Laura Kerry
Gobbinjr’s vom night builds a sophisticated craft around twee and angst. The second album of Wisconsin-turned-Brooklyn native, Emma Witmer, the seven-track EP laces sweetly-sung melodies with the slacker-edged debauchery of the title, wrapping it all up in simple yet powerful lyrics. Witmer wields her youthfulness and off-beatness elegantly, creating songs that feel both raw and otherworldly at the same time. When on “manatee” she sings, “I had the most beautiful thought / That one pinpoint corner of your eye could fly me through time,” it is both heartbreaking and utterly endearing, each in greater measures because of the existence of the other. “manatee,” is a breezy pop song with a child-like tone, but its odd and personal inflections stay with you like the eyes of the past love that it describes.
A few of vom night’s most memorable moments occur when Witmer’s voice follows her lyrics into a stranger place. On “undies,” a slower tune with a ‘50s-rock chorus feel, she sings, “I need you,” then, mustering a shrill and strong tone very different than the sweetness she uses elsewhere, she sings, “But I need me.” On “perfect,” which builds around the vulnerable lines, “I just want to be perfect / Anything less is shameful,” the music increasingly obscures Witmer’s singing, eventually leading to a breakdown of perfection when a lower, processed voice takes over the refrain. Most of vom night, though, dresses up its raw core in warm synth-pop and dreamy rock. “I feel creepy all the time,” she sings in the closer, “firefly,” “'cause i like everybody more than they like me / I know ur feelings and i make them rhyme.” Throughout vom night, Gobbinjr spins sparkly rhymes out of much more menacing threads.