Album: Troglodytes Troglodytes
Artist: Vicious Circus
Release Date: 26 July 2014
This could be avant-garde sideshow music. Dave Maric and Elo Masing, the core of Vicious Circus, often seem to perform together like crazed dicephalus twins in this series of short pieces that could perhaps be thought of as the disowned siblings of free improvisation, contemporary concert music, and sci-fi soundtracks.
Troglodytes Troglodytes is rigorous in its pursuit of a highly idiosyncratic aesthetic. But, ever the musical magpies Dave and Elo fill each track with irresistibly brightly lit and curious objects, making this album as accessible as it is inscrutable, as centripetal as it is fugal (this is not a vicious circle).
Drawing together a dizzying range of sounds and palettes from Neanderthal grime, to high-speed high-tech poetry settings Troglodytes Troglodytes is a rare thing indeed; at once strange, beautiful, unsettling, rewarding….
“It’s the [musical] sideshow that I would love to see live…”
Hear and Now, BBC Radio 3
Credits:
Elo Masing : violin, cello, electric guitar and whistle
Dave Maric : The daveOtron
with special guests:
David Turay : alto saxophone (Tracks 04, 12, 18)
Matthew Lee Knowles : voice (Tracks 03, 09, 15)
All tracks (improvised) by Elo Masing and Dave Maric
apart from:
Tracks 04, 12, 18 (Elo Masing, Dave Maric, David Turay)
All spoken text by Matthew Lee Knowles.
Recorded in London June 2013, September 2013 and February 2014 at:
Royal Academy of Music (engineer : Roderick Buchanan-Dunlop)
SAE Institute (engineers : Boris Nazarov and Ray Hage)
and Cotesbach Rd, E5. (engineer : Dave Maric)
Edited and mixed by Dave Maric
Produced by Vicious Circus
Original cover illustration by the Theatre of Dolls (www.theatreofdolls.com)
Thanks to:
David Turay
Matthew Lee Knowles
Roderick Buchanan-Dunlop
Boris Nazarov
Ray Hage
Cam Deas
Leo Abrahams
Raisa Veikkola
Frida Alvinzi
Phil Brunner
Lumiere
Listen or download for FREE/Donations:
If you like this album and want to support squib-box for future recordings and gigs, please consider donating what you wish by downloading the album through bandcamp.
Suggested donation: 4 dollars / 3 pounds