Search - Bobby :: BOBBY

'Founded by Tom Greenberg during his senior year at Bennington College, BOBBY includes fellow classmates Julian Labat, Molly Erin Sarle, Roby Moulton, Paolo Menuez (alum of Hampshire College), and Martin Zimmermann. Shortly after graduating, the band all moved into a house together up in Montague, Massachusetts a tiny rural hamlet hidden away in the woods with little more than a post-office and a convenience store strictly for the purpose of putting together an album. Unfettered by the distractions of civilization, and far-removed from their peers, Bobby gradually took shape in the crucible of isolation. The resulting sonic aberration was deeply suffused with the anxiety, apprehension and ultimately the joy that is the natural by-product of six minds struggling to cohere their individual creativity into a single artistic work.

Bobby's sound draws inspiration from this emotional experience, but it is equally influenced by the Gamelan orchestras of Indonesia, the polyrhythmic hand drumming of Yoruba, as well as artists such as Kate Bush, Bjork, Vashti Bunyan and The Books. This eponymous debut is a lush, full spectrum exploration of frequency and timbrel layering. Using a multiplicity of acoustic, electric, and lap steel guitars, keyboards, shakers, hand drums, ambient noises, whistles, and gongs, as well as plenty of 'wait, what the f***was that?' sounds, no frequency oscillation was left behind, nor timbrel stone left unturned. And while the textures are rich and dense, the precise placement of instruments and pitches gives the work a rare, gorgeous clarity.

The album 's songs range from the soft and sublime, where tender harmonies between Molly Sarle of Mountain Man and Tom Greenberg rest gently above rich textures, as in 'Nap Champ'and 'Dust Beam,' to the holy-f**king s***, where the arc, shape and density of the song bloom into a cathartic climax, as in 'Groggy' and 'Tomb Bloom'

However, if there is one through line that links most of these twelve individual songs, it is the use of polyrhythm. Just like their sonic layering, Bobby superimposes multiple meters upon one another, in which each song can be felt in different time signatures. This playful layering of compound and simple meters provides a fulcrum for the sonic textures to balance against, but allowing for a rhythmic elasticity that the typical four on the floor beat fights so hard against.' mvremix.com