Gaggle – Crows
Twenty-strong female choral behemoth from London…
[Video][Myspace]
[5.50]
Martin Kavka: In a nation governed by lesbians who worship Björk, this is the annual Christmas #1.
[5]
Michaelangelo Matos: The song Lex thought he was writing about in his “Golden Phone” blurb.
[2]
Anthony Easton: A thick wall of noise with a floor of pure kettle-drummed madness. Almost ritualistic in its body pounding percussion. Love this.
[8]
Jessica Popper: I like strange and original pop music, but I’m not sure if this one’s taking it slightly too far. There are moments where it’s almost good and no-one could say it isn’t interesting, but it is undeniably a bit of a racket as well.
[7]
Martin Skidmore: If you’ve been dying for a new and much indier King’s Singers, your dreams have come true. I can’t decide if I’d like it more or less if the singing were more technically accomplished, but it is kind of interesting and gripping.
[6]
John Seroff: Call me a traditionalist, but aren’t choirs supposed to involve harmonies? I hold out hope that Gaggle will be cleaned and tuned up in the studio into less of a happening and more of a band, but for now they sound like amateurs taking the theatrically easy route to doing something very hard and failing. Failing interestingly though, so perhaps worth keeping an eye on.
[6]
Anthony Miccio: “AN ALTERNATIVE TO BURLESQUE, SHIT TV AND BAD BOY BAND WATCHING” says their Myspace, explaining why they do it more than why anyone should pay attention. Not that goth a capella isn’t novel, but their live clips seem a lot more static than those of that bad boy band The Birthday Party, who they sound like they’re covering.
[6]
Hillary Brown: I like a complicated, multivocalic bit of occasionally dissonant experimentalism that sounds like an avant-garde a cappella group as much as the next dude, but it’s a bit too close to its subject, and it therefore reminds me of my local Target’s parking lot, which is positively overrun with those horrible birds, cawing at shoppers from atop the lights. Ugh. Shudder.
[4]
Iain Mew: I spent at least a minute wondering when the real song was going to start. After that it just became vaguely uncomfortable to listen to. That seems to be what they were going for, so good job, I guess.
[5]
Alex Ostroff: Imagine if the Witches from MacBeth decided to expand their coven. And the first person they went to was Florence (without her machine, but with her HUGE POUNDING DRUM). Then, imagine that they recruited all the female members of the Polyphonic Spree. And then they hired Kate Nash to teach them elocution. And then they all got on a train to Hogwarts, and joined the school choir. It’s actually sort of ace, but the only time I can ever imagine listening to it is if it were soundtracking the entrance of a Dementor Army in the latest Potter film or something.
[6]
My first post to the new singles jukebox! I’m forksclovetofu to the ILXor contingent, the Tofu Hut guy to bloggers who’ve been around long enough to care and another ghost in the machine to the rest of you. Howdy howdy howdy; let’s see if I can give this a go for awhile.
Welcome, John! And this was the first song since I’ve been posting that I could not fucking find, at least on either youtube or rhapsody, which are the two places I tend to look. Didn’t think to check their myspace page — though, since I kept thinking this was a song called “Gaggle” by a band called Crows, I might not have found it anyway. Did now, and the song seemed less strange, less percussive, less abrasive, and less interesting than the posts above led me to believe. Not less mediocre, though. I would’ve given it a 6.
All those basically negative reviews, all those 6’s. Weird.
I’m always more critically lenient with people who are trying new shit; it’s harder to dust off the hobnailed boot when you’re encountering a new species. I really wanted to like this. Shame it’s not very good.
Welcome, John!
Yeah, I didn’t blurb this because I couldn’t decide how I felt or even if I liked it; I would have been another vaguely disapproving 6, so it’s just as well I held off.