dark cabaret

There are more than one artist who go by the name "Meow Meow." 1) Shortwave radio squeals, Beatles-esque tape loops and healthy doses of analog knob-twiddling all underscore the pure-sugar pop tones of Snow Gas Bones. Meow Meow exists somewhere between Brill Building tradition and grandpa's pre-war 78 rpms played with a broken stylus. With hypnotic visual projections, all members sharing vocal duties and swapping instruments, they've brought their kaleidoscopic live shows up the west coast, down to SXSW and soon to the UK and Japan.

OTHON & TOMASINI are Greek composer/pianist Othon Mataragas and Italian actor/singer Ernesto Tomasini. Othon's original and unclassifiable repertoire, coupled with his virtuoso piano playing, and Tomasini's huge range and unique renditions make for an intense experience that is as dark as it is lyrical. Haunting music, deranged performance and heightened theatricality are Othon & Tomasini's trademarks.

Once, during a particularly heavy thunderstorm, I was crawling through the attic of my family home, trying to get close to the lightning, when I found an old wooden box full of items that a distant ancestor had collected over the years. Of particular interest to me was his collection of self written vaudeville songs that he performed with his wife during their canary taming act. These songs, a little changed, tweaked and updated, now form the basis of my repertoire that I feel dutifully bound to play and sing, and in so doing, promote my old ancestor's artistic output.

Carach Angren is a symphonic black metal band from the Netherlands, formed by two members of Vaultage. Their style is characterised by prominent use of orchestral arrangements. All of their studio albums are concept albums with lyrics based on famous ghost stories, such as the Flying Dutchman. The name means "Iron Jaws" in the language of Sindarin, and is the name of a fortified pass into North-Western Mordor in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Read more about Carach Angren on Last.fm.