Super review by Cal Gibson, of The Secret Soul Society.

Meanwhile, over in Shanghai, dreams of falling are being translated into fractured slabs of moral virtue: Confucian philosophy rendered whole and ineffable. Voision Xi’s Queen and Elf is a veritable powerhouse of ideas and emotion, the sisterly spirits of Kate Bush, Joyce Moreno and Steely Dan (sort of…) stirred up, shored up, dramatic and thematic: a kitchen sink full of complex notions, painterly and masterful. It’s a wonderful listen. It’s January and you need to free yourself from the flow of time, right?

Kagi, for example, asks that old perennial: how do you hold a moonbeam? The answer, of course, is very carefully: the slow and low swing of the piano comes loaded with zhi (wisdom) and very beautiful it is too: people who forget their words are people to be listened to, after all. Four minutes in, the horns break on through and springtime must be just around the (hairpin) bend.

It’s a collection that’s full of wit, verve and delight. Beautifully recorded, wide-eyed with wonder, smiling sweetly at nothing in particular. A purification of body and soul, intuition flagged up as wonderment. Take We Could Be Shy, a track full of fundamental truth and whispered magick. Time passes, the animals know all and tell nothing.

Southern Shanghai creates its own reality, a singing ringing tree of left turns and roads less travelled. Dharma, the cosmic order outlined in melodic phrases and electronic squarks, building to peak oneness. ‘You have got to feel it’, Xi says, and she’s bang on the money. Individual intimacy, rendered as precisely as a line drawing. Searching, seeking, globalised art pop par excellence.

Leaf Sheep is Haruki Murakami gone to seed, full of jen (righteousness): ‘dive in to see the leaf sheep’ sighs Xi and somehow you’re already under the water, floating free on thoughts of moral rectitude. The mind sets itself free: Queen and Elf is so full of joy and wonder, the human intellect turned in on itself, art and vision and melody and soul all squished into a whole ball of liberation.

When music is this considered, this skilfully rendered, you do wonder why all albums aren’t prepared this way. Toil, toil and toil some more: musicians getting metaphysical, a reverence for the making of art and the art of making itself. It’s a whole world, full of questions, short of answers, warm and soul-filled, a place to rest your weary ears. Holy spaces for unholy times.

Voision Xi’s Queen and Elf is out now via Bandcamp.  

Secret Soul Society’s latest E.P., Female Planet, is can be pre-ordered from Paper Recordings.