Katie Von Schleicher doesn’t get enough credit for her wit. Understandably, listeners more often focus on her voice, which can sound low and sultry one minute and pure and clear the next. Go beyond the arresting vocals on Von Schleicher’s fourth album, though, and the Brooklyn singer is funny, in a dry, understated way. A Little Touch of Schleicher in the Night makes wry mention of nude portraits, a “tight five” comedy set that needs work and her fondness for Hollywood star/wrestler Dwayne Johnson—and that’s just on the opening song, “Montagnard People.” To be clear, Von Schleicher hasn’t turned into a comedian on her latest effort. More like she’s letting her smartass side show through, and why not? It’s a nice piece of luck that Von Schleicher has a new LP at all.
Her third album felt like the final straw: Released in May 2020, Von Schleicher had hoped that Consummation would be the next step in a career that increasingly brought her critical acclaim, if not a high profile. Instead, it barely made a ripple when it slipped out quietly into a world shuttered by the pandemic. The album came on the heels of what was supposed to have been the triumphant return of David Berman: Von Schleicher was preparing to tour as part of his Purple Mountains live band when Berman took his own life in August 2019. Between the shock of his death and the pandemic draining whatever momentum she had built as a solo artist, Von Schleicher took on a behind-the-scenes role as a producer and engineer for Frankie Cosmos, Dougie Poole and others.
Yet it soon became apparent that Von Schleicher wasn’t finished with her own music. She recorded A Little Touch of Schleicher in the Night with Sam Evian and a crew of collaborators she had worked with on other projects, including Baroness bassist Nick Jost and Gabriel Birnbaum, her Wilder Maker bandmate, who did string arrangements here. The result is her most sophisticated and wide-ranging album and arguably her freest. Von Schleicher has talked about the uncertainty she often feels while working on her albums, which sometimes manifests in taut, volatile moments in the music: the contrast between the explosive percussion and her somber vocals on “The Image,” from 2017’s Shitty Hits, for example, or the juxtaposition between her soft voice and the deep sense of anger in her lyrics on “You Remind Me,” from Cosummation.
There’s little of that on A Little Touch of Schleicher in the Night. These 10 songs feel easy, though they’re certainly not simple. If not for the melancholy tone, “Every Step Is an Ocean” would be breezy, thanks to a limber beat, airy synthesizers and Birnbaums’s string charts, which dart and swirl through the song. Elsewhere, she leans into a deadpan slacker-rock vibe on “Elixir,” which opens with her singing, “I wear becoming like a burlap sack.” A buzzy, 20-second guitar break early in the song gets a reprise of sorts toward the end when Von Schleicher turns it into a string of wordless vocals she sings almost without inflection, and the whole thing is punchy and droll.
Toward the end of the album, “Ruby” is as buoyant a song musically as Von Schleicher has written, with blooms of keyboards rising through a metronomic beat, and string parts that come seeping in at the edges with cinematic flair. With lyrics that seem to have a sardonic, mocking edge, it’s not a happy song—Von Schleicher hasn’t reinvented herself or anything—but it’s a compelling listen. That holds true for A Little Touch of Schleicher in the Night as a whole. By some alchemical blend of age, accumulated experience or just the right collaborators in the right setting, Katie Von Schleicher has found a way to be comfortable with herself and her songs, and it shows—just like her sense of humor.
Eric R. Danton has been contributing to Paste since 2013. His work has also appeared in Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe and Pitchfork, among other publications. Follow him on Mastodon or visit his website.
