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and that last minute darkhorse record of 2006 creeps into my conscious...."get yr blood sucked out" might breep into my year end list...
just heard 5 tracks from these guys, and I am jonesin for more.....
BIO
Kevin & Anita Robinson make the sounds.
The sounds (Vee-vah-VOH-chay) are Italian for "word of mouth" and prophetically prove many would neither be able to spell or prounounce the name.
Viva Voce indeed.
Shaped in their indigenous benches of Alabama, Viva Voce begin a noise in 1998. Having met at a concert in an abandoned warehouse, the two began sharing their hearts and musical abilities with one another. Dating became nuptials and 4-track demos became albums.
These demos came to the attention of well groomed men in Nashville, Tenneessee and shortly thereafter Viva Voce was surrounded by old legends and new money. Fouled songs, studio ghouls, palm greasing, and a crash course in how to ruin music follow. A dying company abandons them and a spiritually hopeful album is lost. The recourse was the 4-track & the next two years are spent tending to family matters and farming a crop of songs that would fill records for years to come.
They begin what would become their first proper album, Lovers, Lead The Way! in 2001. Self produced, home recorded & written in the months prior, it is their 'us against the world' viewpoint in a post-deluded Y2K. With a new album freshly baked and on it's way to the shelves, the Robinsons pack up. Eager to leave the mire of music city, Kevin & Anita sell every earthly possession they own (save a few guitars & drums) and move to Portland, Oregon in 2002. As Lovers gained attention, the Robinsons found their new hometown to have a strong penchant for their long suffering sounds. They were home & settled down for good.
Tour begat tour and their reputation for road-warrior style performers saw their sounds reaching into every metropolis, city & small town America. One year bled into the next and when 2003's year of touring wound down, they again unfolded the recording blanket.
Again in the living room, the Robinsons began recording what would be 2004's critically acclaimed The Heat Can Melt Your Brain. With The Heat, Viva Voce pulled out all the stops creating one of their most compelling bodies of work. No limit was left untouched as this was truly an 'everything and the kitchen sink' affair.
As their career was blossoming, others took notice. Radio began spinning the sounds, press took notice, and shortly thereafter Viva Voce found themselves gaining critical acclaim overseas as 2004 marked their first European tour.
Tour begat yet more touring as '04 became '05. Their touring reputation now preceeding them, by the end of 2005 Viva Voce had performed over 200 shows in 12 different countries. As the year of touring grinds to a halt, they begin the new year with the start of a new album.
Get Yr Blood Sucked Out is their third LP, and is a markedly dark and sultry record, epic in scope and anything but simple in formulation. Anita's rock-goddess guitar excursions and Kevin's thunderous drumming combine powerfully. An intense, empowering album Get Yr Blood Sucked Out sum up the struggle to keep things pure in a world of vampires waiting to suck the life out of you. There's obvious dark qualities to the record, lyrically and musically, that create the push and pull of a lovingly human and violent album.
Unlike the consciously minimal approach of some of Viva Voce's two-piece contemporaries, the band's ambition both live and on record is to achieve multi-layered musical feats of amazement: an underlying deftness of arrangement and composition supports the band's mélange of fuzzedout psychedelia, infectious melody, and hand-clap breakdowns (often all in the same song).
Their lastest and greatest record will be available in fall 2006.
Enjoy the sounds
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http://www.geminicrow.com
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