| CD-DETAILS THE BIRD OF MUSIC [AU REVOIR SIMONE] | |||||||
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Au Revoir SimoneThe Bird Of Music [Pop]RELEASE: 16.02.2007LABEL: Cooperative MusicVERTRIEB: Rough TradeWEBSITE: aurevoirsimone.com/
Die Geschichte von Au Revoir Simone beginnt 2003 in einem Zug nach New York City. Ihren auf den Keyboards, einer Drum Machine und Percussions basierenden Sound beschreiben sie selbst als 'warm and organic electronic music with forthright female vocalists'. BIO Au Revoir Simone started life in the Fall of 2003 when Erika (Forster, keyboards & vocals) and Annie (Hart, keyboards & vocals) first became acquainted on a long train ride home to NYC from a weekend getaway with friends. Along the way they exchanged stories and ambitions, and discovered that they shared a common desire to form an all-keyboard band. When they returned to NY, they started meeting regularly to play music. After a time their friend Heather (D’Angelo, drum machines, keyboard & vocals) started joining in at these informal bedroom band practices, which also included former member Sung Bin Park (keyboard & vocals). Before too long, they started playing shows around NYC and Brooklyn. In January of 2005, Sun Bin left the band and the girls started anew as a trio. Keyboards found their natural home in the hands of Au Revoir Simone (or perhaps it was the other way round). A romantic notion it may be, but fate you might say had had a hand in their meeting – born out of a common love of synths then, Au Revoir Simone came to be. The band’s influences could be likened to a dutifully mined musical thrift store. Alongside the racks and railings of sometimes mismatched but wholly treasured records occupied by Modest Mouse, Stereolab, Mountain Goats, Louis Prima and Pavement, the likes of the Beach Boys, Bjork, Broadcast Belle & Sebastian, Bowie, the Beegees and Billie Holiday also take their place. Erika too harbours a love of German label Morr, specifically artists such as Guther, Lali Puna and Ms. John Soda. Made principally using keyboards, drum machines and hand percussion, Au Revoir Simone’s sound is defined by their instrumentation. In their own words, and to put it simply, they make “warm and organic electronic music with forthright female vocalists”. This, the band’s debut, was named after a tiny book Annie received in the post one day at work entitled ‘Verses of Comfort, Assurance and Salvation’. The title seemed to capture perfectly music’s ability to make you feel, but more specifically how the band’s music was making Annie and the rest of the girls feel – complete, inspired, and happy. Recorded in Brooklyn, in their friend/producer/manager Rod’s basement apartment (to be more precise in fact, recorded in a former shower stall rigged up with quilts and fancy microphones to resemble a vocal booth), ‘Verses…’ was a lot of fun to make… The result of endless hours spent in Rod’s flat-cum-studio ‘Verses of Comfort, Assurance and Salvation’ is a hypnotic journey. There is an utterly sincere, ethereal and at times lovelorn quality to the album. Very nearly yet not quite tangible to senses other than your ears, the tracks contained therein often feel as if they’re bathed in moonlight and graced with seasonal/’turning of seasons’ touches. Au Revoir Simone’s music would be the perfect soundtrack to an Autumnal picnic in the park…or Virgin Suicides if Air had not been so triumphant with the original score. Visual references aside, ‘Verses…’ opens with the dream-like-trance-inducing (heart)beats of Heather’s drum machine on ‘Through The Backyard’. A song about the excitement of being young and in love for the first time (and sneaking out of the house to meet your best friend). With it’s whispering synths and delicate vocals, ‘Backyards’ is steeped in a kind of nocturnal sweetness and youthful longing which forms a near-perfect introduction to the album and the life-affirming themes which run through it. The uptempo ‘Hurricanes’ is a song about living in, and liberating yourself from a culture of fear, which builds to a shuffling and sonically celebratory, call-to-arms climax – ‘This message is for all the people / The people who are always waiting’ is the echoing sentiment that remains. Next up is ‘Disco Song’, a track inspired by the main character in a movie about roller skating. ‘Where You Go’ is an ode to lost love and wishing you could reunite with someone you can’t stop thinking about, or somehow can’t let go of. A gateway into the album’s relative Heart of Darkness (or at least it’s more melancholy moments), is ‘Back In Time’, a song about people who have let you down in the past, but want to come back into your life. Picking up the seasonal thread inherent to ‘Tales…’ once again is ‘The Winter Song’, a beautifully crafted, calming, soft-feeling instrumental, which spills into ‘And Sleep Al Mar’, a Godin/Dunckel-flecked track taking lingering sad memories as it’s inspiration. ‘Stay Golden’ is a softly tip-toeing and beautiful finale to the mini album – it scoops up the broken heart behind its creation and nurtures it back to health with uplifting murmurs and waves of synthesized flutes and enveloping, comforting vocals. Wise to the profound effect music can have on a person, in ‘Verses of Comfort, Assurance and Salvation’ Au Revoir Simone have crafted an intelligent, understated, and always heartfelt record. Their music is a harbinger of reassuring wisdom and overwhelming comfort. Go on, dive in… (Quelle: Cooperative Music) FORMAT: CD
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