A long overdue return to OTO for art-punk songwriter, firebrand musician and Evangelista leader, Carla Bozulich - her first appearance here since 2010.
Following on from her band The Geraldine Fibbers, Bozulich's work with her Evangelista project alongside releases under her own name have honed and developed her strikingly distinctive approach to song. Bozulich recently released new album, 'Boy', on Constellation - the third under her own name and fifth for the label - which sharpens and focuses the Evangelista sound to create a self-proclaimed "pop record". Bozulich's songcraft stands toe to toe with anybody else working today and we're thrilled to have her back at OTO, this time with a 4-piece group.
"If Boy emerged from the oeuvre of a broadsheet-friendly icon such as Nick Cave, Patti Smith or Tom Waits it would be lauded as an uncompromising work of genius." - Sunday Times
CARLA BOZULICH
Carla Bozulich is an art-punk heroine. Time and again she has headed up bands that sound like nothing else and arguably stake out genres unto themselves: the bent agit-prop of Ethyl Meatplow; the ferocious roots-tinged epic rock of The Geraldine Fibbers; the vocal-driven sound-art of Scarnella and Evangelista; her large-scale performances including the ongoing Eyes For Ears series. Her first "solo" record, the 2003 album-length cover of Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger, was rightly hailed as a masterpiece of reinterpretation and recontextualisation. Her first album for Constellation was 2006’s Evangelista, after which Bozulich adopted the Evangelista moniker for subsequent work, and released three more albums between 2008-2011. She has set aside Evangelista for now, to focus on the songs that form Boy, her third record under her own name.
"A roaming creativity and rich depth of emotion across its ten relatively compact tracks... [Boy] is anchored by the ever-visceral voice of Bozulich, as raw and emotion-soaked as ever, accompanied by the evocative instrumentation of Bozulich, her main collaborator John Eichenseer and drummer Andrea Belfi, subtly balancing angularity, noise and sparse restraint, painting and often dark and quietly unsettling, but utterly enthralling picture, shot through with flashes of heart-warming light." - Rock-A-Rolla
Boy is Carla's self-proclaimed "pop record" and that claim makes perfect sense, framed within the context of her unique musical career of experimentation, exposition and deconstruction. Boy is a refreshing and much-needed reminder of what pop – as an oblique angle, influence, and intent – can do in the hands of a ferociously commanding singer/lyricist who has cut her teeth on genre-bending, genre–blending, and DIY aesthetics. Bozulich says she was “resuscitated” in her teenage years by punk rock, and then “destroyed, in a good way” by people re-inventing the idea of how music works. Here is a batch of ten songs that clock in at 3-5 minutes each, mostly hewing to recognizable structures of verse, chorus and bridge, but full of destabilizing accents and strategies, and nothing that could read as winking irony, gloss or mere effect/affect. The songs are grounded by hooks and melodies, delivered by the singing itself, with the underlying instrumentation and arrangements always in the service of Carla's voice and lyrics – in that respect, there is a strong through-line from the Evangelista albums. But Boy sharpens and focuses each song's intent and structure; unlike most of the Evangelista work, this new album, apart from a song or two, would not be mistaken for sound art, dark ambient, or quasi-Industrial music.
While Bozulich wrote most of it, played the majority of the instruments and made the album artwork, the album’s creation was aided, abetted and sometimes rescued by the input of John Eichenseer (aka JHNO). The duo traveled and played together all over North America, Europe, South America and India - with a particularly fruitful burst of writing on a tiny island off the coast of Istanbul. They joined the Italian drummer Andrea Belfi in Berlin to record with his impeccable rhythmic support. The songwriting reflects a life of travel - remaining purposefully uprooted and nomadic, living without ever really unpacking that single bag - and guided by some of Bozulich's most perceptive, honest and sometimes venomous lyrics.
The group for the OTO Carla Bozulich concert will be a 4-piece:
John Eichenseer – also known as JHNO - is a musical and technological catalyst. He helped write and produce the new (Boy) recordings with Carla Bozulich and is the primary collaborator on the music. He works with Evangelista (Constellation), Rupa and the April Fishes, and an eclectic mix of projects around the world. He plays keyboards, viola, electronics, drums, and duduk. As JHNO and SPOOL he has been releasing albums since 1995, often under his own imprint, Delicate Ear. In parallel he develops music software, for the likes of Cycling '74, Björk, Laurie Anderson - and for his own generative art.
Andrea Belfi is a drummer, electroacoustic musician and composer. He is the primary drummer and co-songwriter on Carla's new album, Boy. His projects and collaborations extend to diverse musical fields, from rock to electroacoustic music and radical improvisation, from audio/visual performances to sound installations. He plays with David Grubbs, Mike Watt, Aidan Baker, BJNilsen, Erik Skodvin among others. He released records on Hapna, Blue Chopsticks.
Adrián de Alfonso, aka Don the Tiger, has been one of the most active and inquisitive musicians of Spain's underground scene for over a decade. Not only as a front-man and guitarist of legendary bands such as Bèstia Ferida, Veracruz, Capitán or Homenatges, but also accompanying and improvising with the likes of Lydia Lunch, Mark Cunningham, Weasel Walter, Robert Forster, and of course, Carla Bozulich.
Xomaltesc Tbobhni
(animals; woods: maple, birch, oak, bamboo; metals: alloys (bronze, tin); plastics: mylar, nylon; minerals; electricity)
(boils down somatic fold-ins to rare, expend, exhaust, expand;syntax root mine imaginz taxoclump underflow lingualia fizz; sliver helix for babble osmosis; uncompounded rotations, cycles, politics)
(opens possibilities of language and learning from below through questioning the specific material conditions, grammar, histories and logics of the saxophone and drum kit through a flexible, manifold process of collaboration, augmentation, bifurcation, antagonism and technological and somatic feedback)
(Paul Abbott and Seymour Wright have worked on perpendicular, overlapping and independent solo and group projects within and outside of the conventions of music and performance)
Recent activity includes About Trumpet and Saxophone, with Nate Wooley on Fataka, and at Café Oto Project Space; Antiknow at Flat Time House (with Jakob Jakobsen, Howard Slater, Gabriel Humberstone); Infection Transmission Event/Cloudy November screenings in Assembly, Tate Britain; lll人 at Intersect, Café Oto and Sound Disobedience Ljubljana; Ne_Ko-max (with Daichi Yoshikawa) at Café Oto Project Space; Black Exhventalia / anTrgor rEiz at Cafe Oto and Abject Bloc, London and Pley, Swell Units and Detroit with Cara Tolmie.
paulabbott.net
seymourwright.com
