Mazzy Star
Talking to Hope Sandoval is like trying to coax a fawn from the underbrush. No matter how gentle and unprobing your questions, Hope will not be drawn. Questions are answered with a wavery “nope” or “yeah” in a voice so faint and fragile you fear she is about to expire on the spot. If you do manage to entice a complete sentence from her it’s filled with so much breathless hesitation you quite forget what you asked her in the first place. All this means that Miss Sandoval sounds gratifyingly like her persona as one half of the psychedelic dream duo Mazzy Star. On their records, Miss Sandoval is a dark angel who breathes exquisite life into dreamlike meditations on the murkier realms of love, to the backing of sleep-walking rhythms and a guitar which seems not to have planned its next move yet manages to stumble across mesmerising melodies. Hope was discovered by the other part of Mazzy Star, guitarist Dave Roback, while playing in a folk group with her friend Sylvia. Two years later he asked her if she wanted to make music
with him and Mazzy Star was born. Their debut, She Hangs Brightly, had a photograph of a decayed hotel lobby in Brussels on the outside and a collection of seductive downer songs inside with titles like ‘Taste of Blood’ and’Blue Flower’. On their new release, So Tonight That I Might See, the songs have titles like ‘Blue Light’, ‘Wasted’, and ‘lnto the Dust’. The atmosphere on this record is crushed, to the extent that it makes She Hangs Brightly sound perky. “Yeah, we just . . . were . . . very down,” concedes Hope faintly when probed. Do you like being on stage? You don’t sound like the sort of person who would enjoy being stared at by 500 eager fans. “Ah, it’s a drag ... but you know . . . it’s nice that people come out.” It’s only compassionate to end the interview here, to let Hope get back to “hanging out, writing” on holiday in England. As she says, “We just really don’t have that much to say. No-one bothers with us.” DONNA YUZWALK
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/RIU19940801.2.65
Bibliographic details
Rip It Up, Issue 204, 1 August 1994, Page 42
Word Count
355Mazzy Star Rip It Up, Issue 204, 1 August 1994, Page 42
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