Composer
Love this reaction to Orca, Attack’s! C.M.S.O. from On The Fringes of Sound:
When I received this one in my inbox, it immediately stood out to me as one of the most interesting concepts for an album. The entire EP is something of an essay being read aloud, except the message comes through… wrong.
…
I‘m currently four listens in and I‘m quite sure I haven’t learned anything. But I do know that it is also very fun to listen to.
Read the full review over on the website. Thanks Lars et al!
Thanks to Monolith Cocktail for adding “Ethical Approval” off Orca, Attack!’s C.M.S.O. See the full playlist on their website and listen on Spotify or below.
Well, this is the kind of review one dreams about. From Underscore Music Magazine’s new series, The Inbox:
“God, I love this. I love the music and I love the idea, which is one of those you wish you’d thought of yourself and can’t believe it hasn’t been done before…Airy vocals, mangled library music, robotic spoken word and sudden flights of electronic fancy guide the listener through what seems to be a pretty complex academic paper…”
More over on the Underscore website. Thank you!
Thanks to Bepi Crespan of CITR for playing a couple of tracks off of C.M.S.O.! Playlist and audio on the CITR website.
Woke up this morning to quite a few happy notifications. First, Monolith Cocktail has a great write-up of C.M.S.O. This lovely excerpt should get you to want to read the whole thing:
A writer of repute on the failures of tech, communication and self-preservation, Rodriguez (who also files his musical experiments under Alison’s Disapproval) lends a constantly filtered and affected spoken word narration across all six tracks as Kelly swans, touches the ethereal with her diaphanous woos, calls, arias (a merger of Laurie Anderson, cosmic opera and Jane Weaver). Often transmogrified by robotic effects and the slowing and speeding up of that instructive monologue, Rodriguez’s message is constantly warped, broken up: sometimes on the verge of some Max Headroom glitch stutter, or the slurred falling apart speech of HAL.
*Achievement unlocked: Max Headroom comparison!
We also seem to have successfully stumped Vital Weekly, who write of the album:
The music is mostly a computer treated voice/vocoder style, and along with some electronics playing some weird tune. The six pieces last altogether less than 19 minutes, which is perhaps the best thing for such a little curiosity. Great for confusion and confused to know what to say.
Vital Weekly also put out a podcast highlighting the music they’ve reviewed; be sure to check it out.
Finally, I haven’t been able to find a recording, but thank you to Kat O’Rly for playing “Literature Review” on WLUW’s Destination Unknown last night.
Auricular felicity abounds in the newest episode of Anticipating Nowhere. Thanks Simon for including some Orca, Attack! alongside such splendid sonorousness.
Thanks to WTUL for another week with Farewell, Doomed Planet! on the charts. A year and a half after its release, it’s clocking in at no. 17 overall and no. 3 electronic. And congratulations on a successful marathon!
Almost one year ago to the day, Tyler Weaver interviewed me for his blog Parenthetical Recluse. Now we’re back, this time on his podcast The Socialized Recluse. Tyler describes it perfectly on his website so I’m just going to crib that here:
Presenting: a conversation had amidst the haze of new-puppy-exhaustion.
In which: two collaborators learn they can converse as well as collaborate and, as such, converse about all sorts of creative and collaborative things, things including, but not limited to: the essential nature of bandname punctuation, the existential dread that Philip Glass’s music inspires, the demoralizing hellscape of academic publishing, and, most importantly, doing the work.
And, a note: while Elizabeth’s audio in our conversation – which is the most important part in an interview anyhow – sounds fine, mine is (more than) a bit on the quiet side (save for a notable exception; sorry ears). At the time of recording, I was still learning the mix/gain needs of my new condenser mic; by the time I recorded the intro / outro, I had a better handle on it. So, as Bill Murray said, I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice.
More on Tyler’s website. Thanks again for having me!
Current listening: this very cool mix by Secret13 and Ilias on the Secret Communications show on Cashmere Radio that also includes “Abstract” off C.M.S.O.
Elizabeth Joan Kelly 