![]() ![]() The instrumentation of the Claudia Quintet has remained constant since it formed in the late 1990s, so Hollenbeck knows the palette he’s working with. That sounds schematic, but it’s really a loose framework, a way of organizing thoughts and ideas. September, the group’s inspired new album, gets its name from his custom of composing new work in seclusion at artist retreats, typically during that month each of its 10 pieces bears a date, indicating either a moment of inception or completion. The drummer John Hollenbeck, who writes all the music for the Claudia Quintet, is prolific enough with his output to understand that there’s often freedom in restriction. SEPTEMBER, by The Claudia Quintet, Cuneiform Songs like The Depths and Sorrow struggle against despair, and the nervous guitar tremolos, galloping beat and choirlike voices of Heaven are contemplating death, possibly suicide: “Here it is easy to see how an end would be rest.” Rose’s pop confections aren’t simple escapes. A flesh-and-blood string section sometimes replaces keyboards, and the lyrics are less remote. ![]() (The album reaches back to remake a 1985 song by the Damned, Street of Dreams, though it trades new-wave guitars for synthesizers.)īut Herein Wild slightly dispels the haze of Rose’s debut. The steady eighth-note beats, the rounded bass tones and the halos of keyboards still openly echo the Cure and New Order. Rose and her co-producer and synthesizer expert, Michael Cheever, haven’t moved that far from the sound of Interstellar. Her melodies are always crisply defined by hooks that are distributed between riffing guitars and her high, airy voice. The girl-group foundations of verse, chorus and bridge suit her just fine. Through her many bands, Rose has held onto certain pop principles. The song heads for a chorus that admits, “Time on my own, time on my hands, couldn’t be true” - though as major chords surge behind her, she sees a chance to change: “You for me, could be what I was waiting for.” Herein Wild starts, instead, with the crashing drums and distorted guitar chords of You for Me. Interstellar moved toward the 1980s, with synthesizers enfolding the guitars and clean, ethereal reverb supplanting fuzztone, while the lyrics were often abstract and faraway, gazing from a distance. Her debut, Interstellar, announced her departure from the girl-group-meets-garage-rock reinvention that she helped instigate as a member of Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls and with her own band in 2010, Frankie Rose and the Outs. ![]()
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