Labasheeda are an art-punk band from Amsterdam (Netherlands) formed in 2004 and based around singer/guitarist/violin player Saskia van der Giessen and guitarist Arne Wolfswinkel. They blend poppy melodies with bursts of noise and distorted violin.
They have released a new LP on Presto Chango Records titled Changing Lights — issued on transparent blue vinyl.
We had a listen:
The album starts with ‘Spiral Song’ and some deflected & trellised drum plods before the fiddle scours away at the otherwise untouched surface.
The voice is sad, perhaps discouraged by all the fuzz and dust in the atmosphere.
There is a flash of hope at the beginning, though, but mainly this is a grunge filled pessimistic cycle.
The second song is the acoustic ‘My Instincts’. The voice on this is infested with dreary expression and hangs haunted in the air.
It contrasts rather dazzlingly with the remote dizziness on ‘Head ’.
Here we have, implemented, a great confusion of guitars, shotgun bass-notes and dangerously contaminated drum-work.
The violin and guitar meet and adjust to each other’s presence so well on ‘Into The Wide’ — and this song, too, has cool spikes of rhythm and those instinctive smoky-blue vocals that seem to steam from the openings.
Pioneering art-punk, often deep-freeze cool, this mills and twists like a sharp knife drilling into soft tissue.
Words: @neilmach 2015 ©
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