The Soft and the Hardcore

Album Review

Tender Forever is the (mostly) one-woman project of French expat Melanie Valera, who with her K debut creates the kind of music that the label's always had a handle on — simplistic and charming, with little patches of quirk that make it something more than simply lo-fi. Recorded partly in Bordeaux but mostly with Calvin Johnson in Olympia, The Soft and the Hardcore is both sexy and innocent. On "Feeling in Love," Valera gets away with sounding childish and randy all at once. She claps her hands in glee, name-checks Destiny's Child, and harmonizes with layers of herself over the busy keyboard track. "Feeling," like most of her work, suggests fellow K collaborator Mirah. Tender Forever looks more to electronics instead of brushed acoustics, but there's a similarly spare, personal approach for both songwriters, a way of stretching basic singsong melodies so they're meaningful instead of just easy. It doesn't get much simpler or purer than "Marry Me." Exchanging her laptop and keyboard for a single acoustic guitar, Valera picks out a solitary lullaby to a faraway lover and lets her syllables linger like the hiss on a transatlantic phone line. Musing on her sexuality and finding, losing, and missing love are themes throughout The Soft and the Hardcore. "People told me that you're too sexy for me/But actually I just don't care," she sings in "Then If I'm Weird I Want to Share," and on "Take It Off" (as in your shirt) and "Hot," catchy beats and Valera's accented English combine with general horniness for some Stereo Total-style hotness. Tender Forever is never very far from rudimentary, but every note and lyric on The Soft and the Hardcore is close to her heart.