Prik095
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References:
Cocteau Twins, ethereal voices
Octobre 2005 - 10 Titres
'If you enjoy lush vocals and ethereal
melodies, with a hint of
Eastern Europe and a touch of Brazil, then you might just enjoy the
music of Pinknruby. Pinknruby are Mihaela Repina from Slovenia and Paul
Bradbury from England. Their music is chilled, acoustic and otherworldly.
Pinknruby is back with a beautiful and magical album, "Garden".
Garden is an album of pure vocals and rare harmonies, accompanied by
a sensitive and textured orchestration of exotic instruments, such as
the sas, psaltery, dulcimer, harp and double bass, as well as the more
familiar guitar lines.
All this is set within the frame of Pinknruby's very particular, impressionist
production style. Garden is an album to uplift the spirit!
Garden is Pinknruby's second album with Prikosnovenie and confirms the
talent of these two angels.
+ A video of their show at the Broceliande's forest in France.'
Titles
: Broceliande, Jakdo,White Lady Mirror, Kislica, Nader Margh, Zanamayo,
Zeleno, Lusima, Nocoj, Shadume
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Review
:
"Mihaela Repina and Paul Bradbury make light, mysterious and mostly
acoustic music that draws from Eastern European folk and Brazilian samba,
with a dash of jazz. Both sing in Slovenian, she in a dusky voice that
recalls Lou Rhodes from Lamb, he in a light tenor that reminds one of
Ben Watt. The music dances on the edge of being too precious and twee,
one song features a cat purring. But the harmonies are solid, the instrumentation
inventive, harps, psaltery and cello are added to mix, and Repina's
alto is truly bewitching. On such tracks as "Nader Margh"
and "White Lady Mirror", her dark voice and the soothing,
glimmering instrumentation create an indescribable world of dark and
light." --Craig Gidney
"On their new album Pinknruby sound more mature then before.
Their ethereal acoustic folkpop style is still present but the compositions
sound more diverse and the instrumentation is richer.
The duo succeeds in delivering an excellent record that raises even
more expectations for the future. There are more folk and world music
elements to be found on Garden then on the previous album. Also Pinknruby
have crafted their own style more on this record. But, characteristic
are still the heavenly female vocals with the Eastern European touch
and the acoustic guitars.
Pinknruby are one of the most interesting singer/songwriters around
at the moment and Garden is a record to check out." Funprox
Interview
: By
beautevil - Gothronic
Answered
by: Mihaela and Paul
With their concert in the W2 in mind and the new released album "Garden"
in our stereo it is time to introduce you more to the special musical
Garden of Pinknruby!
First of all, people still want to know why you called your band Pinknruby?
We first started as Pinkbeauty and Redruby. But the name was
too long and ridiculous, so we shortened it to Pinknruby. Both
colours are connected with sexuality, which we like.
Can
you tell us what you see as the main differences between “The Vast
Astonishment” and “Garden”?
We feel that Garden is a progression from The Vast Astonishment.
There are many more instruments present, and more of Paul’s vocals.
This makes for a much fuller more versatile sound.
You will hear less loops and more of a live feel on Garden. The
Vast Astonishment is more of a dream album, set on one planet, whereas
Garden feels like it hops from one world into the next.
Jakdo seems to be one of the younger musicians in the world. Can
you tell us more about ‘Jakdo’?
Jakdo is the cat that purrs on the song of the same name. Yes,
she is young – only five years old, but in cat years, that’s
middle aged and she acts accordingly. She is not our cat, but
hangs out in our house a lot – we think she has a whole string
of houses she visits along the road in what could be loosely described
as her empire. We are lucky enough to be within it’s boundaries,
so she comes to our house to farm us for milk and scraps. She
walks between worlds, dreams life into creation and kills with her claws.
Jakdo means “well, who is it?” in Slovene. Her
full name is Jaka Legba, sister of Papa Legba, the great mediator called
to form a bridge between the spiritworld and the earth in ceremonies.
How do you create music, do you write everything together?
Mostly we write together. We like to bounce ideas off each other.
We like to start with a strong melody as the basis for any song.
If the initial melody is good, then it will guide and inspire
the rest of the song. We also like to get to the recording stage
early, before the song writing is completely finished. This keeps
the song fresh as you are recording it and also means that the form
of the arrangement you finally record is intuitively linked to the form
of the song writing. There are different areas during the creation
process that we each have a preference for. Mihaela works more
on the fine details of production and especially enjoys working on the
nuances of vocal lines, whereas Paul likes to look at the overall form
and arrangement of the tune.
What inspires you to create your music?
Mihaela: I think all my life inspires my music.
Things I have seen, I’ve experienced, things I’m interested
in. One of the biggest inspirations is nature and nature’s
intelligence, my cycles of deaths and rebirths, my passions and my angels.
Paul: The joy of creating music is the inspiration for creating
it. It has always been such a pleasure and a panacea to play
music. The best songs just come spilling out, and the feeling
of delight when that happens and a song is born before your eyes, is
wonderful.
How would you describe your music yourself, because you seem to use
a lot of different influences?
Paul: I’ve no idea how to describe the music in terms of
a genre. It’s been labelled dreampop, ethereal, darkwave,
angelic, gothic, medieval, pop, folk, ambient, easy listening (thanks!)
and plenty of other things besides. So I’m confused.
In the end, music is just music and labels are just labels.
The music I write is influenced by everything I like in music, so there
is some eastern European, some Brazilian, some Celtic and then just
all the weird stuff that comes into my head from who knows where..
It’s difficult to say how this mixture comes to form a coherent
Pinknruby whole, but I think it does. All our work, however diverse,
has a Pinknruby sound to it and I like that about it. It’s
good to have an identity.
Mihaela: I never like to describe my music in words, but I like
to think of my songs as dreams; songs that take you on a journey into
your own subconscious – into the great web, where dreams, hope,
fear, death, life and beauty are kept.
It always seems that the music of Prikosnovenie is always accompanied
by great artwork. Can you tell us more about your artwork on “Garden”?
The artwork for Garden and The Vast Astonishment was created by Prikosnovenie
artist, Sabine Adelaïde. She does most of the artwork for the cds
that Prikosnovenie release. We used the back cover image from The Vast
Astonishment on the opening page of our website. It is one of
our favourite pieces of art and conveys what we are aiming to achieve
with the music. There is just the right balance of beauty and
darkness. When Sabine is designing artwork for our cds,
we like to let her listen to the music and come up with her own ideas
rather than influencing her with our own thoughts. This way,
the artwork is a pure reaction to the music.
You used some live material of your show in France as a bonus. Can
you tell us more about that show, because we heard that it was pretty
special?
That was a magical gig for us. We were playing outside, beside
a huge lake, surrounded by forest, in the grounds of Chateau de Comper
en Broceliande. The Chateau is in the heart of Brittany and, in Arthurian
legend, is said to be the place where Merlin and Vivien fell in love.
It is always wonderful to play in the open air because the elements
of nature join in. We started playing at dusk, and swallows were
circling and calling above us. As it got darker, the frogs in
the lake behind us started singing along. Mihaela even swallowed
a mosquito half way through a song and had to stop. Unfortunately,
Paul chose to wear chain mail, which felt like ice by the end of the
concert – so a warning to any other bands out there who might want
to wear chain mail next to the skin for an outdoor gig at night –
don’t do it!
Is it difficult for an act like Pinknruby to get live performances (or
is it different in every country)?
It was difficult when we first started performing, as we are fairly
unconventional. Getting gigs is a matter of finding the right
venues for the sort of music we do. The places we like to play
best are the intimate ones. They suit the gentle nature of our
music and we like the communication between us and the audience.
We also like to dress up in outrageous clothes and wear a lot of make
up so, our audiences have got to be open minded. At the moment,
we are happy as we are getting good gigs regularly and we’re really
enjoying playing out at the moment.
You created an animation for a show in Siberia. Can you tell us more
about the performance in Siberia? I can imagine that was pretty special,
performing in Siberia?
Actually, we didn’t end up playing in Siberia, which is why we
made the animation and sent it to them to play at the festival.
The animation is set to our song Zacetek and you can see it at www.pinknruby.com/zacetekweb4.html.
The festival is called Zhivaya Voda and takes place in Altai
in Siberia each summer. They were hoping to get a grant to bring
us over, but in the end it didn’t work out and we couldn’t
afford the plane tickets ourselves! Hopefully one day we’ll
get to play there.
Who created your lovely website?
We created the website ourselves, so thanks for the compliment.
It’s nice to do some visual stuff – it makes a change from
creating music – different parts of your brain and heart are exercised.
We love the cycles of renewal that are present all
around us. The moon represents that the best for us, which is
why the moon whirls around its different phases on the site.
We hope the site is going to be more and more of a resource as well
as just telling people about Pinknruby. We are in the process
of making a herb page, to encourage people to make their own simple
remedies from common plants. We are also creating a resource
for bands, as part of a collective of musicians called wupadupa.com.
We like the idea of musicians helping each other, as we are all
in the end interested in the same thing, which is creating beautiful
music.
If you had three wishes, you would wish for?
Mihaela: Make peace with myself, see the aurora borealis in the stillness
of winter and that everyone in the world would communicate with each
other just by singing, for a whole month.
Paul: Peace for the world, health for myself, love in all things…
Something you always wanted to say, but never was asked…
Mihaela: What is the sound at the beginning of Nader Margh? It
is the sound of an insect flying through an Aeolian harp, slowed down.
Paul: What is the equation of Creation? 0 = -1 +1
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