DARK DARK DARK – Wild Go (Part 1)

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes! Switching it up here at AudioVole. We’re gonna start posting each leg of the conversation as it happens so you can get in and get out quicker and don’t have to wait ’til Friday to get to the good stuff. Also, this is the first week that Brandon is not part of the conversation! Thank God, amirite?

So this week, Chris Mollica and newest AudioVoler, Julia Barry, hash out chamber-pop outfit, Dark Dark Dark‘s most recent effort Wild Go. A little background: Chris is a Hollywood actor. Julia is a Brooklyn based pianist/singer/songwriter. Wild Go is evocative and smoky – just like our reviewers! Hey-o! It’s a match made in heaven. Read Part 1 of the Wild Go dialectic after the jump.



From: Chris Mollica
To: Julia Barry

Wild Go, the second LP by Minneapolis based chamber folk band Dark Dark Dark, doesn’t slowly walk you into the room. It tosses you in with the thud of a drumbeat and the swirl of an accordion. You’re suddenly in Europe, a long time ago, in a dark bar, underground. Everyone is smoking. Everyone in the long ago was always smoking. Obviously, depending on your tastes, you’re not sure this is the place for you, but Wild Go creates a truly interesting, if flawed, atmosphere that is worth a chance.

Not getting a good idea by my vague allusions to how the album may sound?

Let’s try this. The various talented band mates of Dark Dark Dark list banjo, clarinet and cello as a few of their multiple instruments.  All of them also happen to be visual artists. In 2008, Dark Dark Dark members participated in “Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea “ an art piece that traveled by rafts made of junk down the Hudson River from Troy to Long Island City, Queens. They helped build the rafts and provided the score for the sea-ON performances. The band also had an instillation at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and did the music for the film Flood Tide by Todd Chandler, upright bassist and sometime co-vocalist.

I seem to have lost my way here.

Last try! Dark Dark Dark is Fiona Apple meets Danny Elfman by way of Beirut. It’s a swirling, moody, hollow ride through various lamentations and longings. There’s beautiful orchestration, no doubt, and Nona Marie lnvie has a voice that invites, taunts, and threatens to lure you to your death. Threatens but never does get close. There is a veneer here which lends itself well to the world of performance art, but one which can act as a detriment to the music.

Julia, this is going to be fun! You are a musician, yourself. How do you feel about Ms. lnvie and her band of hippie art misfits? Did you connect with their songs or were you seated with me, just behind the clouds of smoke?

“When you’re alone, you’re so alone,”
Chris

Download Dark Dark Dark – “In Your Dreams” (MP3)