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Fovea Hex is the current project of Irish singer Clodagh Simonds, who you might know from Mellow Candle, but more likely from her stunning rendition of Idumaea on Current 93's 'Black Ships Ate The Sky', a two and a half minute track that blows everything else on that album out of the water. Simonds is the vocalist, lyricist and co-producer of Fovea Hex, and it seems that she's the main creative voice of the project. They've released a series of three EPs, collectively called 'Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent' and they're great.
Listening to all three together it's apparent that they're well named, as all the work seems to experiment with processing, stretching and effecting conventional and unconventional instruments, creating a soundscape of great depth and strangeness - the instrument lists include 'disappeared piano' and 'heartbeaten voice'. Pretentious you might say, and the danger of experimental music is that it falls into experiment without musicality, but Simonds' folk roots and stunning voice ensures that they remain enchanting. The song structures are unconventional, certainly, but pretty tight musically.
Simonds' writing is also pretty stunning, in that it has a real, considered density, with an eye for the precise, telling detail that hints at emotional complexity ("it's always the same but there's this changing light / the sun pours in when the morning comes / and the floor's all gold") and a tendency to verge into a melancholy mysticism that I find quite charming.
Hard to talk about music without hearing it, so thank the varied deities of the internet that there's a full version of Long Distance available to download and listen to here[edit: link removed at artist's request], though I don't know how long it will hang around. If you like it, I urge you to buy the three EP set, because I'd love to see this sort of project well and widely supported.
There's also a MySpace here. |
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