Soap&Skin

Mixing orchestral, ambient, electronic beauty with desolate, sorrowful, piano laments, Austrian producer-songwriter Anja Plaschg aka Soap & Skin, was billed as a creative wonder when she emerged as an 18-year-old avant-pop sensation in 2008, subsequently building an impressive catalogue of dramatic torch songs.

Growing up on a farm in the countryside region of Steiermark, Plaschg was classically trained in piano and violin in her youth and briefly studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna under the tutelage of Daniel Richter, before pursuing music with the help of songwriter Sir Tralala, who took a shine to a demo CD that Plaschg forced upon him at one of his shows. Writing her songs on piano and delivering them with an unsettling, smoky, monotone croon, her debut album 'Lovetune for Vacuum' was recorded at her small flat on the outskirts of Vienna, shifting from eerie melancholy electro glitches to soaring, soul-bearing ballads. She won a European Border Breakers Award and a heap of critical praise for her efforts, but the sudden death of her father from a heart attack sent her into a period of deep depression. Spending months in a clinic recovering from the shock, she started penning songs for her second record 'Narrow'. Topping the Austrian Charts in 2012, the album was emotionally raw and darkly sombre, and included a stripped down cover of the 1980s Euro-pop hit 'Voyage, Voyage' by Desireless and songs that swelled from elegant, sparse piano pieces into Baroque-style, cathedral hymns. She also played with German singer Nico in a theatre production, co-founded the label SOLFO and had tracks used in the Italian movie 'Sicilian Ghost Story', before her 2018 album 'From Gas to Solid' discussed motherhood, isolation, forgiveness and healing.