Alternative, psychedelic, rock
Dadamah as promised folks, is the only album by this somewhat transient and awesome band, enjoy.
While Dadamah is often seen as another step along the way in the artistic path of Roy Montgomery, he'd be the first to agree that does a disservice to his equally talented bandmates. Singer/bassist Kim Pieters writes the fascinating if sometimes hard to read liner notes for this complete career overview, while there's also keyboardist/backing vocalist Janine Stass as well. Together the trio continued the by-then well-established Kiwi underground music tradition of shadowy, haunting music and production, helped by noted figure in said scene Peter Stapleton, who also took care of drumming as needed.
Unless the consistently aggro noise fests of, say, the Dead C or Gate, Dadamah also draw on a generally more spare but no less compelling approach, often building up arrangements and then settling back again, or else maintaining a continuing steady, gently addictive pace. There's the roots of Montgomery's work in the Pin Group, naturally, with its own echoes of Joy Division and early Cure, but there's also a very strange, folky vibe as well that at points suggests the work done half a world away by Dave Pearce in Flying Saucer Attack. Both Pieters and Montgomery's singing draws on the more idiosyncratic post-punk approach to vocals, eschewing technical skill in favor of just getting it out. Whether it's Pieters' higher, sometimes wailing approach or Montgomery's stern, strained and reflective singing, though, words and music almost always go very well together throughout. Stass' keyboard work, meanwhile, adds even more of a strange, odd edge to proceedings. Sometimes the tone is almost a bit jaunty, as the swinging skip and burbling keyboard notes of the lengthy "Too Hot to Dry," sung by Pieters, shows, even with the usual murky production style. With highlights like the Montgomery-sung "High Tension House," where the title phrase comes from, and the truly tripped, Pieters-sung "Radio Brain," This is Not a Dream is well worth investigating.
(All from AMG)
One of my favourite albums from the 90s, it has a fairly low quality sound which when added to the eerie oddly strained vocals creates something quite pleasantly haunting in a way. My highlight would be "Brian's Children" from a subdued start and a rather traditional alt pop verse is spirals down into a repetitive hole drawing you down as it goes, wonderful sounds.
But the album is full of great songs, "Papa Doc", "High Tension House" and "Too Hot to Dry" are all worth putting on loop, each time finding something new.
Capturing sounds reminiscent of the acid psych of the late 60s/early 70s, as many of the early 90s scene bands tried to do, this album is one of the best at doing so, but without sounding like a rehash, it merely takes inspiration from past to create something incredibly good. Its simplicity is its charm, yet the songs produced are far more interesting than alt pop very largely due to excellent writing and musicianship; but in great parts due to Mongomery's deeply disturbed demure vocals.
jamscoopa
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