elodia: The Demo

om Mellish, OP Contributor

istening. I am not here any longer, but in
urope, listening to late-night CBC via
hort-wave, I suppose. The use of “sound-
capes” and aural collage takes me to the
dge of

Welcomed

an East Block experience.
into a suite above an
merikan” bookshop where Caitlin and
cotia Gilroy are playing.
“Sitting in the Sun,” the first track off
eir demo, where “daydream fills me slow-
, and heartbeats pound,” brings us into
ccord. “Till the end of daylight,’ goes the
ong, “they will cover up their sight.”
Perhaps it is safer to live without kenning.
is Scotia singing vocals, explains Caitlin,
bn. an older version of the song recorded in
e Lower Mainland.

In the second track, “Half-Way through
Day,’ we begin with a piano, which shifts to
in accordion for the bridge, and then leaves
s with a rusty, twelve-string guitar. It real-
y is a rusty guitar, Caitlin would have it

own. Winding through the piece is the
ample of a Winston Churchill-like voice. It
s here that found objects and sounds are
eing pulled,in and incorporated from
ilroy life.

erse, “shut the fuck up.”

HOUS.

november 3/2000

 

s has ten shows booked worldwide this year;
vere in Vancouver. I got to see Tom Waits for
ights in my hometown. Thank you, Dave and
y never be the same again. The rest of you

 

The third Melodia song, “Rampage,”
was recorded in Poland. It is all Caitlin,
playing a xylophone, on a jaunty chase
down some cobblestone alley, and ending
with the dropping of a guitar pick. It is full
of vivacity, and, as the title betrays, could
easily be the soundtrack for a
bull in a china shop. Yet the xylo-
phone notes infuse a jest to the
activities. Who let the bull in
anyways? Look for the two sis-
ters laughing in the doorway.

The fourth track, “Rooftops
at Nightfall,” is relatively new. It
was recorded in Krakow by
Scotia in the spring of 2004. A
tiny amp causes the reverb of
the incredible lulling sound on
the electric guitar. The roofs are
intrinsically European, and not
at all Lower Mainland.

The fifth track, “Comme La
Neigé,” is from an old poem by
Montreal poet, Emile Nelligan.
The song brings the cartwheels
and soft hush-hush-hush of win-
ter. The song is an old Scotia
tune, from when she launched
her musical career in Vancouver,
adding the descriptive “solo” to

her name, and appeared at such

 

venues as the glittering Starfish

Room once stuck to Homer
Street.

In the sixth track, we hear of
a “Red Sky.” They’ve been riding
the rails night and day for three
days. The song was recorded
the
“Rooftops at Night.” In a train

tide back to Krakow, Scotia

around same time as

 

looks out the window and starts singing.
The seventh track, “My Heavy Head,” is
an older Scotia solo song that Melodia has
re-made. Jumping back to the idea of med-
itation or contemplation, the seventh song
is essentially a love song in which the
monotony of loneliness is so like the bliss
of found love. In the song’s third act the
union is extolled. “Diamonds floating,

P

 

Aros §=dhd = PNR ————

folding slow,” is beautiful imagery, taking us
back to the earlier, “rock’s the colour of
stone,” that had become the heavy head.
The emotion behind the voice, though,
betrays a cynicism—a removal from Eros.
So sink the lovers, having risen like stars
only to fade with the dawn...turning to
stone.

Track number eight is “Highway to
Vienna,” relating a trip that Scotia took.
The tangible taste of “birch trees and berry
fields” is here. At one point, Scotia asks
Soren Gauger to relate how the journey has
made his mind cloudy, and he intones the
image of border crossings and guards
checking passports. In the background is
the sound of the trees and the fields. This
is one of my favourite places to visit.

The final track, number nine, is “The
Fire.” Here is Scotia with a hand-held tape
recorder. Soren plays the clarinet, and there
is much sampling—the overall effect being
that of something crinoline, a china doll, or
the box in the attic.

Noticeably absent from the demo is the

>

song “La Gioconda.” She is strangely
Gilroy in her enigmatic expression, which
seems both alluring and aloof. The work is
seated in a creative, rocky backdrop, and
her expression always seems elusive. It is a
song that was recorded after the demo was
burned. It will, however, promises Caitlin,

be on the album.

DUnEPBPeSss | Il