Muso Club March Recommendation

Evangelista - Hello, Voyager

Voyagers! Open your cramped legs locked in that flying suit of lights.

There’s a visceral raw edge to Carla Bozulich’s avant-rock ‘Hello-voyager’. But highlighting its rawness only tells half the story. This is at times haunting and eerie, moving through moments of beauty into utter madness. The list of female experimenters she has been likened to seems endless, and many rather fitting – Patti Smith, Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson, Diamanda Galas. Yet Evangelista and Bozulich clearly have a sound which is uniquely theirs.

Still I stand before you, dear stranger and I say: Yes!

The album moves through a variety of styles and levels of aggression. Where ‘For the L’il Dudes’ is a beautiful, string driven instrumental, ‘Smooth Jazz’ is a militaristic rock number, ‘Frozen Dress’ moves into dark ambient territory whilst ‘Blue room’ is a haunting ballad driven by Bozulich’s outstanding vocals. In fact, the variety is impressive, and the quality of each track never falls short. Yet, there is a feeling that these tracks exist to build towards the closer which makes for a jarring and dramatic climax, a real highlight of the album.

There's only one word that has hasn't dried completely in your parched throat. Can you say it with me? The word is love.

Its haphazard percussion landing like stray fire on a battlefield makes for an aggressive and unstructured backdrop punctuated by heavy riffs of fuzzed electric guitar and Bozulich’s fierce diatribe on the alienation involved in love. She is a genuinely moving voice in experimental music and this album makes a welcome exploration of where rock can (and perhaps should more frequently) go post-rock, somewhere both menacing and apocalyptic. Hello voyager is an adventure into the dark recesses of insanity – as such it is highly recommended.

Open your eyes. You are with us now.