Off-key and strange, simultaneously moonily lyrical and melodic—the music of Leila Zanzibar aka Highest Sea can only be described in opposites. These opposites never quite reconcile their differences, but still,—or perhaps even because of that—Zanzibar’s concept succeeds with flying colors. These tensions and contradictions weave a rapturous dream pop of the highest caliber that, via the EP Haunted Hearts, has been released in the good company of colleagues Mother of the Unicorn and Strand Childs on Neukölln’s Späti Palace. On the album, Zanzibar’s voice hovers raw and lost in reverie over a carpet of gloriously strummed guitar. It’s Nico-like in its coarseness and vivid spell-casting—and charming. Sound too good to be true? Come see her for yourself, and let your hearts, as the EP title suggests, be haunted by Highest Sea’s spooky/gorgeous melancholy—as she sings both casually and intensely in the song “Hawaii,” “So why don’t you come over here?”
–