EP REVIEW
Our most recent recruit Ayfer Simms is once again imbued by her literature rich background, reviewing in her poetically lyrical way the new EP from Oxford multi-instrumenatlist and vocalist Angela Space, aka Rainbow Reservoir.
Rainbow Reservoir ‘400 Imperfect Rhymes’ 14th July 2014
There’s a muffle sound accompanying the big white balloon wobbling down the beach and the “creepy” village on the pursuit of “no6”. Angela Space and her troubadour friends have occupied the inside of Rover, playing an upbeat, triumphant, theatrical, fairy-circus like music, driving the android bubble like machine insane from the inside, colonizing its organs until it breaks open and leaks them into the free World.
Angela, the coo-coo hearted girl hums as energetically as possible in a surreal world where all seems possible: There’s Cocteau’s cat perched on one of the instruments, trembling to the beat of the rich sound of the orchestra, there’s a Victorian burlesque play on a scene without spectators rehearsing in paradise, a voice echoing all over the clouds of a wide ludicrous sky: Dragon’s flying, exotic plants, a clown, a beast slayer, a crab about to trespass…all in good spirit. The dash of sarcasm present in the lyrics do nothing to temper the catchy tempo, we don’t take the sadness too seriously even when she sings an eternal lullaby to the crab, “I am sorry, you’re going to die, life can be sad sometimes”. This track, the “quieter” one of the 5 track LP is the World hidden in the grass of David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet”, the “invisible” slimy things under our feet, we see the idiosyncratic “femme” singing with a voice “a la Nico”, on an empty scene with thick red curtains. We see the light brightening her face with the sense that once the darkness falls she will slip away as if she was Dale Cooper’s vision: a ghost from another dimension, here to bring a precious message. We can’t stop our feet from tapping on the ground, hoping it will release more from the big reservoir of magical colors, tales and musical clamor.
Throughout the tracks, lyrics are whimsical, there’s a sweet revenge on the childhood monsters and innocence of the heart discovering love, weaved with themes of medieval legends and heroes.
Angela wants to break free, she is a child women who wants to remain a child with the skills of a grown-up and an adult with those of a child, thus creating an original space for her and band to feverishly play in peace: The monster’s under the bed have no chance at all, the nights are safer for people who refuse to grow old.
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