Audiopile Review: After the surprising success of ML Buch’s Suntub—it was one of this shop’s best selling releases for 2024 and one of our most played albums in the shop—we’re now primed for a proper dissemination of her 2020 debut, Skinned, initially issued as digital-only release. Coming three years after her debut, the rock-forward 2017 EP Fleshy, Skinned was a notable sidestep towards synthetic pop, an overload of glossy synth tones and rubbery strings not far from the James Ferraro/Oneohtrix school of hypnagogic collages. Suntub can now, in retrospect, be heard as a bridge between Fleshy and Skinned, the perfected synthesis of her two initial approaches to solo releases. But Skinned has much to offer for those enamoured with Suntub and looking for more Buch. Still intact is the highly stylized studio-rock proficiency and the burnished fusion jazz signatures, but it’s the sleek overload of melodic synths that ping and whir through her synthesized hall of mirrors that separate Skinned, making the already epic Suntub feel subdued in comparison. And of course there are Buch’s instantly recognizable vocals, as earnest and intimate as we’ve come to know by now, though the digital vs reality themes she continues to explore are far more pointed here. As we’ve been listening back so heavily leading up to this first-time pressing, it’s apparent than this is much more than just a stepping stone to Suntub. Big recommendation.

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‘Skinned’ is the debut album from Danish composer, producer and singer ML Buch.

After releasing her debut EP Fleshy in 2017 ML Buch is ready with her first full-length album Skinned that takes her expansive guitar work and catchy melodies to another territory.

With her unique experimental pop and vocals that seem to slide into your ears as fluorescent liquid, ML Buch portrays the reality of intimacy in a digital era. Working primarily with synthetic midi sounds, the general love of songwriting and guitar music is ever present.

The album comes with an extensive visual side in the form of five music videos acting as tableaus that echo the encounter between screens and skin and how the senses wriggle, flutter and weave in and out of our online presence and intimate lives.

As if in search for something real, ML Buch takes the listener on the other side of the skin. Led by tender love songs like I’m A Girl You Can Hold IRL and Can’t Get Over You With You we journey through her throat and into her intestines, discovering a fascinating realm of shiny mucus and bile in flesh and yellowish colors. Panoramic images were captured by a small pill camera travelling through the body of ML Buch and act as extentions of the architecture of the music. This literal way of internalizing modern technology is symbolic of Skinned where eclectic instrumental compositions share the space with strong hooks and ML Buch’s spherical voice.