Musical combinations can be strange beasts. This is particularly true of those modern forms that verge into not-so-defined territories, or those that actually switch musical roles.
While going into not-so-defined territories, like say, modern dance music, and jazz, or anything that involves modern classical music is something that is not a rare occurrence, switching musical roles could be. Again, with the involvement of modern classical music.
But there’s one current example where both of these things come to effect. And effectively at that. To hear that, you’d need to check out Ghosts Revisited, the latest album by Pittsburgh’s Beo String Quartet.
Maybe that string moniker can be a clarification, but also a confusion element. Yes, this is formally a string quartet, one that composes its own music that has strong roots in modern classical music.
Yet, on the other hand, it is a string quartet that adds ‘standard’ instruments that come about in any other type of modern music and adds vocals to that too.
Ok, we’ve heard of that before too, many of such combinations lumped into the prog rock. But, Beo String Quartet add a twist here, that is not so usual to find and hear, as their producer Sean Neukom explains:
“We’ve flipped the roles of string quartet vs rock combo normally found in popular styles. In Ghosts Revisited, it’s the strings giving us the substance of the sound. The drums, guitar, bass, and vocals drop in for added definition and texture.”
And you can hear that on this album as string interplay with other instrumentation and vocals switches seamlessly through this combination of modern classical, prog, and alt-rock. Chamber alt, if you will. Alt that works, certainly.
