I met May Roosevelt a few years ago in Germany, during an international thereminist festival in Lippstadt. Beautiful, reserved, good. A few months ago his first solo CD was released by Coorecords, a Greek publisher (www.coorecords.com), and I'm glad to talk about it.
It is not an easy-to-read musical record, you have to listen to it carefully to grasp its meaning in the intricate electronic carpet in which melodies and words are immersed (in English). Looking at the project as a whole - and I am talking about container, graphics, music and choice of titles - one has the feeling of being inside a story, a story of love and fear that is embodied in the features of an animal: a panda (Panda: a story about love and fear).
The premise on the cover says: "Once upon a time there was a little girl who was afraid of almost everything ..." and a long list of paranoia follows: dogs, cars, planes, trains, walls ... bombs, darkness, etc.
Like all real stories, it follows neither a rhythm nor a precise genre, it is difficult to categorize as are the stories of life. So it happens to come across pieces of pure electronic, in childish chants, in industrial-type noises, in disturbing sibilant voices. There are no acoustic musical instruments, all the instruments used, from the Kaossilator to the Korg Electribe Er-1 to the micro Korg to the Squier Strat, are electric or electronic instruments. The only unifying element is the presence of the Theremin (Moog Etherwave) in almost all the tracks, a sound that sometimes screams its own suffering, others lulls itself into the stillness of sweet melodies, still others whistles in the wind or reaches the climax of very high frequencies. The song titles are always linked to this tortuous path: eight original songs with a single unknown suspect "the one who whispers", "the one with the list", "the one with the caramelized hearts", "the one with the blackout" ... and so on up to the eighth: "the last".
In short, the listener moves in a suggestive path between the tender and the disturbing, love and fear ... in short, a respected title ... Hard to digest, but interesting experimentation.
The board:
Panda: a story about love and fear
Editions: Corecords
