02 Beauty Queen

This is an album of vocal loops. They are single continuous takes using the Akai Head Rush A2 loop pedal. The disaster and beauty of this pedal is that individual layers can be added but not taken away, so there’s a kind of recurring pattern of soft to loud, of one layer to many layers. I thought that I’d like to make a project where I could celebrate these boundaries rather than attempting to defy them.

I have kept some pieces full length, as they were as I built them. Others I have chopped out rather lengthy repetitive phrases, hoping to create a balance between slow developing pieces and pieces which are more rapidly gratifying in terms of change and melody.

I’d like to make a reference to 1930’s black and white Hollywood Broadway musical films choreographed by Busby Berkeley and composed by Harry Warren and Al Dubin. I hope I’ve managed to capture some of the romance of old, the cheese of it all, and refer a little to the geometry and repetition of Berkeley’s often epic choreography.

There are no instruments, no effects, although there’s often the click of the Head Rush, creaky headphones or a siren caught in the loops. The last piece, A Wonderful, has scratched record in it, the only piece with any other sound other than voice. This is a segue of sorts, a bridge to the album that this one prepares for; Something Altogether Larger.

Sketches For Something Altogether Larger

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Dorothy of the Day is a solo vocal loops project by Australian singer Rachel Holmshaw. She uses as her point of departure the atmosphere of Hollywood Broadway musical films of the 1930s, in particular the geometry and repetition of the often epic choreography of Busby Berkeley films. 

Using just her voice and a loop pedal she creates her musical landscapes live. Her pieces develop gradually, each vocal tone losing its individuality with every new layer. The temptation with a loop pedal is to reinterpret the one-man band, to defy the constraints of a conventional multiplayer scenario and be musically self-sufficient. Rachel’s intention however, is to use the loop pedal not as a means to an end, but to play it as an instrument, to utilise its limitations and to showcase its characteristics and boundaries. In doing so, her music is repetitive and slow building, unable to dazzle with sharp musical changes in melody or form. She strives for the appreciation of a moment that is repeated yet slightly altered with every cycle. Her aim is to crystalise a nuance and set it in motion. Layer by layer she evokes the warm charm and nostalgic lustre of black and white celluloid, coaxing the listener into a hypnotic nostalgic dream world. 

She released her first vocal loops album Sketches for Something Altogether Larger as Dorothy of the Day in 2010 and is currently recording her second: Something Altogether Larger.

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