What is VÄLVĒ? Folk lullabies re-imagined by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Found-sound collages interrupted by Welsh language orations and sudden outbursts of fuzz bass. Gleaming synthpop workouts that collapse into swirling dreamscapes of sax and harp. Tiny sounds opening out onto the epic. Hi-tech and no-tech, deployed with equal measures of discipline and abandon. Carefully sculpted disorder. Uncanny geometries of noise and melody. Dizzy and gleeful and drawn in notebooks. That is VÄLVĒ.

VÄLVĒ  started out as the outlet for composer/performer Chlöe Herington’s compositional work using text and image as the starting point for scores. She collects sounds and diagrams, composing predominantly for bassoon, saxes, electronics and found sounds to explore synaesthetic memory and collective experience.

The band has morphed - from what originated as a solo project, performing mainly in art galleries, it grew to include Elen Evans on harp.  After moving from galleries back into music venues, they have been joined by Chlöe's Chrome Hoof comrade, Emma Sullivan on bass, microkorg and vocals.  Live, the music traverses the realms of noise and improv into songs, punctuated with found sounds and eases into spacey soundscapes.

This sound is unobtainable to anyone lacking single minded devotion to rock and roll. Tight, insatiable rhythms somehow contain the raw energy stirred up by powerful, impassioned vocals. All is irresistibly engaging, all conspiring to set this band apart from fashionable pretenders. Old Basford have tapped into rock and rolls’ main artery and share its life blood with influences such as Queens of the Stone Age, The Black Keys and The Band 

"This rules. An amalgam of Skynyrd and Grand Funk Railroad. Whisky drenched finger picking and barroom belligerence"  
Kerrang 4/5 

"The bastard offspring of Clutch and Queens Of The Stone Age with a bit of ZZ Top thrown in for good measure" -
Rocksound 

"This is magnificent, thrilling music. Like it belongs to another era, one where they would be lauded as champions. It's heart warming smiling inducing rock bliss. Album of the year without doubt - if it weren't an EP that is"
Ninehertz.com


GET IN TOUCH: hellocantaloupe (at) gmail.com

CANTALOUPE are a vox-synths-guitar/bass-drums quartet from Nottingham, UK, formed in 2011. Drawing influences from afro-pop to krautrock to disco to the avant garde, we aim to make infectious and thoroughly pleasing instrumental pop music.

CANTALOUPE is:

Aaron Matthew Doyle
Eleanor Lee
John Christopher Simson
David James Stockwell

Dnl Zdk is following