Our Likeness

Album review

By the time Phew recorded Our Likeness in the late '80s, she was already well established within the experimental music scene thanks to her time with the pioneering Japanese punk band Aunt Sally and her solo work. Since the beginning of her career, she's collaborated with similarly innovative artists ranging from Ryuichi Sakamoto, who produced her debut single, to legendary producer Conny Plank and Can's Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit, who contributed to her 1981 self-titled debut album. Also in attendance at those sessions was DAF and Liaisons Dangereuses' Chrislo Haas, who struck up a friendship with Phew that led to the creation of Our Likeness. Recorded at Plank's studio with Liebezeit on drums, Haas on keyboards, Crime & the City Solution's Thomas Stern on bass, and Einstürzende Neubauten's Alexander Hacke on guitar, Phew's third solo album finds her making the most of her all-star band as she challenges expectations. Opting for a set of discrete experiments instead of the more cohesive feel of some of her later work, Our Likeness falls somewhere in between Phew's improvisations and the more structured pieces of 1987's View. Nearly every track makes striking use of contrast. On "Smell," one of the album's most overtly experimental pieces, the band's seismic blasts sound like they're shaking the studio loose from its foundations, but it's the smaller signs of disarray -- the clatter of dropped coins, the wobbly ringing of glasses full of water -- that add playful, immersive detail and reflect Phew's knack for intricately layered instrumentation. Her vocals also run the gamut, ranging from "Being"'s heaving snarls to the hypnotic whispers of "Ocean," the sultry, avant-surf ballad that closes the album. When Phew and company touch on familiar sounds in disorienting ways, it's arguably more unexpected than Our Likeness' more confrontational moments. "Spring"'s elastic bass and guitar nod to post-punk, but its unearthly vibe and mid-song eruption of sax and synths defy easy categorization. "Like Water and Water" is similarly hard to pin down: both smoky and mercurial, its roots appear to be in jazz and no wave, while flitting electronics add sci-fi strangeness to its noir mood. Though it feels like everyone involved pushes each song to its limit, Our Likeness' experiments are never just cerebral. The creative chemistry is especially palpable on "Depth of the Forehead," a lurching, monstrous showcase for Liebezeit and Stern's massive rhythms, Haas' klaxon synths, Hacke's slashing chords, and Phew's voice, which always rises above the fray. She had so many ideas on Our Likeness that she didn't return to some of them for years; the quietly suspenseful mood she creates on "Last Song" has more in common with later work like 2021's New Decade than the rest of this album. Originally released by Mute in 1992 and reissued by the label over 30 years later, Our Likeness is a tour de force from an artist whose imaginative spirit always burns bright.

© Heather Phares /TiVo