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Luca Maoloni - vocals,
keyboards, trumpet, guitar
Jay Anderson - drums
Matt Mcclaren - bass, piano
Nicky Taylor - guitar, bass
Andrew Innanen - keys, percussion, backing vocals
Jo-Ann Goldsmith - trumpet, autoharp
If pop music is like chemistry, the Old
Soul's maestro Luca Maoloni is the archetypal mad scientist,
emerging from his laboratory every few years with a hulking
creation at his back. A sprawling, multi-layered hodgepodge.
A droplet of this in a vial of that. A vast collection of pop,
calypso, folk, rock, country & western and gypsy exotica,
like some sort of genre-ignoring modern Frankenstein.
Since 2003, the good doctor’s songs
have been grounded in a simple principle: pop music is best
when it doesn’t make sense,
when it doesn’t entirely play by its own rules. So Maoloni’s
left turns all veer right, his up dives down, and the rules of
composition take a back seat to impulse. Deep-fried Grandaddy
rock, horn-led Elephant 6 pop and zydeco stomps all find a home
in the warmth of the Old Soul’s three-minute ditties. This
is rock music that’ll afford accordions and harpsichords
the same voice it allows guitars. Maoloni, a pianist since the
age of 4, is an equal opportunity kind of guy: one whose songs
exoticize the past forty years of popular music. Whose quirks
delight in themselves. Who has the gall to cover Brian Wilson’s “Vege-tables,” and
make it even stranger (maybe even better) than the original.
Most of this magic takes place in the laboratory,
where Maoloni pens and records nearly all of the Old Soul’s
material by himself. But the band has recently ballooned to
include a host of talented touring musicians. Matt Mclaren,
Jo-Ann Goldsmith (formerly of Broken Social Scene), Nick Taylor,
Jay Anderson, Andrew Innanen, Juri Biondic and several others
ensure that the Old Soul is the same joyfully wild ride on
stage that it is on record. Which isn’t a problem – whether
in economic 5-piece format, or in large-scale 10-person arkestra
mode, The Old Soul delvers Malonoi’s mapless music with
the same kind of zeal, madness and intensity he uses to create
it. |
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S/T
FFR-007
Released April 17, 2007
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PURCHASE
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$10.00 CD |
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$7.99 Digi |
TOPSPIN
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