Strings Of Consciousness
Our Moon is Full is the debut album from Strings Of Consciousness, an ensemble made up of 9 members hailing from Marseille, France, via London, Paris and Chicago. Using their manifesto of uniting acoustic instrumentation and human sensibility with digital technology, the group were able to draft in many talented musicians from across the globe via the Internet. The result: a cohesive, warm, lush, harmonious collection of pieces, feeling as if they live and breathe-in the same air. Today, 9 musicians form the collective, although the beating heart of Strings Of Consciousness can be found as a string quintet. The name itself is both a reference to the traditional stringed instrument quintet section and also a direct literary reference to the phrase "stream of consciousness", a term coined in the early 20th century to illustrate the flow of words echoing the narrator's thoughts: a narrative technique that is dear to the ensemble. Strings Of Consciousness express their connection to free-form narrative via liberating, emotive-led musical improvisation and capturing those perfect moments on tape.
Narration is key to Our Moon is Full, as it features outstanding vocal contributions from honorary ensemble members J.G. Thirlwell (Foetus/Steroid Maximus), Barry Adamson, Eugene Robinson (Oxbow), Scott McCloud (Girls Against Boys), Pete Simonelli (Enablers), Black Sifichi and Lisa Smith-Klossner. Our Moon is Full takes the traditional 2-sided long-playing format to its logical extreme; the dark followed by the light, from one side to another – not unlike our own moon’s cyclic pattern. Starting with a slow build-up, setting a sunlit scene of loss and lust from afar, the record takes the listener on many aural and visual adventures through (occasionally twisted) soul-bearing confession, pent-up rock, taut & raw emotion and exploratory musical and lyrical freedom through classical music and literature, melodic drifting ambient, soaring guitars, film-noir, psychosis and pretty much anything and everything between, and surrounding. Take Eugene Robinson’s brutal account of a man that finds himself on the wrong side of the law mixed with a modern, Western-themed, maxi-minimalist soundtrack flanked from the rear by a huge tidal wave of blasting industrial cadence. Or take Asphodel, which starts in a free-form jazz style with Percival Bellone’s saxophone competing head-to-head with serene electronics, before the whole thing implodes into a tribal rhythm using guitars teleported directly from one of David Lynch’s more serene dreams, interwoven with field recordings of asphodel leaves crunching under foot – this unique structure is used in the more conventional sense, it being the key pattern keeper of the track. That’s not even to mention J.G. Thirlwell’s astonishing vocals.
Members of Strings Of Consciousness come from, and have worked with, such luminaries as The Macé Ensemble, Bob Mould, the Sea and Cake, Soft Machine, Frank Black, Robert Wyatt, David Thomas’ 2 Pale Boys, Spaceheads and Deviationists, in addition to having run two of France’s premier independent labels, Pandemonium (Unsane, Cerberus Shoal and more) and BiP_HOp (Erik Friedlander, Rothko, Scanner and more). The group have also been given the honour of being the only band to feature a new composition on the acclaimed My Brightest Diamond remix album Tear It Down, which was released worldwide on Sufjan Stevens’ Asthmatic Kitty label in early 2007 to mass critical acclaim.
Live dates throughout Europe are booked for the summer months, starting with the lauded Supersonic Festival in Birmingham, alongside Mogwai, sunn0))) and more. The festival season will be a busy one for the group, whilst they perform to thousands and tighten themselves up for their debut US dates, provisionally set for the fall of 2007.
Strings Of Consciousness are: Raphaelle Rinaudo (harp), Andy Diagram (trumpet / electronics), Nicolas Dick (guitars), Abdenor Natouri (double bass), Perceval Bellone (saxophone, Tibetan bowls, flute, piano), Hervé Vincenti (guitar/laptop), Philippe Petit (Theremin/laptop/turntables), Alison Chesley (cello), Stefano Tedesco (vibraphone).
Recent acclaim for Strings Of Consciousness:
THE WIRE #271 / UK / September 2006
French collective Strings Of Consciousness dovetails acoustic and electronic textures ascending into ensemble interplay reminiscent of the Boxhead Ensemble.
XLR8R / USA / August 2006
Strings Of Consciousness sounds something like a cross between a very competent experimental electronic artists and a well-done movie soundtrack. The musical collective manages to remain in synch through the numerous pianos, guitars, basses, bleeps and clicks that appear throughout their tracks, and create a rhythm together that is haunting, unpredictable, and curiously feel good at the same time.
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