Human” sound tinny and no better than MIDI versions of the real thing, and too often his string arrangements can’t find a particular interesting way to go (which isn’t helped by Salomon’s splintered songwriting, where transitions are clumsy and lacking the aforementioned focus). The shrieking strings on “Creatures of Habit” would be more notable if the song it was attached to (a strained and bungled attempt to translate a tumultuous period in a friend’s life) wasn’t so tacky, but at least on “Interstate 10” Salomon exits early to let the monarchical horns see the track out with a kind of unexceptional grace. Final song “Taxicabs” is perhaps the most dynamic moment here, and about as elegant as Salomon gets; the hushed male choir makes for a welcome different voice above all else, a moment at the end that piques your attention before the album ends.
If there’s one consistent element through Living Rooms then it’s the sonic details, specifically in regards to the percussive clamour. There are many particulars which are curious and interesting on reading about them – the sampling of submarine tones on “Due Respect”, a de-tuned contortion of the first sound ever recorded on wax cylinder on “Colours Sounds”, the clang of an old washing machine on “Polka Dot” – and while the percussive line does take a lot of the focus when listening, the details are easy to miss and not care about when going into the album blind.
Living Rooms then is an album of ideas, but not of strong or memorable songwriting. Salomon may have a knack for finding curious sonic sounds, but atop them her lyrics are often deadweight trite that offer no insight or growth; at times it’s hard to differentiate her music from that of an overgrown child let loose with pots, pans, and a drum kit (but somehow without any kind of impish delight and joy). Like the videos for “Interstate 10” or “Quintessential England” (directed by Parry without an iota of flair, heart, or meaning), there may be pretty colours or a pleasant view, but you soon realise there is absolutely no substance and nothing is happening.
It becomes all too easy then to take Salomon’s sentiment of “I don’t know if I belong anywhere” as an indictment of her talent rather than as a meaningful sentiment. Trying to add theatrical flair when a meaningful performance would help all the more, Living Rooms’ main problem, simply put, is not particularly inventive sound over already lacking substance. Fleeting in her ability to fixate and focus, Salomon would do well to find a living room and settle her ideas together instead of grabbing at disparate moments and feelings not worth focusing on in the first place.
