Princess One Point Five
Vous Je Vous
13 Track, LP (2008, Pharmacy Records)
Related: Princess One Point Five.
Sarah Jane Wentzki’s strengths are also her weaknesses. This is album number three from her and collaborator Richard Andrew (Underground Lovers, Crow), and though it begins with the classically-punky instrumental ‘Man in a Suitcase’ it shows little desire besides to take her reedy singer-songwriter MO into third gear. In fact, the edge of the opener is smoothed out immediately by the upbeat bounce of ‘I’m Onto Something Good’, which sits somewhere between Kate Nash and old-school Belle and Sebastian. The energy is completely sapped by the time ‘Easier to Give in Than Walk Away’ sways into being ¬– and these three disparate tracks give some idea of the inconsistency of Vous Je Vous.
Again, this is both a strength a weakness – you never know where Wentzki will go next, but as soon as you find yourself on a trajectory to your liking she shifts it back into punk or blues or girl group or show tunes. The album does cohere in a strange way according to its own logic, but unless a listener is simply smitten with her voice, which is as fragile and pretty as an icicle, that logic is a puzzle that frustratingly resists solution.
by Matt Giles
Melbourne’s pint-sized princess of pop Sarah-Jane Wentzki and her part...
