Album Review: Adia Victoria Makes You Ask “How It Feels”
Fact: I love French music. It could be out of hubris because I did study French and thus I like to gloat on the fact that I understand what they are saying. Yet, I do appreciate the language’s ability to muster a sense of romance even when unintentional. Adia Victoria’s How It Feels brings up the dreaminess of this language and its ability to seduce through synth/ indie-pop.
In four tracks, Victoria gives a mood of both relaxation and self exploration. Usually, sensuality is associated with self-exploration because there is something beautiful, unknown, and privately intimate about looking into yourself. Sure the term is associated with physicality and it is not wrong to say the Victoria’s french venture can certainly set up an ambiance of love between two partners. Yet, I appreciate How It Feels for being a casual display a French- Pop’s deliciousness as a genre. It manages to mature pop by bringing in a level of ease to its sugared demeanor. While in America we define Pop as a rush of energy with bouncing sounds that seem to ping-pong through people’s minds and bodies, Pop in other locales isn’t about swinging as much as simmering into the hearts of listeners, similar to how folk or blues does. Victoria exemplifies this by oozing out her vocals as if they were frosting being squeezde unto a cake of slow layered synths. You feel taken by songs like “Laissez Tomber” and “You Know How It Feels” they seem to draw and expand with a reserved, curious pace. It is as if Victoria is singing and arranging her music while lying on the cloud.There is something airy and transparent about How It Feels which makes you actually question. ” How do you feel?”
The irony of this album is that it will make you feel “deeper” in comparison to how light-hearted it is in content. “Parlez Moi De Lui” and “Ca A Rate” are basically two tracks in which Victoria asks her love/potential partner to tell her about himself or open up more. These are simple, natural requests that, in french, seem like sultry invitations. Yet, to be fair, Victoria has a voice that melts like chocolate over instrumentals; it is both rich and resonating in how it makes music feel like an actual taste rather than sound. For More Information On Adia Victoria Click Here.
