Chopin's Lovechild
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia | SELF
Music
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Amazing
Every so often, something drops into my lap that is amazing. This is one of those moments. Anthea Joanna Varigos.
Haunting, dark and very hopeful. I loved this track. Maybe because it reminded me a little of my own side project. But I could drift away to this for days in a beautiful haze.
It’s Never Too Late To Call – I can still hear the words ringing. - TheMusicBlogs
Brisbane-based duo Lindsay Crawford and Anthea Joanna formed their creative partnership as Youngii in 2009, with the self-expressed aim of “exploring analogue synthesisers and digital visualisations through improvisation and the occasional organic element.” This self-released debut self-titled CDR EP sees Youngii offering up four tracks improvised in realtime on a stripped-back instrumental base; apparently using simply a Juno 6, Nord Lead and a Micro Korg. While there’s certainly an undeniably haunting and hypnotic undercurrent to opening track ‘Hello Huxley Overdrive’s twelve minute long wander through questing melodic analogue textures, twinkling icy foreground notes and the occasional wavering detuned pitchbend, for the most part it’s an atmosphere of wide-eyed, beatific wonder that permeates here.
‘Sounds From Another Valley’ offers up what’s easily the most psychedelically dizzying moment here, emerging over its fifteen minutes from a faint trail of blurred out drones and tentative melodies into sudden vast sweeps of pitchbent harmonics and waspy analogue synth noise. While a palpable sense of menace is suggested at points, it soon proves to be a false alarm as proceedings slowly sink back into a burbling fugue of delayed-out keys and ringing, harmonic loops. Elsewhere, ‘The Last Word’ sees Crawford and Joanna dropping shadowy sub-bass presence beneath a gauzy backdrop of pitched down harmonic drones as distant synths slowly emerge from tentative glitchy burbles into richly arranged pads in what’s easily the most lush and floaty moment here, before ‘Island Of The Day Before’ takes things out into similar ebbing ambient territory to mid period Brian Eno, rippling melodic textures peeking out amidst a rich wash of drones. A strong debut EP that’s distinctly geared towards fans of stripped-back analogue-centred ambiance.
Chris Downton - Cyclic Defrost
Discography
Coast to Core Showcase (Soundtrack)
Centre to Sea (Soundtrack)
Photos
Bio
Enjoys: Working with sonic, visual and verbal spectrums.
Tools: Head, ears, eyes, heart, protools, modul8, final cut, ableton live, photoshop, after effects, flash, piano, rhodes, harpischord, telecaster, hobit guitar, juno6, nord lead, microkorg, novation, clave, kazoo, rainstick, loop stations, ds6, voice, pencil, pen, bird noises, car washes, the list continues...
Likes: Almond Croissants.
SOUNDS… sometimes they taunt, in other moments they release and let me fly…
“Dark Pop..” Jim Barr, Portishead, UK
“When her music stops, the silence is deafening” David Andrews, Time Out
From singer-songwriter to sound artist, Chopin’s Lovechild (who also answers to Anthea) is a musician excited by unknown territories. Her career has taken her across the world and between genres, building an arsenal of skills and experience along the way.
Anthea’s stint as a singer-songwriter saw her win awards and work with some of the best in the business, supporting Missy Higgins and Pete Murray and recording with Portishead’s Jim Barr in Bristol, Skritch (Mary Trembles, The Dark Horses) and Powerfinger’s Ian Haug in Brisbane.
More recently, her compositions for time-lapse artist Cy Starkman’s films have won acclaim from sources such as Lonely Planet.
Composing for film has been the most rewarding experience of all my musical escapades, says Anthea.
In the final stages of producing the soundtrack to Starkman’s latest work, Coast to Core, which is set for an early 2011 release, Anthea is assisted by Anton Kush (sound engineer for The Waifs, Xavier Rudd), Coast to Core’s vision will be complemented by lush layers of analog synth, vocals and natural instrumentation.
Later in the year, she and Starkman will fly across Australia, east to west, to create “Australia in A Day”- another time-lapse film, with Anthea set to compose the soundtrack on the fly, as it were.Philanthropist Dick Smith is one of the many people to pledge generous donations to the project.
Her experience with both traditional and non-traditional song-writing have rendered Chopin’s Lovechild a jack of all trades, and definitely one to watch.
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