“Spoiled Love,” the enjoyable debut album from Buzzy Lee (Sasha Spielberg) is a mostly quiet, mostly slow album, composed of voice, piano, a handful of beats, and some subtle production choices. It’s an album that apparently emerged in the aftermath of multiple break-ups, and while you can hear the anguish in the songs, there’s also the fact that the whole album feels like a powerful performance, like Spielberg has set out to actively transmute the pain of heartbreak into an aesthetic statement, something assertive and reflective, not wallowing or ruminative. These are slow-motion torch songs. She sings with a breathiness that feels both intimate and restrained, though there are moments throughout the album when her voice breaks from that character and sounds stronger and sharper, on “Strange Town,” “High on You,” and “All the While” especially. Spielberg isn’t afraid to mess around with her voice either: on both “What Has a Man Done” and “Circles,” her voice is pitched down or masked, which adds to the performative/theatrical aspect of the album.
This album was produced by Nicolas Jaar, like Buzzy Lee’s first release, the EP “Facepaint.” Spielberg and Jaar also collaborated in the act Just Friends, which is where I first heard their work together (the song “Don’t Tell Me” is awesome—recognizable Jaar production, more along the lines of Against All Logic, but not quite as high-energy, and Spielberg at the forefront of the track, singing, “Don’t tell me everything bad/don’t tell me I’ll get hurt” over and over.)
Jaar’s production on “Spoiled Love” isn’t particularly prominent, except for the fact that everything sounds so good. But you can hear him poke his head out on tracks like “Strange Town” and “Circles,” where the (rare) beats and soundcraft take over big portions of the songs. “Circles” is one of my favorites on the album—after a minute and a half, the song takes off on a journey, and Spielberg comes back in with a monologue about Saturn’s return and mental breakdowns, and then the latter half of the track is just a jam.
“Spoiled Love” is a fun and beautiful album, made even more accessible by its pacing (there are two instrumentals on the album, “Brie” and “Mendonoma,” that let everything breathe a little). Spielberg and Jaar make a good combo.