Last month we previewed Natural Behaviour, the new album from Pet Owner out via Red Brick Chapel. The project of Lucerne, Switzerland‘s Lea Mathis, Pet Owner combines “pop, folk and electronic styles into a transportive, idiosyncratic sound,” we wrote, landing somewhere between Dear Nora and Sylvan Esso. Lead single ‘Hi-Res’ hinted at the invention underpinning such a mixture. “Mathis’s vocals skate over a bed of playful electronics,” as we described, “the whole thing ebbing and flowing to add an organic air to the otherwise digital soundscape.”
This balance between organic and digital tones is a key feature of the record. Natural Behaviour presents biological and technological forces side by side, an interdependence hinted at by the radio distortion and crooned vocals of ‘Intro’ and continued across the other songs. But where many a record has examined technology’s impact on our lives, Pet Owner instead explores the creative possibilities of all things digital. An early internet vibe, where quirky invention can solve real-life issues. Take ‘Helping Hand’ with its blend of intimate warmth and playful energy, or the new frontiers of the shimmering ‘Endless Fun’.
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Such an optimism was present on ‘Hi-Res’ too. A song which delved into childhood dreams as a way to appreciate the slow process of getting to where you wish to be. The folk inflected ‘Sugar Rush’ offers dreams of a different sort, its psych textures and field recordings feeling like some virtual reality trip, while ‘Not Right’ leans fully into spacey, computerised tones and ‘t-t-t’ turns back the clock for an eighties-style pop beat. “I cannot repeat my words,” Mathis sings over and over, the stress changing on each cycle, no irony lost in the repeated refrain.
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The transition to ‘I Cannot’ Dance’ might feel abrupt on a different record, the eighties pop cutting straight into almost pastoral folk, but here it merely speaks to Pet Owner’s vision. An internet age record, with many tabs open, pages changing on a whim. But it is worth again stressing what version of the internet we’re talking about here. Not the hectic and siloed environment of our contemporary moment, but something freer, a space with optimism intact. A place where, as on single ‘Soft Body’, you can enter and do whatever you wish, even if that is nothing at all.
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Natural Behaviour is out now and you can get it from the Pet Owner Bandcamp page.
