GILLA BAND - MODEL/ACTRIZ

"Gilla Band’s second (album).. pushes them even further into an esoteric league of their own."

Prolix. Album opens to unsteady breathing. Slow at first, unwanted and out of time. Breathing shallows and discomfort deepens over the sustained heartbeat of a soon to be familiar A chord. This is Dara’s breath, this is his panic, a momentary, one-off lapse of control recorded and transmuted into a rhythmic, off-beat moment of disquiet to unlock Gilla Band’s crucial yet quietly anticipated second album: ‘The Talkies.’

Recorded in November 2018 at Ballintubbert House, Ireland, “a few pay grades above what we're used to!”, the alien construction of Ballintubbert and its corridors help to navigate Gilla Band’s cataclysmic sound within a world of its own.

“In many ways the idea behind the album was to make an audio representation of the house.“ And this enigmatic manor becomes Gilla Band’s sonic playground: to place yourself within a space, and to work with that space harmoniously. Dan continues, “We recorded all the drums twice: once on the landing and once in the cellar” -The Well of Souls- “and during production we could actually cut in between both these sounds”. The Talkies vacillates between being big, ambient, and atmospheric to suddenly terribly intimate and up close.

The Talkies is living, breathing, in a continual state of metamorphosis. It encompasses everything there is to love about Gilla Band while simultaneously causing an exciting level of discomfort. The moaning and sawing guitars, atonal blankets of sound, abstractive lyrical repetition, chugging snare and ascending/descending snakes and ladders noise-rock guitar deliver something that is so distinctively Gilla Band.

…Eregenis. Album closes to steady breathing. It drips with catharsis, slow and mindful and purging over the familiar key and darkly syncopated grooves which closes the door to Gilla Band’s sonic universe and brings ‘The Talkies’ to its first and final silence.

MODEL/ACTRIZ

Dogsbody, the debut album by Brooklyn-based Model/Actriz (vocalist Cole Haden, guitarist Jack Wetmore, drummer Ruben Radlauer, and bassist Aaron Shapiro), is a coming-of-age album set between the hours of dusk and dawn. It is as much an exploration of love and loss as it is a sharp, piercing, and violent ode to the explosive joy of being alive – the overwhelming brightness of staring at the sun.

Model/Actriz are known for their confrontational live shows, but the band’s performances, as well as Dogsbody itself, are really a portal of invitation and transcendence, a series of intimate moments shared between those attending. Haden has an avid interest in poetry, but at the same time finds comfort in utter transparency. The record portrays some distortions of reality without obvious resolution, accelerating at breakneck speed before eventually dissolving into uneasy release. If you’re looking, vulnerable moments are scattered throughout the album, and Model/Actriz’s steadfast convictions often feel poetic in their heaving impact.