unclassifiable music

[xela]

gardenfey posted a link to Corvus Corax, a band ... unlike any other band you've ever seen. Labels floating in my head looking for a way to be hyphenated include goth, industrial, and medieval. Which explains nothing. You have to hear them — and see them.

For a gentle introduction, start with this mini-documentary of a performance of Carmina Burana, in which they work with a conventional orchestra.

Next, for sheer exhilaration, watch Shou Shou Cheng. That was gardenfey's first link, which when it started rather reminded me of my father's approach to teaching me to swim: Throw me in and see if I sink.

Go ahead and watch it. I'll still be here when you're done.

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Heart racing? Breathing a little heavy? Now imagine jumping up and down and all over the stage for seven minutes while all of your breath is being spent blowing into a fucking bagpipe. There's much to love about this band, but all that aside, it's the most amazing display of sheer musical athleticism I've ever seen — including the tapdancing bass saxaphonist I saw in Harvard Square one night.

How about a little dance number, familiar to generations of SCA-folk — saltarello ductia, perhaps?

Oh. My. God.

For something a more soothing, with production values that will definitely appeal to my SCA friends, I suggest Hymnua Cantica. (Yeah, knitted "chainmail". But if that lance shattering was CGI, George Lucas should hire their effects people. And a stadium full of people in Medieval drag doing the wave — how much more anachronistic can you get?)

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Corvus Corax turns out to be part of a cluster of bands with shared personnel and similar æsthetics. How about a little bagpipe metal with Tanzwut? Or Ardor vom Venushügels cover of White Wedding — to which I had much the same reaction as the first time I saw Rocky Horror many years ago. (Let's say "erotic in unexpected ways", rather than the more colorful words of the Rocky Horror veteran who took the wide-eyed and innocent eighteen-year-old me to see it — largely, I suspect, to see if I'd break.)

Comments

[siderea]

I presume from this that you're not familiar with Wolgemüt?

[siderea]

Or, heading off in a slightly different direction, The Medieval Baebes?

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

I've heard both, but not seen them, so maybe my impression of how differet they and Corvus Corax are is due to having seen video of the latter. To my inexpert ear, Wolgemüt and Medieval Baebes sound like excellent conventional performers of medieval music. Corvus Corax rocks.

[siderea]

Babes is to folk-pop what Corvus Corax is to metal. Note that while the Babes started out firmly ambiguous between a rock/pop aesthetic and classical-style early music.... they then added synthesizers (occasionally).

Wolgemut (Sorry, I'm not sure whether there's an umlaut there or not) is a medieval rock band which plays at Pennsic. They rock out, though they aren't into the funny hair as much as Corvus Corax.