Experimental / A'cappella / Other

"nerdy-sexy-commie-girly" SAN FRANCISCO, California United States Profile Views:  22514

http://www.myspace.com/charminghostess
charminghostess.us

http://www.klezmershack.com/bands/charming/eat/charming.eat.html

Ground and Sky review - Charming Hostess - Eat

Ground and Sky review - Charming Hostess - Punch

Sea of Tranquility - The Web ...

Gnosis2000.net - Charming Hostess

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/charming-hostess/sarajevo-blues.htm

http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/charming_hostess

I'm listening to Sarajevo Blues now; very good. 

EDIT: I can send some samples to an interested team.  Hopefully some of you guys will be familiar with the music (it's listed in a number of Prog sites).  And please, share impressions.  Thanks.


Edited by Logan - December 09 2008 at 17:08

Thanks for the response. I don't know if they have albums on Recommended.

Here's the wikipedia article:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charming_Hostess

Charming Hostess

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charming Hostess
Jewlia Eisenberg, Cynthia Taylor, & Marika Hughes (L to R)
Background information
Origin	Oakland, California
Genre(s)	Vocal music A cappella Experimental Music Ethnic Music Jewish Music
Years active	1999–Present
Label(s)	Tzadik Records
Members
Jewlia Eisenberg
Former members
Nils Frykdahl Dan Rathbun Carla Kihlstedt Wes Anderson Nina Rolle

Charming Hostess is a band that grew out of the Oakland avant-rock scene in the mid-1990's.

Contents 1 Current Work 2 Early Work 3 References 4 External links

//

[edit] Current Work

Today, the music primarily springs from three women with an emphasis in the body--voices and vocal percussion, handclaps and heartbeats, sex-breath and silence. The work grows from diaspora consciousness: both Jewish and African. Stylistically, Charming Hostess incorporates doo-wop, Pygmy counterpoint, Balkan harmony and Andalusian melody. Contemporary influences on the band include Meredith Monk and Reinette l'Oranaise. The music often explores existing text and overlays the composer's (Jewlia Eisenberg) own questions of authenticity, montage, and the effect of music on non-verbal languages.

The 2002 CD (Trilectic, Tzadik Records) explored the political/erotic nexus of Walter Benjamin and his Marxist muse, Asja Lācis. The 2004 CD (Sarajevo Blues, Tzadik) sets Bosnian poetry by Semezdin Mehmedinović as a form of love and resistance to the brutalization of war.

Their self-described genre is "Nerdy-Sexy-Commie-Girly". Charming Hostess is Jewlia Eisenberg, Marika Hughes, Cynthia Taylor and often Ganda Suthivarakom and Pameliya Kursten (all vocals).

[edit] Early Work

The pre-2002 Charming Hostess (also known as Charming Hostess Big Band) was a rock band that embraced a genderf**k sensibility (the women often wore mustaches while the men wore dresses). Early Charming Hostess music drew on women's vocal traditions (primarily from Eastern Europe and North Africa), and integrated them with American folk forms both white and black. Charming Hostess was founded in the fertile anarchy of Barrington Co-op (aka Barrington Hall), and nurtured by the West Oakland arts community, along with other coeval bands such as Fibulator and Eskimo. Half of Charming Hostess was also in Idiot Flesh/Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. The final effect was of a hoedown where bodacious babes belted the blues in Bulgarian while a punk-klezmer band rocked out in accompaniment.

The genre of this incarnation of ChoHo is described by the band as "Klezmer-Punk/Balkan-Funk". Recordings of Charming Hostess Big Band include "Eat" (Vaccination, 1998) and the new "Punch" (ReR, 2005) Charming Hostess Big Band was: Jewlia Eisenberg (voice, direction), Carla Kihlstedt (voice, fiddle), Nina Rolle (voice, accordion), Wes Anderson (drums), Nils Frykdahl (guitar, flute, saxophone, percussion), and Dan Rathbun (bass).

..............................................................................

No worries; no hurry for an evaluation -- sometimes I post such topics as much because I enjoy the music and want to share the experience as much as get it in the archives.  I don't think that this is an easy one (it is folk/ world, klezmer, blues, experimental/ avant with some punk).  If you get the time soon though, or anyone, have a listen to The Tunnel -- very enjoyable.

Actually it turns out they have been cleared for addition.