***Enigmatic trio From Quagmire's third release of startling art-song works in an area completely devoid of identifiable US / Anglo "folk" influence. The 'Quag's mix of collage and roughly styled human performance is full of dramatic contrast. Most tracks house Dorothy Geller's voice and pointillistic, nylon-string guitar in a thick embrace of droning sound. Much of the CD was recorded in the UK, where guests Helena Espvall-Santoleri (cello), Sharon Krauss (whistle and clarinet) and Simon Wickham-Smith (electronics) added their substantial input to the record. Touches such as Wickham- Smith's understated electronics on "A Father's Vision" and Espvall- Santoleri's dark bowing on most cuts redefine From Quagmire's signature sound-- away from the percussive and jarring avant explosions heard on Tropic of Barren and Caught In Unknowing and toward a more subtle, refined brand of expression.
CD $12.00
03/08/2005
***Working from Dorothy Geller's assured finger-picked and plucked nylon-string guitar, and James Wolf's elegant violin lines, From Quagmire explores a kind of hushed, terse chamber song that is so unlike anything else it's hard to draw comparisons. V2G2's unorthodox interruptions of sawing bowed guitar, free-"jazz" drumming, and other unlikely audio splatter is the wild card that keeps things from getting too austere. Usually it's totally beside the point, but it's worth mentioning that unlike most underground folk/outsider weirdness, the music here is superbly recorded in close-up detail. The Tropic of Barren [presents] slowly unfolding songs that are full of mystery and suspense. "Suite of Windmill and Sycamore" open things with raw and bluesy guitar work played as if every note would be the last one ever played. In the distance a drone starts building up and unorthodox percussion jumps in and out of the speakers.... Dorothy Geller [known, along with From Quagmire violinist James Wolf, for work with chamber rock ensemble Laconic Chamber] plays the nylon string guitar throughout the whole record and it's truly spectacular in the sadly flowing "Suite of Atoms and Media." This drifts right into the aptly titled "Fragment of Watching," which veers off into a slightly more experimental neighborhood, but the nylon guitar just keeps on floating in profoundly sad sound structures as if nothing would have happened. On all six of The Tropic of Barren's tracks, there's space for every tone to breathe and every instrument to speak, resulting in a detailed...
CD $12.00
11/26/2002
MP3 $0.00
11/26/2002
***The Tropic of Barren is the debut release from Virginia's FROM QUAGMIRE. A trio of Dorothy Geller, James Wolf, and Rake guitarist Vincent Van Go-Gogh, FQ's beautiful, mysterious and just plain weird art-song drift is a look into a rather under-explored corner of the underground universe. The slowly unfolding songs are based on Dorothy's nylon-string guitar and hushed-but-pointed vocals, punctuated by Wolf's expertly sawed violin and Van Go-Gogh's unpredictable percussion, electronics and guitar interjections. The music is highly detailed and performed with significant individual personality, rather than the predictable loud-soft-repeat bombast of other contemporary post-whatever ensembles. Geller and Wolf have done time in Camera Obscura recording artists Laconic Chamber and the Library of Congress (the federal institution, not the band). Van Go-Gogh is straight out of DC's long-running freakazoid ensemble Rake (as we stated). The Quag plans to tour both coasts during 2001.
CD $12.00
05/08/2001
MP3 $0.00
05/08/2001