Music
Press
ovely album, this. It's wierd - real wierd - in spots, but for the most part it's a good weird. Basic musical rules are followed, while others are joyfully thrown out the window. These are fresh, cello-centric instrumental excursions, with lots of other sounds thrown in, which keeps things interesting. Among the latter: a crazy cool xylophone that appears unexpectedly in the opening track "Secret Council," a tune which hops between bouncy and poignant wihtout missing a beat. The palette also includes snyhtesizers, rather twisted and original use of elecgronic effects, plus many other miscellaneous noieses. elements of Hip-Hop can be heard throughout the CD., most obviously in the form of tastful and subtly presented electronic beats. There are a myriad of other styles that are touched on, classical & funk being two; Mr. D even throws in a Cream rreference, quoting the riff - most of it anyway, from "Sunshine of Your Love" on his cello. There are a few moments where the mood of hte music transcends the sum of its parts, where something truly memorable and magic happens. A track acalled "I Need a Time Vacuum" is one of the best of examples of this. I like music where strangeness and emotional connection can coexist. Planstasic Joyage is just such an album. - Cello City Ink
This album really caught our attention and ear with its textural creativity and vision. There are so many elements within music to be explored and Cosmo D has a real gift for the texture and conversation components. Juxtaposing the raw, sometimes icy, sometimes brittle and hair-raising and gut-clenching cry of the cello backed by fat, rich, supple and watery electronic ripples, in turn, backed by thick and bumpy beats that carve out juicy grooves magical enough for trip hop fans, Plantastic Joyage turns what's normally a side-thought for most musicians into a treasured focus. While they toss around the idea that they're influenced by The Books, Arovane and Mouse on Mars, there is enough originality to chew on here that you'll be kept busy for ages. - CD Baby
Discography
Self-titled full-length "Sauce", not yet released.
"Plantastic Joyage" from 2006 - Smoothe Moose Laboratories and Recordings
[5 Stars - Featured Front Page Record - CD Baby] "
There is enough originality to chew on here that you'll be kept busy for ages. "
Photos
Bio
In the fall of 2006, Brooklyn-based cellist Greg "Cosmo D" Heffernan was visiting family down in Washington DC and stumbled upon an all-purpose repair shop. The variety of machinery humming about the place was staggering. Greg, in addition to being a cellist, makes field recordings. so he recorded every machine in the shop to his Minidisc. In total he captured the sounds of 547 distinct machines and gadgets.
Greg had always sought to merge his passions for beat making and electronic music with field recordings, jazz and improvisation. Now he had the pallette to do so. Back home in Brooklyn, Greg threw the sounds he'd collected into his computer and soon turned them into hundreds of intricate grooves. These grooves soon morphed into fully-formed songs.
With the songs ready, he called his band together. Toronto-native Myk Freedman brought his near-screaming lapsteel. Todd Neufeld came with his warm, lilting electric guitar. Josh Myers added his thunderous low-end. Ohad Talmor dropped in the appropriate counterpoint of tenor saxophone into this myriad of textures. Finally, Greg added his cello and machine-made beats. Thus, Sauce.
They recorded an album's worth of music early in 2007. A colleague, hearing the mixes, cried, "It's as if Matmos is dueling with Tom Waits' junk band on Prairie Home Companion Hour!" Sauce curently plays regularly in the greater New York City area and a regional tour is in the works for early 2008.
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