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Raw, uninhibited creativity of the kind oft sought. Variant timings, random accents, freeform lyrics (check the liner notes), general insanity. Mouth noises, musical laughter, kitchen materials as instruments (try track 8), musical yawning, even possibly intentional burps and coughs. This will drive the neighbors out of their house, so you probably love it already. The songs paint complex, emotional, and very feminine pictures - well, that's what they did for me, but these may be musical Jackson Pollacks, and you'll only know after you've listened - carefully.
- loun, KFJC 89.7 FM, September 2007
Great set of very distinctive left-field avant-rock music from three young women based in Washington, DC. I saw one of them (founding member Rebecca Mills) in that town in May 2006, in the basement of a university building, wielding her laptop to great effect as the final act in a trilogy that included Tim Olive performing with a dancer, and a piece from a local avant composer. Here, they mix that laptop with the familiar rock setup of guitar, drums, and voices, plus added layers of subliminal noise. But you’ve never heard any rock band like this in your life. Tristana Fiscella from Eeyore Power Tool adds the voice elements, and they are breathy, mannered, and nonsensical vocal stylings that are totally brilliant. She seems to be in a holy trance as she performs, eyes tight shut, unable to snap out of it. On this half-hour CD, two tracks are available: “Lemons” is a short and picayune doodle that dribbles and swings along pleasantly for a few minutes to arrive at its trivial conclusion, which is simply "I Like Lemons". But "Leslie" is a much longer workout, with great semi-free drumming, computerized loops, insane moaning from Tristana. "Leslie, come home", she enjoins in her sad gestures of futile hope. And there is scads of inspired instrumental playing from the gals that feels like they’re finding space – lots of it – on either side of the expected notes. A single-minded trip into mild dementia that is totally engaging. Ya gotta love these intelligent and knowingly-weirdified young ladies. An informed update on The Shaggs? No, not really. Patty Waters meets Kleenex? Hmm...
The Sound Projector #15, 2007 -By Ed Pinsent
Sound Ideas
By Richard Harrington
Friday, September 16, 2005; Page WE37
What's in a name?
Well, if it's music and is deemed "experimental," "improvisational" or "avant-garde"; presaged with "free" (as in free jazz), "anti"-something or "post"-anything; dubbed "noise" or the less offensive "new"; strays from conventional notions of melody, harmony or rhythm; and otherwise challenges commonly accepted ideas of what music is, it can mean great expectations but, most likely, small audiences and limited opportunities.
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After spending a year or so working solo with laptops and samplers, and performing live as part of Washington DC's small but active experimental music scene, sound artist Rebecca Mills started to seek out suitable collaborators to help realise her compositions. In 2003 she met Eeyore Power Tool vocalist/guitarist Tristana Fiscella at a dinner party, where the pair bonded over a mutual appreciation of composer, performer and sound artist Joan LaBarbara. Not one to waste time, Mills immediately encouraged Fiscella to begin playing as a duo the very next day. Eventually, their improvised live shows caught the attention of Stigmatics/Vertebrates drummer Amanda Huron, who completed the group's line up last year.
The Caution Curves' self-titled debut is a two-track disc that explores various improvisational possibilities. Despite occasionally sounding tentative, it is imbued with the kind of sensitivity and challenging approach to sound that signals great potential for future development. At the moment, however, The Caution Curves feel somewhat directionless. This is not necessarily a bad thing -- it just sounds as through they are still in the process of finding out what works and what doesn't.
Fiscella, who has an extraordinary voice, echoes LaBarbara's unusual variety of grunts, falsettos and circular breathing techniques to full effect, while allowing space to develop her own style. On "Leslie", she produces an impressive series of guttural noises that sound like dozens of birds making simultaneous mating calls in the woods. The powerfully visceral element of her sputtering, swooping vocals adds interesting textures to the sounds from Mills' laptop -- although there is a tendency for Fiscella to get so caught up in her own activities that her voice strays away from the route set down by the music rather than responding to it.
Huron's free jazz drumming works magnificently throughout. By threading in and out of the organic grooves with intuitive precision, she directs the music into unexpected areas. The combination of Huron rapping her sticks on the rim of her snare and Fiscella's subtle, scraping guitar work and vicious hisses generates a whirl of sharp, offset rhythms that sound like large sheets of snapping ice. Moments such as these, when the trio are fully in tune with each other, are exciting indications of how The Caution Cuves could develop.
- Mia Clarke, The Wire, December 2005
Washington DC's The Caution Curves hits the face like an unnervingly passionate kiss, intoxicating from both its immediate sensuality and the calm intensity that incites it. A trio of Rebecca Mills, Tristana Fiscella, and Amanda Huron, The Caution Curves sound like an ESG splintered into prismatic tribalism, hallucinatory vocal-chord urgency, and enigmatic guitar and electronic filigree. Theirs is an improv that explores the brain-morphing space of subtle textural conversations over creeping percussive patterns rather than the force of propulsive manic thrust, creating a roomy disorientation that is sensitive, visceral, and introspective: an organic sound both warmly and suspiciously inviting.
- Bret McCabe, The Baltimore City Paper, March 2006
Standout track: "Lemons", a spacey, art-noise piece about a woman rifling through her kitchen in the morning and cutting up a lemon. Sounds include pots and pans clattering, as well as chewing, and protracted yawning and wailing, after approximately one minute of which the listener discovers that vocalist Tristana Fiscella really likes lemons. (The next six minutes are merely elaboration.) "I like lemons," Fiscella sighs, stretching the words out and speeding them up to suit her fancy. Her voice becomes an instrument along with the spare sounds of Rebecca Mills' laptop and drummer Amanda Huron's improvised beats. The simple lyrics have an equally simple explanation: "When I was a kid, I used to bring lemons to school in a plastic baggie and eat them," Fiscella says. "Sometimes I'll see someone in the audience yawn during the song, or one of my friends will tell me it made them yawn," Fiscella says of the contagious nature of the yawn effect on the track. "I take it as a compliment." Still, "Lemons" is tough to perform live. "I have to work up to that one," says Fiscella. When the song is coming up, the singer starts looking tired and pretending to yawn. "I find it's a challenge to make the yawns sound luscious and seductive," she says. "I only did a real one once at a show, maybe at the Warehouse Next Door. It's like faking and orgasm."
- Rachel Beckman, The Washington City Paper, November 2005
A cosy electro acoustic combo comprising Amanda Huron, drums and percussion, Tristana Fiscella, vocals and guitar, and Rebecca Mills on her laptop, hailing from Washington DC, who's music is refreshingly nice (as opposed to nasty).
'Lemons' begins with a yawning sleepy start from vocalist Tristana Fiscella … something about liking Lemons? A slightly neurotic potpourri of naive noises... the music flittering about dangerously like moths round a candle, but hanging together on thin threads. A change comes half way through as Ms Fiscella tries desperately to stay awake as she sings some “proper verses” over simple, understated drums.
On 'Leslie', a naďve ambling clattering of drums, percussion and twangy guitar floats along nicely. The sun is out, it's spring, and squirrels hop from branch to twig, until after a deep breath, a moaning and a wailing hails drums building and falling, against a feathery warm duvet of laptop gurgling. The track sinks into colder regions, the sun is obscured by dark clouds and guttural words can be made out as bassy low bit drones fill out the space… As the voice soars, we quiet down to almost nothing as Tristana pleads, please please please please, please Leslie come home!
Maybe it's the sound of Tristana Fiscella's voice or the lemony nature of the first track, but this awakens something in my severely damaged memory and, on hands and knees I finger my way along my vinyl shelf until I dust off Danielle Dax, and more specifically her early work in the 'Lemon Kittens' (hence the lemons). This was a pleasant reminder of the lovely Ms Dax, and the observation that experimentation when in feminine hands is simply and wonderfully NON-po-faced and refreshingly UN-nerdy!
And there is something feminine and charming about The Caution Curves, that is pastoral and free. The warmness of the laptop sounds that fill the air are delightful, the voice is improvised and happily carefree and unselfconscious. The drums although nicely recorded, are verging on the amateur, and it takes a while for me to decide whether I like them like this or whether someone needs a few lessons… but finally I decide that I not only like them like this, I love them like this… don't change… please…
As my favourite German improvisers, Can once said…
I want more…
- Mark Francombe, furthernoise.org, March 2006
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