| From AAM Hecuba is Isabelle Albuquerque and Jon Beasley. Jon learned to walk
and sing in an Alabama church choir but left the south for big cities,
practicing music, art and film. The two first worked together on one of
these films. A theatrical relationship developed into a musical one,
and Hecuba was born! Isabelle's performance background begins with her
great grandmother's Arabic big band in Tunisia, Africa, and travels
across disciplines, generations and continents to her work today.
Together, they create a new kind of sound that is distinctly Hecuba. Sir is the first in a set of "concept" EPs from Los Angeles-based
Hecuba, and is also their debut record. On it, they expand upon ideas
within the single, "Sir" to create completely new songs. It also
includes a re-interpretation of of "Sir" by Lucky Dragons (appearing in
the 2008 Whitney Biennial).
On the Sir EP, Hecuba explore a wide variety of musical ideas, beginning with the dark dub gospel of the original "Sir," and moving through down-tempo sad dance cartoon music, to train-yard work song, abstract techno, and even straight-up doo-wop exaltations. Never easily catagorized, Hecuba's music has been likened to everything from a hip-hop dance party, to a punk electronic explosion, to something more introspective and strange. They have just finished a tour with Devendra Banhart, performed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and performed at South By Southwest this year. When asked about their influences, they replied, "It's as if Stanley Kubrick and Patti Smith had a baby, but it was home-schooled at Pharrell's mansion by Aphex Twin, Andre 3000 and Bjork, all while spending weekends with godfather and godmother Robert Wyatt and Wendy Carlos, who put it in a crib, put on a Charles Ives record, and let it all sink in." "The best band in LA" - Devendra Banhart (Harp Magazine) "syncretic pandemonium... brimming with punk, prog, hip-hop, and a kind of bracing dada" - City Beat "I was shocked. And in this day and age it is damn hard to be shocked. They are performers in a true sense." - LA Weekly August 5 - Los Angeles, CA - Dublab presents Vision Version at Cinefamily August 18 - Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland August 26 - Los Angeles, CA - The Smell |
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