Laura Moody — Acrobats 
♠ Je to kus práce, vyžadující velkou pozornost k detailu. Je těžké mluvit o jednotlivých momentech bez poslechu záznamu až do dvouciferných čísel — to jistě, záleží na posluchači. Nepochybně to je zvláštní album, je potřeba ho vzít s sebou, aby se stal součástí gurmána, stejně jako skladatel to má se svým nástrojem. Dostane pod kůži a pak tam žije, roste a vyvíjí, jako víno, jako nejlepší hudba, a to může způsobit pouze vzrušení spolu se zamyšlením, co by mohlo nastat se stejným záznamem v závislosti se zkušenostmi posluchače. Možná dobré je zvážit, čeho by Laura Moody mohla dosáhnout v pro ní jasně zářivé budoucnosti.
♠ Není to příliš často, kdy si myslíte, že hudebník by pravděpodobně mohl jít téměř kamkoliv od jakéhokoli bodu nahrávky. Jednoduše řečeno, to, čeho Moody dosahuje (tady je vše v názvu), skutečně se jedná o hudební “akrobacii”, a ona je královnou Acrobat. Je to zásadní zpráva roku a někteří by ji mohli považovat za jednu z největších. Možná je třeba jen sáhnout trochu hlouběji. Pokud bych se vyjádřil úplněji, považuji to za mistrovské dílo. Laura Moody, je to váš čas ...
♠ Cello Wielding Avant–Singer Songwriter & 0.25 of Elysian Quartet.
Location: London, UK
Album release: 10/11/2014
Record Label: Surbiton Lagoon
Duration: 38:53
Tracks:
01 We Are Waiting 4:58
02 Turn Away 6:20
03 Memento 6:58
04 Like Water 5:49
05 Call This Time Love 4:04
06 O Lacrimosa 5:24
07 Cello Song 5:20
REVIEW
By HAYDON SPENCELEY, November 3rd, 2014
♣ Acrobats the debut album from singer–songwriter with an added twist Laura Moody, is a quirky surprise and delight. Cellist in the highly rated Elysian Quartet, as well as gun for hire for virtually any decent band you can name, ranging from Aphex Twin, all the way through to Lau, by way of Frank Turner, Hot Chip, Imogen Heap and even, whisper it, Tim Minchin.
♣ As albums in the contemporary age seem to become ever shorter — perhaps to mitigate for the shortened attention spans of the modern listener — Acrobats weighs in at a mere seven tracks. This fact becomes all the more disappointing as the sheer dizzying wonder of those seven tracks unfolds. Laura Moody is no ordinary performer. ♣ Utilising the cello as her sole accompaniment, Moody creates layer upon layer of atmosphere as all manner of tones and rhythmic flourishes are coaxed from her instrument. Production duo Edward Jenner and Dominic Murcott have unquestionably succeed in aiding Moody in maximising the scope of a sound and project like this. Whereas opener ‘We Are Waiting’, with its “I am my beloved’s and he is mine refrain, is built on a satisfying pizzicato riff, ‘Turn Away’ is carried along on a bed of rhythmic loops containing both vocal moans and a stop–start series of ever–more dizzying flourishes of instrumental prowess, as Moody begins to really get into her stride. It is instructive that two instruments, one stringed and yet unconventional, and one vocal, can make such a diverse series of sounds. Changes in tone and dynamics are ever near as the drama peaks and falls. It must certainly be an arresting live proposition to experience these seven songs.
♣ And so it goes on. ‘Momento’ exhibits perhaps more conventional, but no less exhilarating legato passages of accompaniment which propel an emotional rollercoaster of a song. The closest comparisons musically to this kind of wonder would perhaps be Timbre, or at a very tenuous push, some of the live portions of Damien Rice’s Vivienne Long–fuelled output, but really as each song builds upon the last, it becomes ever more obvious that Laura Moody is an artist in a field all of her own. An artist in the true sense of the word, her mastery over both the cello and her voice make her one of 2014’s most exciting debut makers.
♣ All of this would be for virtually nought, were it not for the fact that, far from being merely interesting, these songs are actually great too. Hooks, and honest–to–God choruses abound. You’ll be grooving along to the second minute of “Call This Time Love” almost in spite of yourself, almost forgetting that all of the elements you can hear are made from a voice and a cello. If Thom Yorke did something like this we’d all be proclaiming his genius.
♣ Moody’s vocal is a power all of its own too. Ranging from whispered, close to the mic intimacy one minute all the way to full–throated howl the next, it takes in elements of Celtic folk, without ever resorting to caricature.
♣ By the time an emotional cover of the Nick Drake classic ‘Cello Song’ closes this splendid set, this listener, at least, is wrung out, all too aware of having experienced something almost transcendent. It’d be sad if the somewhat niche nature of the genre at hand might put off less adventurous listeners. This is a really great and interesting, in the best sense of the word, debut album. It contains a sense of musical adventure and creativity which has been lacking all too often in a somewhat moribund musical year.
♣ So how about that then, a seven–song album of cello and vocal driven folk pop songs turns out to be amazing. Who’d have thought it?
• http://drownedinsound.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lauramoodymusic
Reverbnation: http://www.reverbnation.com/lauramoody
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Laura-Moody/42189566463
Last.fm: http://www.last.fm/music/Laura+Moody
Website: http://www.lauramoodymusic.com/
Also:
By Dominic J Stevenson • 11 November 2014 •
• http://www.forfolkssake.com/reviews/30662/album-laura-moody-acrobats
About:
♠ Laura Moody is a wildly alternative cellist, vocalist and avant–singer–songwriter. ♠ Fascinated not only with words and songwriting but also with sounds, noises and textures she eschews laptops and loop pedals to explore what is possible using only solo cello and voice. She creates emotive songs that reveal a multitude of influences and inhabit a unique space between the contemporary avant garde, classical music, experimental pop and singer–songwriter tradition.
♠ Having achieved much international acclaim as a long–standing member of innovative string quartet the Elysian Quartet, which is known for it’s pioneering performances and recordings of contemporary classical, experimental and improvised music, she has also toured world–wide as a member of physical theatre string ensemble The Gogmagogs, as well as the Meredith Monk Ensemble and performed extensively in theatre and contemporary dance productions. She has toured, collaborated and recorded with leading musicians from a hugely diverse number of genres from folk to hip hop. All these elements are brought together in Laura’s solo work, as The Arts Desk noted, “it seemed almost as if she had taken every musical influence that had come her way and put them in a blender...certainly extraordinary and sometimes disturbing. But what surprised me most ...was just how often it became mesmerising.”
♠ Laura releases music on her own Surbiton Lagoon label, named after an exotically monikered but long defunct swimming pool in the famously beige London suburb where she grew up. An EP was released in 2009 and following a highly successful crowdfunding campaign her highly personal and long awaited debut album 'Acrobats' was released in November 2014.
• “... for enjoyable astonishment, nothing quite beats the singer–cellist Laura Moody. She plays lyrically; then as if it was a box for sound effects. She sings her own almost–pop songs, gurgles, hoots, wails, taps her throat with the bow. Yet it's all seamless, as if she, the cello and the music are a single organism.” The Irish Times
♠ Alt–cellist, vocalist and songwriter Laura Moody from London explores what is possible using only solo cello and voice to create unique, acoustic, avant–pop music. ♠ Fascinated not only with words and song writing but also with sounds, noises and textures, she performs simultaneously on an 18th Century cello and a four octave vocal range, combining the two in interesting, physical even theatrical ways. Active for some years in the vibrant, underground, alt–classical scene in London that marries the classical avant garde with other adventurous genres of popular music (notably as cellist in the pioneering contemporary classical string quartet Elysian Quartet) Laura also draws on the worlds of leftfield pop, electronica, singer–songwriter tradition and indeed the many genres of music she has been involved with in the course of her career from beatboxing to folk. As The Arts Desk noted of a recent performance, “it seemed almost as if she had taken every musical influence that had come her way and put them in a blender...certainly extraordinary and sometimes disturbing. But what surprised me most ...was just how often it became mesmerising.”
♠ Launching her solo cello/vocal career in 2007 with a debut performance at London’s legendary Spitz club, Laura has gone on to perform her music at venues such as Bush Hall, The Southbank Centre and Shunt Vaults, and at festivals such as The Crash Ensemble Marathon in Dublin, SXSW in Austin Texas, the York Spring Festival and The Truck Festival where she was voted “best new discovery” of the 2009 UK festivals by The Observer. Her music has been played on BBC 6 Music and was recently recommended on BBC Radio 3 by Robert Wyatt who commented “it’s solo... but not at all bedsit!” She released an EP of her music on her own label in 2009 and is currently working on her debut album to be released later this year.
_____________________________________________________________
♠ Je to kus práce, vyžadující velkou pozornost k detailu. Je těžké mluvit o jednotlivých momentech bez poslechu záznamu až do dvouciferných čísel — to jistě, záleží na posluchači. Nepochybně to je zvláštní album, je potřeba ho vzít s sebou, aby se stal součástí gurmána, stejně jako skladatel to má se svým nástrojem. Dostane pod kůži a pak tam žije, roste a vyvíjí, jako víno, jako nejlepší hudba, a to může způsobit pouze vzrušení spolu se zamyšlením, co by mohlo nastat se stejným záznamem v závislosti se zkušenostmi posluchače. Možná dobré je zvážit, čeho by Laura Moody mohla dosáhnout v pro ní jasně zářivé budoucnosti.
♠ Není to příliš často, kdy si myslíte, že hudebník by pravděpodobně mohl jít téměř kamkoliv od jakéhokoli bodu nahrávky. Jednoduše řečeno, to, čeho Moody dosahuje (tady je vše v názvu), skutečně se jedná o hudební “akrobacii”, a ona je královnou Acrobat. Je to zásadní zpráva roku a někteří by ji mohli považovat za jednu z největších. Možná je třeba jen sáhnout trochu hlouběji. Pokud bych se vyjádřil úplněji, považuji to za mistrovské dílo. Laura Moody, je to váš čas ...
♠ Cello Wielding Avant–Singer Songwriter & 0.25 of Elysian Quartet.
Location: London, UK
Album release: 10/11/2014
Record Label: Surbiton Lagoon
Duration: 38:53
Tracks:
01 We Are Waiting 4:58
02 Turn Away 6:20
03 Memento 6:58
04 Like Water 5:49
05 Call This Time Love 4:04
06 O Lacrimosa 5:24
07 Cello Song 5:20
REVIEW
By HAYDON SPENCELEY, November 3rd, 2014
♣ Acrobats the debut album from singer–songwriter with an added twist Laura Moody, is a quirky surprise and delight. Cellist in the highly rated Elysian Quartet, as well as gun for hire for virtually any decent band you can name, ranging from Aphex Twin, all the way through to Lau, by way of Frank Turner, Hot Chip, Imogen Heap and even, whisper it, Tim Minchin.
♣ As albums in the contemporary age seem to become ever shorter — perhaps to mitigate for the shortened attention spans of the modern listener — Acrobats weighs in at a mere seven tracks. This fact becomes all the more disappointing as the sheer dizzying wonder of those seven tracks unfolds. Laura Moody is no ordinary performer. ♣ Utilising the cello as her sole accompaniment, Moody creates layer upon layer of atmosphere as all manner of tones and rhythmic flourishes are coaxed from her instrument. Production duo Edward Jenner and Dominic Murcott have unquestionably succeed in aiding Moody in maximising the scope of a sound and project like this. Whereas opener ‘We Are Waiting’, with its “I am my beloved’s and he is mine refrain, is built on a satisfying pizzicato riff, ‘Turn Away’ is carried along on a bed of rhythmic loops containing both vocal moans and a stop–start series of ever–more dizzying flourishes of instrumental prowess, as Moody begins to really get into her stride. It is instructive that two instruments, one stringed and yet unconventional, and one vocal, can make such a diverse series of sounds. Changes in tone and dynamics are ever near as the drama peaks and falls. It must certainly be an arresting live proposition to experience these seven songs.
♣ And so it goes on. ‘Momento’ exhibits perhaps more conventional, but no less exhilarating legato passages of accompaniment which propel an emotional rollercoaster of a song. The closest comparisons musically to this kind of wonder would perhaps be Timbre, or at a very tenuous push, some of the live portions of Damien Rice’s Vivienne Long–fuelled output, but really as each song builds upon the last, it becomes ever more obvious that Laura Moody is an artist in a field all of her own. An artist in the true sense of the word, her mastery over both the cello and her voice make her one of 2014’s most exciting debut makers.
♣ All of this would be for virtually nought, were it not for the fact that, far from being merely interesting, these songs are actually great too. Hooks, and honest–to–God choruses abound. You’ll be grooving along to the second minute of “Call This Time Love” almost in spite of yourself, almost forgetting that all of the elements you can hear are made from a voice and a cello. If Thom Yorke did something like this we’d all be proclaiming his genius.
♣ Moody’s vocal is a power all of its own too. Ranging from whispered, close to the mic intimacy one minute all the way to full–throated howl the next, it takes in elements of Celtic folk, without ever resorting to caricature.
♣ By the time an emotional cover of the Nick Drake classic ‘Cello Song’ closes this splendid set, this listener, at least, is wrung out, all too aware of having experienced something almost transcendent. It’d be sad if the somewhat niche nature of the genre at hand might put off less adventurous listeners. This is a really great and interesting, in the best sense of the word, debut album. It contains a sense of musical adventure and creativity which has been lacking all too often in a somewhat moribund musical year.
♣ So how about that then, a seven–song album of cello and vocal driven folk pop songs turns out to be amazing. Who’d have thought it?
• http://drownedinsound.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lauramoodymusic
Reverbnation: http://www.reverbnation.com/lauramoody
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Laura-Moody/42189566463
Last.fm: http://www.last.fm/music/Laura+Moody
Website: http://www.lauramoodymusic.com/
Also:
By Dominic J Stevenson • 11 November 2014 •
• http://www.forfolkssake.com/reviews/30662/album-laura-moody-acrobats
About:
♠ Laura Moody is a wildly alternative cellist, vocalist and avant–singer–songwriter. ♠ Fascinated not only with words and songwriting but also with sounds, noises and textures she eschews laptops and loop pedals to explore what is possible using only solo cello and voice. She creates emotive songs that reveal a multitude of influences and inhabit a unique space between the contemporary avant garde, classical music, experimental pop and singer–songwriter tradition.
♠ Having achieved much international acclaim as a long–standing member of innovative string quartet the Elysian Quartet, which is known for it’s pioneering performances and recordings of contemporary classical, experimental and improvised music, she has also toured world–wide as a member of physical theatre string ensemble The Gogmagogs, as well as the Meredith Monk Ensemble and performed extensively in theatre and contemporary dance productions. She has toured, collaborated and recorded with leading musicians from a hugely diverse number of genres from folk to hip hop. All these elements are brought together in Laura’s solo work, as The Arts Desk noted, “it seemed almost as if she had taken every musical influence that had come her way and put them in a blender...certainly extraordinary and sometimes disturbing. But what surprised me most ...was just how often it became mesmerising.”
♠ Laura releases music on her own Surbiton Lagoon label, named after an exotically monikered but long defunct swimming pool in the famously beige London suburb where she grew up. An EP was released in 2009 and following a highly successful crowdfunding campaign her highly personal and long awaited debut album 'Acrobats' was released in November 2014.
• “... for enjoyable astonishment, nothing quite beats the singer–cellist Laura Moody. She plays lyrically; then as if it was a box for sound effects. She sings her own almost–pop songs, gurgles, hoots, wails, taps her throat with the bow. Yet it's all seamless, as if she, the cello and the music are a single organism.” The Irish Times
♠ Alt–cellist, vocalist and songwriter Laura Moody from London explores what is possible using only solo cello and voice to create unique, acoustic, avant–pop music. ♠ Fascinated not only with words and song writing but also with sounds, noises and textures, she performs simultaneously on an 18th Century cello and a four octave vocal range, combining the two in interesting, physical even theatrical ways. Active for some years in the vibrant, underground, alt–classical scene in London that marries the classical avant garde with other adventurous genres of popular music (notably as cellist in the pioneering contemporary classical string quartet Elysian Quartet) Laura also draws on the worlds of leftfield pop, electronica, singer–songwriter tradition and indeed the many genres of music she has been involved with in the course of her career from beatboxing to folk. As The Arts Desk noted of a recent performance, “it seemed almost as if she had taken every musical influence that had come her way and put them in a blender...certainly extraordinary and sometimes disturbing. But what surprised me most ...was just how often it became mesmerising.”
♠ Launching her solo cello/vocal career in 2007 with a debut performance at London’s legendary Spitz club, Laura has gone on to perform her music at venues such as Bush Hall, The Southbank Centre and Shunt Vaults, and at festivals such as The Crash Ensemble Marathon in Dublin, SXSW in Austin Texas, the York Spring Festival and The Truck Festival where she was voted “best new discovery” of the 2009 UK festivals by The Observer. Her music has been played on BBC 6 Music and was recently recommended on BBC Radio 3 by Robert Wyatt who commented “it’s solo... but not at all bedsit!” She released an EP of her music on her own label in 2009 and is currently working on her debut album to be released later this year.
_____________________________________________________________