Wizard Apprentice - I Am Invisible

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Wiz­ard Appren­tice
I Am Invis­ible
2018, Rat­skin Records

I was plan­ning on call­ing this a fra­gile album, but it is any­thing but. This is because when we acknow­ledge and dis­play our vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies, we have already conquered them in part, and are less fra­gile as a res­ult.

Wiz­ard Appren­tice’s music is based around synth and voice, with an occa­sional role for gui­tar. The label’s descrip­tion of her as “a digital folk artist” is quite apt. If any­thing, the simple, effect­ive setup of the sound reminds me of Martyn Bates’ Let­ters Writ­ten (both I and II)—the voice is dif­fer­ent, obvi­ously, though at times less so than you might expect.

I am Invis­ible is about (not) stand­ing out, hurt­ing and being hurt, feel­ing and not feel­ing, dif­fer­ent ways of being (in)visbile, the struggle of the intro­vert in com­mu­nic­at­ing emo­tions:

Sen­su­al­ity is a moment cap­tured in a pic­ture
I know it when I see it when I’m look­ing at myself
I know it when I see it
I’m feel­ing it, does it look like I’m feel­ing it?
Will you tell me if it looks like I’m feel­ing it? 

These lyr­ics are from “Sen­su­al­ity”, one of the album’s most pier­cing tracks. I’m also par­tial to the slightly more hope­ful melody of “Research Stage of Love”—brilliant title, that. The folksy “As If” is an exten­ded closer, slip­ping into some great exper­i­mental con­crète synth near the end.

Con­tem­plat­ive and deeply mel­an­cholic, I am Invis­ible is a bravely per­sonal album, almost like an aural diary. She styles her­self as an appren­tice, but in my book, she’s this close to becom­ing an adept synth poetry magi­cian.

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Reviewed by Ἀρέθουσα and voidassembly progenitrix v∞