Back again so soon. I’m not sure if these pages are going to be able to take the strain of these huge slabs of text hitting them in such quick succession… They’re just not used to it.
So what am I going to write about today?
Well, I’ll start off by telling you about the cellist I hinted at in yesterday’s post. But first, some context.
Saturday 31st of October. I make that Halloween! Indeed indeed. One of the many parties I attended was in a secret warehouse venue, tucked away in the back streets of Bristol. It was filled with lots of experimental and alternative treats in a cabaret style, mixing live music, spoken word/comedy and performance art, a very interesting event indeed.
One of the performers on the night was a lady named Bela Emerson. She used her cello much in the same way as Stanton Delaplane used his guitar and voice. With a loopstation as the primary tool of manipulation, but where Stanton created lush, twinkling folk harmonies, Bela favored dark dissonant textures, really taking full advantage of the eerie tone that cellos do so well.
The music veered from reasonably regular classical, sitting somewhere on the darker side of baroque, through more and more experimentation until it became discordant abstract minimalism, with a smooth transition through the area in between. It was utterly fascinating throughout, and the dissonance was balanced with enough consonance to keep the whole thing sounding beautiful.
I have always been a sucker for the sound of a cello, there’s something about the timbre that really appeals to my senses, the it sounds so rich and full, yet sharp and subtle all at once, and it was brilliant to see one used in such an alternative manner, lovely stuff.
Now you need to go and listen for yourself…
http://www.myspace.com/belaemerson
This video gives you a pretty good idea of what’s going on with her technical set up. Interesting stuff for geeks like me.
And look who we have here… None other than Mr Tim Exile…
Fascinating stuff, I hope you’ll agree.
Well that about wraps up part one of today’s post… But we are not nearly finished! Oh no…
Seeming a polar opposite to the dark baroque magic of Bela Emerson, we have an excellent pop band I’ve recently stumbled upon; Delorean. Probably about as twee and fun as pop music can get before I start to spasm with rage, their sound lies somewhere between The Go! Team and MGMT. The same euphoria that both employ, and a lovely mixture of The Go! Team’s cheerleader enthusiasm and MGMT’s synthy cool. This isn’t poncy or clever, and to be perfectly honest, I’ll most probably be thoroughly sick of it in three weeks time, but for now it’s jolly good fun.
I came across them after I was directed to an article concerning a new movement entitled “Glo-Fi.” Cue rolling eyes and groaning cynicism that always follows ridiculous hybrid sub-genre pigeon holing. But stupid names aside, the scene does seem to be producing a fair amount of interesting music. In what seems like a natural progression from the new wave of New Wave that’s been all over the music scene in the past few years, bands like Neon Indian and Blank Dogs are actually regressing through the chain of musical evolution, from the spot that MGMT, Ladyhawke and so many others have been drawing from in recent years.
Neon Indian seem to be taking things back to both psychedelic baroque pop songwriting, and the synth twiddling production of Tangerine Dream and Vangelis. While my descriptions may sound rather fascinating, the album has yet to grab me particularly, and I do find the concept very intriguing, the end product sounds somewhere between Justice gone lo-fi and Air for the nu-rave market. Not that that is a bad thing, just not as exciting as one might hope from a band who’s name keep popping up in the all the right places.
http://www.myspace.com/neonindian
Blank Dogs however, are regressing things in an altogether more exciting way. Taking the New Wave starting point and ramming it back to the raw Post Punk and Garage roots, keeping a nice slice of Goth stuck in there, very good stuff. I’ve yet to actually buy the album, so I’m not going to pass too many comments on it at this stage, but from what I’ve been hearing, it’s raw and ballsy stuff, just what I like to hear being made.
http://www.myspace.com/blankdogtime
So far, what I’ve heard about this scene sounds very promising, despite the name, but I’m sure we can find slightly more eloquent terms for describing this sound as time goes on.
That about wraps it up for today’s post… I seem to have managed to clock up a pretty impressive word count in these last two posts. I’m actually supposed to be writing a 3000 word report on my research techniques for uni, but as usually I’ve found a way to focus all of my words to a rather irrelevant product. Oh well, long live feckless blogging.
At the rate I’m going I’m going to run out of things to talk about alarmingly quickly and I’ll have resort to telling you about what I’ve had for my dinner and how many times I’ve been to the toilet today. But you can always check twitter for that information in the mean time.
Ciao pet.
