Ivy
Electronica / Trip Hop
The members of the critically acclaimed New York trio IVY have been refining their distinctive brand of evocative, bittersweet pop for nearly a decade. But on the long-awaited In The Clear (the group’s fourth full-length, not including 2002’s all-covers collection Guestroom ), they have combined elements of each of their previous records to make what may be the most striking and confident album of their career.
IVY –- Parisian-born singer Dominique Durand, Andy Chase and Adam Schlesinger –- began life as a stripped-down indie band, with a unpolished, jangly sound offset by Durand’s intimate, and (especially in the early days) heavily accented vocals. But on their breakthrough second album Apartment Life in 1997, they began to augment their succinct melodies and chiming guitars with richer arrangements that revealed their growing comfort level in the recording studio. On 2001’s Long Distance, lush soundscapes and dense rhythm tracks were brought to the fore, and bouncy pop songs were outnumbered by moodier, more atmospheric songs like the standout single “Edge Of The Ocean.”
When starting sessions for In The Clear, the band tried to strike a balance between the immediacy of their early recordings and the careful sonic detailing of their more recent work. “Initially we talked about going back to more of a live band sound,” explains Schlesinger with a smile, “but of course that wouldn’t have taken long enough.” And, for IVY , part of the pleasure of making a record is experimentation in the studio.
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