nosamiam
03-03-2005, 10:32 AM
My husband is the bass player for Helium Tapes. If you in the area please catch the show at Off Broadway!
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/entertainment/stories.nsf/music/story/0937D0CB8D48C21386256FB80001DC7B?OpenDocument
Bands join in a "fortuitous pairing" of melodies
By Tim O'Connell
Of the Post-Dispatch
03/03/2005
Advertisement
Music fiends will get to hear a fortuitous pairing of exceptional and divergent acts tonight when the Octopus Project and the Helium Tapes storm Off Broadway.
As the Austin, Texas-based Octopus Project sets up on stage, the usual pleasures of anticipation will be second to watching the uninitiated react to the band's sheer mass of keyboards, guitars and drums.
The theremin-wielding, largely instrumental group blends four parts rock and five parts electronica with one part performance art. Straddling the space between synthesized sound and guitars is percussionist Toto Miranda, whose propulsive drumming is augmented, and at times replaced, by beat machines.
While on paper this recipe is not entirely new, the band's dynamic live performances separate it completely from achingly repetitive math rockers.
The Octopus Project just released its second full-length CD, "One Ten Hundred Thousand Million," a work that has begun to garner national attention and whose thumping, infectious grooves implore you either to dance or to drive very fast.
As with the best music in the electronica vein, Octopus Project derives its frisson from the marriage of initial alienation and subsequent recognition. But Octopus Project's utter joy-in-the-machine prevents the music from becoming leaden and lifeless.
The band's sound is surprisingly round and warm, and you can't help but think of F.T. Marinetti's Futurist delight at surrendering himself to the intoxication of speeding automobiles.
Everyone needs to leave his or her head once in a while.
The Octopus Project may be fortunate that the experience it provides is demonstrably different from that of opening act the Helium Tapes: The exciting new St. Louis band has the capacity to steal a double-booking.
It's become cliche to describe a band as genre-busting, but the Helium Tapes plainly confound.
Vocalist Sunyatta Marshall, formerly of the haunting and dirge-drenched Fred's Variety Group, joked about some of the strained comparisons that friends and fans of the Helium Tapes feel compelled to make. The one combination she felt sounded almost right was "Blondie meets the Zombies."
Like any band, the musicians approach music from different walks, but the particular combination of past interests sets the Helium Tapes apart.
To start with, Tim Lohmann's fuzzed-up guitar, most recently at home in Tomorrow's Caveman, adds an element of garage, which matches well with keyboardist Cullen McGrane, who played bass for Tomorrow's Caveman and the surf-infused garage-punkers the Honkeys.
But knowing Lohmann and McGrane's history cannot prepare one for the stark, bright, wide-open music the Helium Tapes make.
There's a touch of the harder-edged new wave, but perhaps the band's sound most resembles the punky New York music that immediately preceded the new wave, Television or the early Blondie, for instance. Finish the potent cocktail with the slightest dash of garage, and you end up unsure of just where you are in time.
Lyrics of disaffection and disappointment soar over a jagged, rocky aural landscape. But absent is the too-cool-for-school sneer and relentless irony of so many of the new-wavers.
When Marshall, for instance, declares in the hard-driving "Carry Me" that "I want to forget those who care for me at all," one rather believes her.
The music's sincerity speaks to the maturity of its players. Rather than strike poses, the Helium Tapes propel themselves forward, naked and defenseless, but quick to take aim at your heart.
Helium Tapes and Octopus Project
When: 9 tonight, March 3; doors open at 8 p.m.
Where: Off Broadway, 3511 Lemp Avenue
How much: $5
More info: 314-773-3363 or www.offbroadwaystl.com
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/entertainment/stories.nsf/music/story/0937D0CB8D48C21386256FB80001DC7B?OpenDocument
Bands join in a "fortuitous pairing" of melodies
By Tim O'Connell
Of the Post-Dispatch
03/03/2005
Advertisement
Music fiends will get to hear a fortuitous pairing of exceptional and divergent acts tonight when the Octopus Project and the Helium Tapes storm Off Broadway.
As the Austin, Texas-based Octopus Project sets up on stage, the usual pleasures of anticipation will be second to watching the uninitiated react to the band's sheer mass of keyboards, guitars and drums.
The theremin-wielding, largely instrumental group blends four parts rock and five parts electronica with one part performance art. Straddling the space between synthesized sound and guitars is percussionist Toto Miranda, whose propulsive drumming is augmented, and at times replaced, by beat machines.
While on paper this recipe is not entirely new, the band's dynamic live performances separate it completely from achingly repetitive math rockers.
The Octopus Project just released its second full-length CD, "One Ten Hundred Thousand Million," a work that has begun to garner national attention and whose thumping, infectious grooves implore you either to dance or to drive very fast.
As with the best music in the electronica vein, Octopus Project derives its frisson from the marriage of initial alienation and subsequent recognition. But Octopus Project's utter joy-in-the-machine prevents the music from becoming leaden and lifeless.
The band's sound is surprisingly round and warm, and you can't help but think of F.T. Marinetti's Futurist delight at surrendering himself to the intoxication of speeding automobiles.
Everyone needs to leave his or her head once in a while.
The Octopus Project may be fortunate that the experience it provides is demonstrably different from that of opening act the Helium Tapes: The exciting new St. Louis band has the capacity to steal a double-booking.
It's become cliche to describe a band as genre-busting, but the Helium Tapes plainly confound.
Vocalist Sunyatta Marshall, formerly of the haunting and dirge-drenched Fred's Variety Group, joked about some of the strained comparisons that friends and fans of the Helium Tapes feel compelled to make. The one combination she felt sounded almost right was "Blondie meets the Zombies."
Like any band, the musicians approach music from different walks, but the particular combination of past interests sets the Helium Tapes apart.
To start with, Tim Lohmann's fuzzed-up guitar, most recently at home in Tomorrow's Caveman, adds an element of garage, which matches well with keyboardist Cullen McGrane, who played bass for Tomorrow's Caveman and the surf-infused garage-punkers the Honkeys.
But knowing Lohmann and McGrane's history cannot prepare one for the stark, bright, wide-open music the Helium Tapes make.
There's a touch of the harder-edged new wave, but perhaps the band's sound most resembles the punky New York music that immediately preceded the new wave, Television or the early Blondie, for instance. Finish the potent cocktail with the slightest dash of garage, and you end up unsure of just where you are in time.
Lyrics of disaffection and disappointment soar over a jagged, rocky aural landscape. But absent is the too-cool-for-school sneer and relentless irony of so many of the new-wavers.
When Marshall, for instance, declares in the hard-driving "Carry Me" that "I want to forget those who care for me at all," one rather believes her.
The music's sincerity speaks to the maturity of its players. Rather than strike poses, the Helium Tapes propel themselves forward, naked and defenseless, but quick to take aim at your heart.
Helium Tapes and Octopus Project
When: 9 tonight, March 3; doors open at 8 p.m.
Where: Off Broadway, 3511 Lemp Avenue
How much: $5
More info: 314-773-3363 or www.offbroadwaystl.com