Fresh off her recent EP from her SuperWAV project with brother Volker, Anne Wichmann’s more electronic, darkwave moniker, She’s Excited! is also back with an upcoming album. Due out on January 26, Moments of Sonder picks up where the previous offering, Shock Therapy, left off, but with some clear evolution in Wichmann’s style.
With heavy influence from early darkwave and gothwave synths, especially from her native Germany, Wichmann’s vocals are as strong and textured as ever on Moments of Sonder. There is, however, a hint in many songs of other genres and styles, likely influenced by the more grass roots punk work she was doing on SuperWAV. The opening track “Celebrity Parade,” for example, has a more experimental background, whilst the following track, “All I Need” (Feat. Komputer) is pure dubstep. Other tracks like “Weltschmerz” are fully ambient with no pretense of darkwave.
The variance in style, according to Wichmann, is deliberate, centered around a concept.
‘Moments Of Sonder´ is a concept album around the phenomenon of `sonder´, an instant realization that every person has a life as complex and complicated as your own. I invite the listeners to walk through New York City (or any city of their dreams) with me: We will look up the high rises and wonder what lives unfold behind the millions of windows. We will walk down to the subway and go on a ride with Mellon Collie. We will meet amazing people and hear wonderful and sometimes difficult stories, we will briefly listen in while passing by and then move on. I hope that everyone will find their own moment of sonder in the music.
In this way, it’s clear that each track on Moments of Sonder is meant to be just that: a vignette of self-awareness, seen from the outside of complexity contained in each track. Just like with all the work she creates, Wichmann was very intentional and equally personal in creating this album.
This album is a sound bath, it is designed and produced to take you on a ride, to immerse you in the kaleidoscope of boundless life and evocative city sounds. (It is) very dear to me because it contains and reflects a lot of personal moments and thoughts about my life as immigrant, as artist, as musician, as a human sometimes struggling, as a woman wondering and fighting and loving my way through life.
Within all these different perspectives, we find Wichmann’s own perspective, which, strong as it is fragile and deep as it is fully of light, is also her art. With her Moments of Sonder, Wichmann hopes the listener sees all the richness of the lives being lived around us, and to delve even further into our own awareness. It seems like a worthy journey.