SOUNDTRACK: ROOMFUL OF TEETH-Tiny Desk Concert #404 (November 10, 2014).
Roomful of Teeth is an acapella group (with a drum on the first song). The singers all tend to sing notes (or words) in a rather unsettling style. As the blurb says, “Mix a bit of yodeling with Tuvan throat singing, add in a pinch of Sardinian cantu a tenore, fold in compositions from cutting-edge composers and you have the vocal group Roomful of Teeth. This eight-voice ensemble, which includes the 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw, is gleefully dismantling the traditional definition of ensemble singing right before our ears (and teeth!)…. The agility of the voices and multicolored blend they achieve are extraordinary.”
And that’s all so accurate. Everything is kind of unsettling and strangely beautiful. But definitely unsettling.
The first song was written by Australian Wally Gunn and is called “The Fence Is Gone.” There are so many different sections. It reminds me a lot of the middle of Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother. With singers having an almost atonal operatic movement. But in between lyrics, the vocalists are largely singing going “oh ha” or just “bah bah.” It’s really fascinating. And the more I listen to it the more I wonder how they know just what (somewhat unusual) note to sing. The blurb adds: “verses emerge from an infrastructure of “oh-ha” syllables and a simple drum pulse, ending with women’s voices, tight in harmony, like a chord from a Casio keyboard.” That Casio remark is pretty spot on.
Before the second song, one of the men says that the “women are going to so do a song.” The men leave and Rinde Eckert’s “Cesca’s View” begins with a kind of yodeling (really good yodeling). After which the three remaining women sing a beautify low melody very hymn-like. Then the yodeling comes back (with some beautiful high notes at the end). Then they all come together to do the the yodelling melody very pretty harmonies. The blurb adds “In Rinde Eckert’s “Cesca’s View,” imagine a lonely cowgirl on some windswept plain. Estelí Gomez gets her yodel on, beautifully, while the three other women vocalize in close, barbershop-style harmony. It literally ends on a high note.” When the four are singing together, it’s really pretty.
The final song was written by the founder of the group, Brad Wells. “Otherwise” features some very intense bass notes from the men and high notes from the women. The blurb says “Warm, rounded tones in male voices contrast with a steely sheen from the women and a high drone like a Tibetan singing bowl. The harmonies take a tangy, almost Bulgarian turn, then we get something truly otherworldly. A pulsing, slightly creepy Sardinian “bim-bom” vocalise buzzes like a gigantic cicada.” The Bulgarian comment is really spot in as the women absolutely sound like the Bulgarian choirs. And that “bim bim bom” section is so alien and otherworldly. I love when they throw in some little “hey ya” mixed in. But the most amazing thing has to be “Dashon Burton’s operatic baritone [which] soars above it all.” His voice is really intense.
At first I didn’t really like their music, but after a few listens I could really appreciate what they were doing.
[READ: May 1, 2016] Human Body Theater
Maris Wicks is the illustrator for another First Second non-fiction book I loved called Primates. I thought her drawings were perfect (and also really cute). And she has done it again. Never have brains and bowels and viruses and allergies been so adorable!
But despite the cuteness of the drawings (and the title), this is a real, genuine nonfiction book about the human body.
Wicks covers just about everything you might want to know about how our bodies work. It is geared toward children (she does discuss reproduction, but in very basic terms), but it is full of so many details that I think many adults will find they learn things from this book. I know I sure did. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 