Read The Room is the third release by Microplaza, an experimental indie-pop duo project by Dutch musicians Benjamin van Vliet (Microwolf) and Arno Breuer (Pino Plaza, Sven Agaath). And just like their previous efforts, the self-titled debut and We'll Never Fit In This Poem Together, it is a concise mini-suite of songs - five of them - that take less than 10 minutes to digest. To get to the core however, it will require multiple spins to fully appreciate the textures, highly economical lyrics and all the sounds that they have sprinkled on top.
By picking a 5/4 offbeat - it's easy to remember by saying out loud a short sentence with five syllables like "I hate the Eagles" - the songs get a jumpy feel, slightly disturbing but in a good way. To broaden their lo-fi sound they used a children's choir, added a lonesome trumpet courtesy of Noël Hofman and called upon Stefan Breuer to lay down some synths. The ubiquity of the pandemic shimmers through, with all the worries, hopes and fears, but the songs on Read The Room mostly looks inwards, as Van Vliet and Breuer try to deal with it, wondering if some things will be fundamentally changed after it's all over and the book on COVID-19 can be closed.
