Insight & Critique
  • DAC
  • Indie Music Album Reviews
  • About
  • Submissions
  • Top albums
  • Features
  • Contact

Little Melody - Trepidation

9/11/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Little Melody

Trepidation
self-released; 2015

3.6 out of 5

By J Simpson

Soundtrack For An Empathetic Response

During the summer of 2014, Gaza was bombed. Meanwhile, 6706 miles away in Vancouver, BC, musician Little Melody sat, transfixed by a live stream of the atrocities. She grabbed her field recorder and decided to do something about it. Trepidation is her response to those events, building soundscapes, music and noise over the recordings of the bombings.

Trepidation veers from droning dark ambience ("Horizon") to dreamy chamberfolk ("Telephone" and "Obscenity") to light, piano-led neoclassical ("Birds"). There are a proliferation of exotic instruments - harmoniums, zithers, Fender Rhodes - that give this a right proper shambolic ritualistic psych-out freakout quality, on par with heavyweights like Vibracathedral Orchestra, Six Organs Of Admittance and Skygreen Leopards. The kind of thing you listen to with incense burning.

Little Melody will certainly appeal to anyone who's into Grouper at all, as well, as Little Melody's guitars that have a similar drifting, weightless, reverbed ambiance. I'm a total sucker for atmospheric psychedelic acoustic guitar and wish more people would explore its possibilities, so i applaud Little Melody for it! It's keeping me transfixed.

The final three tracks are like a coda or afterthought, moving away from the field recordings and focusing on more vocal, song-based material. They seem like the extra tracks that would come with an old CD-single, or dug out for some reissue. "No Lullabies For Angela" is a folksy Leonard Cohen number about loneliness and homelessness, while "Overdose" is some more tripped out psyched-out experimentation, with a high warbling synth that sounds like Close Encounters duetting with a slow-phasing Casio wailing mournfully.

Little Melody focuses a lot on texture in her music. She works digitally, but incorporates analog instruments and recording techniques - like recording a bowed guitar to a four-track. She then passed these recordings off to Neal Miskin at Red Light Studios in Vancouver, who optimized the recordings for any system.

These are the kinds of details that make a record stand out, that make a strong, cohesive statement that speaks without shouting. Little Melody is currently self-releasing her music, on her Poppy Music Vancouver imprint, but I have a sense that won't last.

Trepidation is a moving record that you can return to and get lost in, over and over, again and again.
Become A Fan
Tweet
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

       Critique/insight

    We are dedicated to informing the public about the different types of independent  music that is available for your listening pleasure as well as giving the artist a professional critique from a seasoned music geek. We critique a wide variety of niche genres like experimental, IDM, electronic, ambient, shoegaze and much more.

    Tweets by divideanconqer
    Are you one of our faithful visitors who enjoys our website? Like us on Facebook


    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012

Company

About
Contributors

Newsletter

Newsletter
Book Your Band

© Divide and Conquer 2021. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • DAC
  • Indie Music Album Reviews
  • About
  • Submissions
  • Top albums
  • Features
  • Contact