a r t i s t : Phelan Sheppard Vs Niandra Ladies
t i t l e : Games Of Position
d a t e : 2007
l a b e l : Static Caravan
c a t : VAN 141
s o u r c e : 7" Vinyl
g e n r e : Folk / Electronica
r l s. d a t e : Sep/2007
t r a c k s : 02
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 10,4 MB
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The product of musical internet ædatingÆ, London
multi-instrumentalists Keiron Phelan and David Sheppard
encountered the inscrutable Franco-Italian Niandra Ladies via
MySpace in 2006 and were immediately drawn to their mercurial
electro-acoustic textures. The Londoners - the duo behind
State River Widening and a critically acclaimed 2006 album
(Harps Old Master) under their own names for the Leaf label -
proposed a four-way collaboration. The peripatetic Ladies, now
berthed in Gothenburg and Barcelona respectively, responded
favourably, and soon files were whizzing back and forth across
the European mainland, with Phelan and Sheppard wedding their
acoustic guitars, woodwind, strings, Fender Rhodes and
percussion to the LadiesÆ ambient sculptures. Vocals, courtesy
of the LadiesÆ English pal Laura Sharpe and Phelan/SheppardÆs
sometime Spanish collaborator Ines Naranjo, were spliced in,
David and Keiron mixing the polyglot smorgasbord into two
gleaming tracks in a studio beneath a ukulele shop in LondonÆs
Spitalfields.
Games Of Position is based on a recitation from an old
anthology of board games; itÆs enigmatic, melodious vocals
meticulously interleaved with fluttering electronics, plangent
acoustic guitars and swallow-diving violas. This is elegant
baroque pop music as re-imagined by outsider artists and,
honestly, it sounds like no on else.
Casino Lisboa is a fizzing atmospheric detour û equally
alluring if tending toward the abstract. It proffers a kind of
free jazz folk-ambient landscape û Miles Davis meets John Cage
in an Alice Coltrane dreamscape û all of it judiciously
decorated with the French horn of Thomas Allard.
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01-Phelan / Sheppard - Games of Position [03:31]
02-Niandra Ladies - Casino Lisboa [03:55]
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07:26 min