Taking its name from a story about “active dreaming" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Eyes of a Blue Dog is set to debut Rise on Babel Records although the band’s release date is to be confirmed. The Dog, as they surely will be known (?!), are a three-piece vocals/trumpet/drums electronica band filtered via 1970s Milesian metafunk and the release is surely a winner if early advance listens are anything to go by.
The record is a challenging new departure from trumpeter Rory Simmons, here with drummer/electronics head Terje Evensen and singer Elisabeth Nygård-Pearson, with a tiny walk-on part from bassist Chris Hill on the third track ‘Marble Faces’.With tunes written by the Dog mixing Agharta-like flavours without keyboards the artwork betrays no clues to the music inside the slim advance label copy apart from the colour blue, an inspired pantone selection by the designer it must be said, with green lettering cut out of leaves from an artfully blurred potted plant (actual artwork not shown in case you were wondering). Gardeners do get in touch with the botanical description of this particular variety. Scissors on the back do lend a clue, though, to some of the sonic finessing, no actual tape and snippers involved, but a suitable battery of digital studio software. This though is not a barrier and wouldn’t even prevent Rise coming off well live as the compositions although open ended feel solid enough to play in a live format. It does come across like a more in-your-face version of the approach of someone like post-Khmer Nils Petter Molvaer particularly so on ‘Marble Faces.’
The femme fatale vocals (particularly On ‘Reject the Rhapsody’) add a slightly disturbing edge to the direction of the playing in keeping with one of the characters in the story the band takes its name from and tunes are more industrial than say what Bob Belden is doing. The title track has a kind of updated downtempo feel with the matter-of-fact voice of Nygård-Pearson a feature on some but not all tracks. Intriguing.
Stephen Graham
Updated: with 19 October launch night photo taken at the F-IRE Festival in Pizza Express Jazz Club, above, following the official CD and vinyl release on 8 October subsequently confirmed