Saturday, July 24, 2010

It Came From Montreal: BEAST
















Drummer/composer Jean-Phi Goncalves, chanteuse Betty Bonifassi and engineer/producer Jean-Phi.

Downloaded the album and am now absorbing it, loving the sound and digging Bonifassi's booming voice, one that emits an exotic international-flavored English which imbues her phrasings with added nuance and depth. 

Here's an apt decription from their official website at http://www.beastsound.net/    Though in Europe touring as of this post, they are based in Montreal/Toronto and will be back in North America soon.

Beast’s self-titled debut (Pheromone Recordings/Vega Musique) inhabits a place where Portishead meets Rage Against the Machine. Soul, rap, electro, rock and jazz (complete with a Charles Mingus bass sample on “Satan”) collide with a cinematic flair. “Trip rock,” Betty calls it, the phrase invoking the way haunting choirs and glitchy electronic bits run underneath saw-toothed bass and grinding guitars.

Musician and songwriter Simon Wilcox worked with Betty (whose first language is French) to polish her English lyrics, while maintaining the structure and strong imagery Betty had infused them with. Betty spits the resulting fiery stanzas with a delivery that melds the spirit of rap and slam poetry with bellowing soul. . .

Today's Rune: Defense.

2 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Sounds interesting. I rather like both Portishhead and Rage.

Lana Gramlich said...

That's a really cool cover.