Vinna Bee

Vinna Bee

There's a quirky and kooky element to Vinna Bee's music that you can't put a handle on, but that's the beauty of it too. She's eclectic and experimental in a liberating way, finding her feet after being in many bands and outfits but this is her finding her own voice and having a lot of fun with it.

I love artists that use the soundscapes around them in their music, and Vinna has used all kinds of crazy sounds in Treasures of the Apiarist, a five- track album/EP. - Bethan Elfyn BBC Radio Wales

The vibrant yet dulcet tones of Vinna Bee exist in a unique time and place. The combination of acoustic and electronica elements make their songs sound like they’re existing in two different decades, or at the very least, two vastly different areas of the same decade simultaneously. You could draw some comparisons to the work of the mid ‘80s to late ‘90s duo, Everything But The Girl, but you can also find elements of early Kate Bush at play. Regardless of where their music falls, their 2014 EP, Omega Eldorado is a wonderful achievement in genre bending that is as adventurous as it is melodic.
A lot of the strength of Omega Eldorado comes from the vocal style of Sian Vinna Bevan, who also is the group’s songwriter. Her voice is light and airy but also powerful enough to be compelling and push the songs forward. Her phrasing, cadence, and tone is comparable to that of Kate Bush’s when she’s being more conventional and less experimental. While not quite ethereal, Bevan’s voice is still pretty light and the musical arrangements are well suited to accentuating those qualities through their light acoustic and electronic tones.

“Atlanta” the lead-off track, sets this up immediately with its deep, pulsing keyboards and guitar. It’s a shorter song, though much of the EP consists of these types of tracks anyway, but it leaves a lasting impression. The live version of the song, included after the EP’s initial four tracks, substitutes additional guitars in for the keyboards and increases the amount of vocal parts with help from Andy Bevan and Hina Gajjar. Whereas normally Bevan would overdub her own harmonies, here the parts are expanded and take on a new life in this vastly different arrangement. Saying one is better than the other is difficult because they’re both solid for their respective sounds, but if you enjoy the electronic elements of the former, you may find yourself less enthralled with the latter.

The same can be said for the other live tracks. “I Know These Things Now” is a lushly beautiful acoustic indie folk piece, complete with harmonica. It’s very well sung and written but by nature of its completely acoustic structure, it doesn’t fit with the EP’s sound. “Wounded Dear” is much the same in that regard. It is acoustic folk with a lovely vocal build from Bevan, again showing an uncanny ability to channel Kate Bush. But because it’s so far removed from the studio sound of Vinna Bee it’s unlikely to be as captivating to those seeking the electronic pop. Even though these are both original tracks and not featured in another form on the EP like “Atlanta” is, it’s probably best to think of this material as bonuses to the record.

That being said, diving back into the EP proper brings us to “CTeHbl Walls.” Instead of deep, pulsing keyboards, guitarist Phil Owen lays down an astonishingly strong and haunting bassline. This is combined with a percussion track that mostly consists of samples of shakers and lightly tapped beats. Already this gives the number an exotic feel, but it’s heightened even further by Bevan’s delivery. The song goes through a few gentle change-ups too, ultimately becoming a clever and diverse slice of indie pop.

“January Daze” is immediately more acoustic in nature, relying on a gently picked rhythm and vocal harmonies to carry its melody. The percussion is even lighter and sparser than the track preceding it but it’s very useful in further establishing the soft, natural atmosphere of the piece and its arboreal, autumn/winter imagery. It’s a brief song, bookended by a slightly odd voice sample, but ultimately its effective in bringing to mind the titular dazzling nature of that time of year.

“Goodbye to the Isles” is essentially a piano and vocal piece, though Bevan again does her own overdubbed harmonies and plays piano along with Ann Hughes. The two of them churn out a relatively simple but evocative number that is once again vocally light and airy but still tied down to Earth by a compelling instrumental performance. Unlike the live tracks that end the EP, you can hear this song settling in more closely to the ones that precede it because of the starkly haunting compositional atmosphere.

With four songs that stick to the Vinna Bee sound of electronica and acoustic elements coming together, and three live acoustic tracks, there’s a good amount of content to this EP, even though it might not all appeal to the same audiences. If you look at Omega Eldorado as a four track sampling of what Vinna Bee is capable of in the studio, it’s fantastic and at the very least, compelling to hear what they sound like live. Don’t expect a full seven tracks of the same sound however since that could leave you disappointed. Regardless, if you’re a fan of Kate Bush, Everything But The Girl, or like your pop with an electronic edge, this EP is well worth your time and money.

Review by: Heath Andrews
Rating: 4 Stars (out of 5)
This is the DIRECT link as the above would not accept?? http://independentartistbuzz.tumblr.com/post/105623708898/review-vinna-bee-omega-eldorado?route=%2Fpost%2F%3Aid%2F%3Asummary - Heath Andrews

vinna bee
Posted on March 1, 2017 by marklosingtoday
I must say I certainly wasn’t expecting this, for sitting up on the doormat and waiting expectantly for our return from work, a quite alluring and enchanting release from Vinna Bee. The four-track set that is the ‘Hypnagogia’ EP through the clearwing imprint is seductively ice toned in noir demurred intimacy. Perhaps it’s the purring electronics, the ghostly folk murmurs and that whole overall sense of something delightfully out of focus, out of step and out of time not to mention its playfully flutter by like daintiness that had us immediately struck by an urge to refamiliarize ourselves with Heather Duby’s quite exquisite Sub Pop debut from many years ago, for here is where your reference moorings start (non more so is this the case on the opening spectral enchantment that is ‘cotton wolf’), perhaps to a lesser extent you might feel at liberty to add Serafina Steer to your preparatory listening. That said while it might be considered lazy and trite to mention, say Kate Bush, it’s for good reason that we do, for there’s a creative impishness at work here that’s far removed from the usual pop trinket-dom that suggests a hitherto acute teeth cutting fondness for Ms Bush’s ‘never for ever’. As engaging a listening experience that we’ve had the pleasure of hearing in such an age, once fixed beneath the entrancing spell of the opening ‘cotton wolf’, ‘beds’ awakes to find itself in unfamiliar landscapes, amid the softly airless sensual smothering of noir smoked hypnotically spiralling swirls, Vinna Bee pouts and coos in a sleepy headed haze. The off kilter smoky torch soul tracings continue on the quite exquisite ‘Icefields’ whose sophisticated nocturnal chic lining had us much recalling the amorphous chill toned happenings of Musetta’s ethereal ‘mice to meet you’ set from a while back leaving the love noted ‘ID (iDisappear)’ to take matters to the concluding end groove though not before flexing and genuflecting its pop prowess to flicker and flutter to the kind of alluring mercurial song craft chemistry hinted at on Fleetwood Mac’s ‘tango in the night’. I’d go as far to say best filed somewhere near your Linda Perhacs and Vashti Bunyan treasures. https://vinnabee.bandcamp.com/ - The Sunday Experience