NEW SOUNDS: Weekly Music Roundup: Laura Marling, Twenty One Pilots, and Surfer Blood
NEW SOUNDS: Weekly Music Roundup: Laura Marling, Twenty One Pilots, and Surfer Blood
BY JOHN SCHAEFER AND JAMI FLOYD
“In Western music, composers have long been associated with keyboards: Bach with the harpsichord, Beethoven, Brahms and the rest with the piano. Molly Joyce plays a 1960s-era toy electric organ. You know, the kind that has a bunch of buttons on the left, each of which plays a simple chord, and then a small piano keyboard in the middle and right of the instrument. It’s not something you’d associate with “serious music,” but it fits Joyce perfectly. When she was seven, she was in a car accident that left her with limited use of her left hand. The buttons/keys setup of these old organs (she has four, all bought on eBay) works for her, and the combination of toy organ, her own singing, and some digital sounds was all she needed to make her forthcoming album, Breaking And Entering. She’s just released the first song from it, called “Form And Flee.” The video shows her two hands, the left visibly scarred, while she sings about conformity versus complexity, and normality versus vitality. The music builds steadily to a pulsing, almost post-rock sound, and the chord buttons are processed to the point where they suggest electric guitar power chords. It’s a powerful response to something (namely, physical disability of any kind) that is still too often stigmatized, but that Joyce has used as a creative prompt.”