Gonzo

Gonzo (bi monthly) is a the leading Dutch publication on innovative music & culture. <3 for Beastings in the jan-march edition :::

“Twenty minutes, the total length of ‘Beastings’. This EP is the solo debut of violinist Diamanda La Berge Dramm. It’s much more than an EP. The CD disc is situated in a brown envelope, bound together with a booklet of 12 poems that SJ Fowler wrote especially for this edition. Dramm took snippets from the poems, re-combined them, and made seven tracks. She sings the texts while accompanying herself on the violin. Everything about this edition emanates love and attention. Reading and listening simultaneously is a marvelous and unsettling experience. You see phrases on the page that you’ve heard before, but in a completely different context. And you hear lyrics that contain a completely different logic than the poems they were plucked from. The music itself breathes loving care and concentration as well. The fact that Dramm is a fantastic violinist was already known to many. It’s a revelation how good of a singer she is, transforming words to song: a self-contained unit with an emotional depth that functions on multiple levels. You hear naivety, curiosity, wonderment, determination, sometimes a coy undertone. The way in which she approaches her violin in the studio shows insight and versatility. She plucks her strings, throws a veil of elecronic distortion over it all, lets mercurial tones chatter in high register. With the help of the multi media wizard Akim Moiseenkov, she multiplies her instrument into an ensemble containing a broad spectrum of colors, with varying depths and distances. It’s really not more than twenty minutes. Those twenty minutes aren’t shoved overfull, we don’t end up in knots. But at the same time, so much happens that your brain cells are tested to the absolute max. Which is a character of great, profound artistry.” (RvP)