- Banned
- #1
brian kerr
Banned
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2005
- Messages
- 62
Autamata
Monday March 13h
Bewleys theatre
grafton street
doors 8pm
15 euro
This festival band will be playing there breathtakingly ambitious music to a new level with this show.
In an age where most bands find one sound and stick to it, Autamata - founded by musician and producer Ken McHugh, and featuring the unmistakeable voices of songwriter-vocalists Carol Keogh and Sarah Verdon - have always stood out. Short Stories, their second album, a sprawling, utterly disparate, s and above all hugely fun exploration of near-limitless musical and emotional terrain, confirms that the band are impossible to shoehorn into anything as boring as one musical genre. If the album has a theme, it's one of love: love lost and love gained. If you like, it's the musical equivalent of a miniature film festival: 13 short films each with its own distinctive characters and its own palpable mood, with all the limitless variation and surprises that implies.
t as a music lover's vinyl collection, CD rack or iPod will reflect its owner's desire to jump from hip hop to dream-pop to soundclashey disco-rock to folktronica to everything else besides, Ken, Carol and Sarah are modern music lovers whose tastes and greediness for playful experimentation across all musical genres know no bounds. Hence - just like its creators' tastes - Short Stories genre-jumps, too.
Thus, the modernist Peaches-style electroclash aggression of 'Bring It On' segues seamlessly into its complete opposite: the hallucinatory sashay-pop of 'Goldilocks', with its shining, crystalline textures and dreamlike mood; which then itself dissolves into the exquisitely bittersweet remembrance of things past that is 'Skimming Stones'. Elsewhere, depending on your mood, you can groove to squelchy post-Aaliyah slouch-pop about lovers' insecurity ('The Tap'); you can slam-dance to a post-Destiny's Child anthem about how an Independent Woman's attitude adjustment led her to happiness (the filthified whip-crack that is 'Dirtybird'); you can sway to the doomy early-'80s warehouse party last-dance that is 'Summer's Son'; you can laze to the splashy banjo-and-accordion-led sea shanty/cowboy song that is 'Out To Sea'; or you can squint in the beachside setting sun that is 'A Clear View'. And that's only the half of it.
Those familiar with Autamata's debut album, My Sanctuary, will hear a quantum shift in Autamata's approach in the aggressive, in-your-face production and undeniable pop sensibility in evidence on Short Stories. “After writing My Sanctuary,” says Ken, “I took Autamata a step further, and started playing live. It really influenced the way we went about writing this album.” Sure enough, as a result of Autamata's transformation over the last two years from a chiefly studio-based project into one of the nation's finest live bands - merging astonishing musicianship, cracking modernist electro flourishes and two of the country's most distinctive singers - Short Stories bristles with immediacy. Everything from its smashing live drum sound to its fearless head-first embracing of the whole audio spectrum, from cacophony and electro-noise through to intimacy, acoustica and silence, reflects a period spent honing what Autamata do to perfection in a live setting.
info [email protected]
Monday March 13h
Bewleys theatre
grafton street
doors 8pm
15 euro
This festival band will be playing there breathtakingly ambitious music to a new level with this show.
In an age where most bands find one sound and stick to it, Autamata - founded by musician and producer Ken McHugh, and featuring the unmistakeable voices of songwriter-vocalists Carol Keogh and Sarah Verdon - have always stood out. Short Stories, their second album, a sprawling, utterly disparate, s and above all hugely fun exploration of near-limitless musical and emotional terrain, confirms that the band are impossible to shoehorn into anything as boring as one musical genre. If the album has a theme, it's one of love: love lost and love gained. If you like, it's the musical equivalent of a miniature film festival: 13 short films each with its own distinctive characters and its own palpable mood, with all the limitless variation and surprises that implies.
t as a music lover's vinyl collection, CD rack or iPod will reflect its owner's desire to jump from hip hop to dream-pop to soundclashey disco-rock to folktronica to everything else besides, Ken, Carol and Sarah are modern music lovers whose tastes and greediness for playful experimentation across all musical genres know no bounds. Hence - just like its creators' tastes - Short Stories genre-jumps, too.
Thus, the modernist Peaches-style electroclash aggression of 'Bring It On' segues seamlessly into its complete opposite: the hallucinatory sashay-pop of 'Goldilocks', with its shining, crystalline textures and dreamlike mood; which then itself dissolves into the exquisitely bittersweet remembrance of things past that is 'Skimming Stones'. Elsewhere, depending on your mood, you can groove to squelchy post-Aaliyah slouch-pop about lovers' insecurity ('The Tap'); you can slam-dance to a post-Destiny's Child anthem about how an Independent Woman's attitude adjustment led her to happiness (the filthified whip-crack that is 'Dirtybird'); you can sway to the doomy early-'80s warehouse party last-dance that is 'Summer's Son'; you can laze to the splashy banjo-and-accordion-led sea shanty/cowboy song that is 'Out To Sea'; or you can squint in the beachside setting sun that is 'A Clear View'. And that's only the half of it.
Those familiar with Autamata's debut album, My Sanctuary, will hear a quantum shift in Autamata's approach in the aggressive, in-your-face production and undeniable pop sensibility in evidence on Short Stories. “After writing My Sanctuary,” says Ken, “I took Autamata a step further, and started playing live. It really influenced the way we went about writing this album.” Sure enough, as a result of Autamata's transformation over the last two years from a chiefly studio-based project into one of the nation's finest live bands - merging astonishing musicianship, cracking modernist electro flourishes and two of the country's most distinctive singers - Short Stories bristles with immediacy. Everything from its smashing live drum sound to its fearless head-first embracing of the whole audio spectrum, from cacophony and electro-noise through to intimacy, acoustica and silence, reflects a period spent honing what Autamata do to perfection in a live setting.
info [email protected]
