Soft Landing

Soft Landing opens next week!

Soft Landing is a theatre/dance piece based around the music of both Bombazine Black records and features the band playing live.   It opens next week in Berlin.  Don't miss it!



battleROYAL will present its premiere dance production at Dock 11 – Berlin from the 4th to the 7th November 2010 at 8.30pm.

Having recently returned from two fabulous new teaterkoncert creations in Copenhagen, battleROYAL has now been busy devising an exceptional new dance work with the stirring music of Australian band Bombazine Black.

Soft Landing presents moments of ungraspable pasts and foggy memories, producing an experience of the impotence and redundancy of age. Via human marionette systems and a haunting live sound track, the performance attempts to create a rare empathy for a redundant, elderly character.

“A fascinating soulful piece that perfectly combines emotions with acrobatic performances and clownesque drafts.”
Mia Frick, Volksblatt Liechtenstein.

battleROYAL is a diverse performing arts company working worldwide on event shows, theatre productions and site-specific projects. The company takes pride in delivering exceptional work of beauty and power accompanied by unique twists that separate it from the pack.

Concept, Choreography: Brendan Shelper (Choreography in collaboration with the dancers) - Assistant Choreographer: Susana Beiro - Dancers: Florian Bücking, Jonathan Buckels, Janine Joyner, Susana Beiro - Musicians: Matt Davis, Jayne Tuttle, Malte Weberruss - Music: Bombazine Black - Light: Alesandra Beiro - Costumes: Sophie vom Scheidt - Video: Timm Ringewaldt

www.battleroyalprojects.com                      
www.bombazineblack.com

Supported by:
The Kulturstiftung Liechtenstein, The Karl Mayer Stiftung, Dr. Peter Goop, Vaduz, Stiftung Fürstl. Kommerzienrat Guido Feger and Dock 11.

Dock 11, Kastanienallee 79 - 10435 Berlin
Tickets: 030 – 4481222 / dock11@dock11-berlin.de

Motion Picture review - The Dwarf

The title says it all. With its voxless instrumentation and moody, sombre tonality, Bombazine Black’s sophomore release resembles the soundtrack for some low budget, gritty French art Motion Picture.

There are two flaws with this premise: primarily the lack of dual medium. That is to say, there is no French art film, which by negation necessarily reduces Matt Davis’ baby to mood music. This forms the basis of a second quarrel, without lyrics or a film to anchor itself to, the album lacks cohesion. The mood constructed by the admittedly pretty ‘Annelets’, instantly dashed by the mellow pop stylings of the following ‘The New Ruse’, throwing the record’s flow out of wack.

Later, Davis lays it on heavier, with the slow progressive rock intentions of ‘Dark Kellys’, which takes more from ‘Red’ era King Crimson or Isis than it does from New Wave French cinema. The wilful obscurity of the track titles is almost frustrating, as if Davis is attempting to create a hidden world that only those informed (or bothered) enough to seek out will understand. The replacement of his full name on the record with the indefatigable M, doesn’t help stifle the notion either.

Surprisingly, the textural diversity on the record is kept tight. Every track maintains a key trio of mournful, clean guitar work, bass and spare jazzy, drumming. Layered on top of that is a seemingly omnipresent organ warble (as well as all manner of moogs, pianos, synthesisers and other keyed instruments), vibraphone and even a trumpet make an appearance, all of which add a tasty diversity while not straying too far from the cinematic pretensions Davis has set up.

All in all this is a pleasant record; enjoyable as background music or even as a lullaby. It has its moments of poignancy and even beauty but at the end of the day, there is simply not enough structure or cohesion to hold the thing together as a body of work.

Alex Buckley
thedwarf.com.au

Motion Picture review - MusicFeeds.com.au

It’s not very often in modern music you come across an instrumental band. Bombazine Black, the brainchild of Gersey guitarist Matt Davis, is a guitar based instrumental band that has released their second album Motion Picture; an album that sounds like the soundtrack to a movie that hasn’t been made yet, with smooth, flowing sounds that tell a story without a single word being uttered.

Most of the album was written while Matt lived in Paris with his wife, and the lifestyle and culture of the French city comes through in the music. Opening track Annelets features Parisian Vibraphone whiz Michael Emenau. On The Bel Esprit, Matt’s wife Jayne contributes piano, and the track comes across as a pop song with its repetition of riffs. Springheel Sunset was inspired by his time in America while performing on the back of the group’s debut. The longest track on the album, it has great breath and flow, and its open feel allows the track to ride through its 8+ minutes. Dark Kellys, based on Australia’s bushranger history, captures the essence of rural Victoria in the 1800s and tells a narrative through Matt’s guitar work.

Bombazine Black fuses smooth jazz, folk and blues. Motion Picture is not an album that you will pick up and listen to over and over again. It is a piece that requires a certain mood or certain atmosphere. It sits well as a backdrop to a romantic evening or as an album to listen to while reading on a lazy Sunday afternoon. If you’re looking for something a little different, give this record a spin.

Jason Strange
musicfeeds.com.au

Berlin

Jayne and I are in Berlin to perform with battleROYAL on a show called Soft Landing.  The show features songs from both Bombazine Black records played live and some amazing dance and aerial performance by the battleROYAL crew.  It's going to be quite a show!

From the battleROYAL website:

battleROYAL presents its new production Soft Landing, a gentle research into the future of our rapidly aging society. The piece explores themes of social isolation, independence and loneliness through the world of a generic 75 year-old man and the various interactions he has with himself.

The performance presents moments of ungraspable pasts and foggy memories, producing an experience of the impotence and redundancy of age.

The relentlessly gentle execution of Soft Landing produces an oppressive weight of passivity. Its determined and creepy softness and slowness is the work’s uncomfortable, strange power.

The human marionette systems represent the thin red lines that govern a society both supporting and restricting. They physically suspend the characters on stage, at times giving them a rare sense of freedom.

Soft Landing is set to the live music of ‘Bombazine Black’. The stunning three-piece Melbourne band that blends glockenspiel and delicate overlays of haunting guitars into a cinematic sound-track.

And here's the trailer:



If you're in Berlin buy your tickets now.  If not it's worth a trip!

4, 5, 6 and 7 November 2010 | 20:30 Uhr | Dock 11 - Kastanienallee 79, Berlin

Live review - The Toff in Town - September 23, 2010

Occasionally album titles really hit the mark. Motion Picture, the second release for Bombazine Black, embodies its title so effectively, audience members at the album launch last Thursday night could taste salty butter and corn in their mouths.

There are movies and there are motion pictures and the Melbourne based instrumental band led by Matt Davis of Gersey fame, proved that they are Scorsese. Scorsese who knows how to stir your emotions, how to hold back, and when, at the right time, to relocate your heart to your sleeve with no qualms.

With its old-school presence of Chaplin and Vaudeville, The Toff in Town was the perfect venue. And Bombazine Black’s intriguing and warm onstage energy matched the space. Davis led the group with humility and charm, and at times the band used the stage and interacted as though they were huddled around a Boston street fire-drum in the 1930s; playing as much to each other as they did for their audience.

Not for a second was the absence of vocals felt. Just like the days of the silent movie—before Woody Allen started chewing everyone’s ears off—it was refreshing re connecting with the basics. And Bombazine Black connected. The solid line up of Daryl Bradie on guitar, Dan Tulen on drums, Jayne Tuttle on keys, Miles Browne on bass, and Matt Davis on guitar, was joined by vibraphone virtuoso Laura MacFarlane from Ninety-Nine, and trumpeter-about-town Eugene Ball. The combination was magical, transporting the audience to places far beyond The Toff and the cinema it seemed they were in.

Like a good screenplay, the playlist built well and projected the right degree of light and shade. Act one, if you will, eased everyone in with the emotive yet cruisy Annelets and The New Ruse, while the darker Montmartre set the scene for the more epic Dark Kellys and climactic Springheel Sunset, which almost turned Motion Picture into moonlight cinema, generating such tension it seemed the roof might lift off. All done, paradoxically, with an element of restraint.

At one point, Davis treated the crowd to some narrative, introducing Dark Kellys by asking everyone to visualise being on the run from the Kelly Gang. The song’s inspiration arose from Davis’ reflections on Australia’s lack of fiction based on early white settlement. The crowd embraced it—as well as Davis’ momentary AC/DC breakout—and the atmosphere intensified.

Bombazine Black succeeded in fusing cinema and live music, the gig at times comparable to an iconic tribute montage at The Oscars. The only irony which challenged Bombazine Black’s album title was that they captivated their crowd so tremendously, their feature length playlist whizzed by like a short film.

With such a moving and sincere album on their hands, this is anything but The End for Bombazine Black.

by Michele Davis-Gray
The AU Review