Neve and Carroll used to have a band called MANTRA. A couple of albums were recorded and released some time ago, 'Painted Red' and 'Every Defect'.
Time has passed and RED PAINTED RED are pleased to announce the release of a four song CD/EP 'Pathway', the first in a trilogy of EP releases.
PATHWAY CD/EP REVIEWS
'Devotees of Obscure Stuff From Quite A Few Years Ago might recall a band from Manchester called Mantra, who put out two albums of splendidly, incongruously, assertively ethereal atmospherics, before vanishing headlong into the Where Are They Now? file. Well, now two thirds of Mantra are back, in the guise of Red Painted Red. This four-song EP, neatly and unconventionally packaged in a gatefold paper sleeve, is their first release. Although fans of Mantra will greet the overall sound of the band with a smile of recognition, Red Painted Red are not simply a continuation of Mantra by other means. They're a bit more of an upfront proposition, accosting the listener with their rolling, skipping, sidling, glitch-classical torch songs and jazz punk ballads. The essential feeling is reserved, yet urgent. Vocalist Yvonne Neve's voice is produced to sound up close, intimate. In fact, if you turn your back on your hi-fi during 'Flower' it sounds like she's right there in the room with you, a downright unsettling experience. 'Radionoise' churns up a reggae lope, and progressively builds to a teetering stack of noise, as shuddering, shredded guitar and effects are piled up and up. Red Painted Red certainly know how to build a wall of sound - and then they'll poke holes in it with a vocal sharpened to a point. I'm pleased to see that the band are just as far out on their own limb as Mantra ever were, and still as utterly unique. This isn't pop music, you know. This is the sound of DNA spirals unwinding.' (NEMESIS TO GO)
This four-song EP will give you chills and leave you drooling... for more.Manchester, UK songwriters Yvonne Neve and Simon Carroll, formerly of the band Mantra, are back, having released the Pathway EP as the first in a trio of EPs under the moniker Red Painted Red. The EP itself - seemingly splattered with red ink like paint or blood - is housed in an album of artwork depicting a murder of crows alongside a droopy zombie girl, certainly catching your attention at first glance. The four-song CD is a vehicle for the duo's poetic vision, a cynical mix of pain (literally, epitomized in the wrist-cutting "Pathway"), loneliness (via "Radionoise"), the loss of childhood innocence ("Flower," which may be the reason for the album's bold cover art), and lastly, life versus death ("Sleep," a fitting end for an emotionally charged collection). The EP begins in reverse with a recorded melody physically replayed in reverse, overlaid with piano or synth keys and a warm, inviting female voice. Neve leads us down a musical path of atmospheric storytelling, crunchy percussion, and perfectly textured synth sounds. Vibrant with similarities to Siouxsie Sioux and the trip-pop of Portishead, the album moves onward to "Radionoise," which is not that at all. The track has a gentleness of jazz and lounge influences, like velvety liquor on the rocks. Also rebelling from its seemingly harmless song title, "Flower" evokes a roughness and industrial influence with a unique Jamaican beat and vocal vibrato heard only from others in the dark genre like the women of Rasputina. The EP ends too soon, though, with "Sleep," a lovelorn solo that would suit any forlorn, off-Broadway musical. Really, Red Painted Red's Pathway EP will turn your head and leave you desiring an actual full-length album from the musical pair. (REGENMAG)
'Red Painted Red give us a real treat! Anyone familiar with Portishead’s wipes, fades, noise, distortion and general electronic chaos will know what to expect from Red Painted Red. A beautiful barage of ideas and musical notes that collide with each other into something much more pure and new than they would on their own. 'Pathway' is certainly a good trail into what the band may have cooking away for the future. And although the track ‘Pathway’ itself threatens to be anarchy – the soothing ‘Radionoise’ informs us that they have more up their sleeve than flashy music editing. The sheer variety of their structure continues right through to the EP’s climax. So what do you get? Siouxsie meets Portishead? Pathway is one big cabaret that always entices and never shows.
This show is well worth checking out at the earliest opportunity. (GLASSWERK)
"MOVING, DISTURBING, BEAUTIFUL" April 14, 2007 BY COCA-EBOLAMANTRA-EVERY DEFECT'First things first: this has to be one of the ten best albums of the 1990s. I don't make such claims casually - rest assured that this record is unique enough to qualify.
One with unusual influences on display - on their PAINTED RED debut it was possible to discern the shoegazing guitar sound, some Kate Bush (piano usage, unusual turns of phrase), some Kristin Hersh (emotional intensity), Cranes' way of combining dissonance and ethereality, Miranda Sex Garden's ability to do the same whilst integrating strings.
With this album Mantra created their own sound - the above influences are far less relevant.
All the songs here are piano-based - and the piano lines are peculiarly elegant and eloquent throughout. Guitars, as before, are used as orchestration, often adding an undercurrent of industrial dissonance. Almost all the songs are slow-paced. Chamber-ensemble like string charts crop up frequently. The most startling thing about the album, instrumentally speaking, is its prominent use of double-reeds (i.e oboe, english horn). They're not particularly used to prettify the music or act a exotic saxophone substitutes, they sound (certainly on "Our Disease" and "Catcher") like credible rock instruments.
Yvonne Neve's vocals are quite remarkable - while she does slightly resemble PJ Harvey (upper register) and Katy Carr or Siouxsie Sioux (lower register), she's more controlled, more precise, than any of them.
The lyrics are exceptional. Someone described the album as a lengthy diatribe against a partner, but while a turbulent relationship is certainly being described, there's far more to these songs than that. The lyrics don't always make literal sense, but they're full of arresting images: consider firstly the unusual sexual innuendo throughout "Rage" (the only hard rock song on the album, with appropriately carnal vocals), and the alter-ego or inner-demon "playing at lives with cars...drinking the tar in my lungs" in "Catcher" (in which the oboeist provides the most memorable instrumental hook on the album). Is the album about a couple dying of AIDS? A wild thought, but "disease" imagery is everywhere - not only that exceptionally haunting song "Our Disease", but just as prominently in the exquisite "The Making Of Me" and the more menacing spoken piece "Coma": in both she seems to be anticipating imminent death from the disease she shares with her partner. In individual songs, and throughout the album, she's alternately angry and despairing, dominant ("when I want you I expect to have you...when I ask I expect you to answer yes") and tender (the whole song "Lovers"), indomitable and sexually lethal ("let me anesthetize you with my poison"; whole songs like "I Feel Free" and the gorgeous "Frail" which is lyrically anything but frail) and then desperately vulnerable (especially the sweetly soulful "Hymn").
You feel for her and fear for her - Mantra have never released another album: you have to ask ..Yvonne, are you alright? are you even still with us?' But maybe she wouldn't appreciate the attention - the second title song ("..Of' Every Defect"), the only one to feature a danceable beat and sequenced synthesizers, could be read as a warning to fans to keep their distance.
I guess I haven't conveyed the uniqueness of the album, but there's only so much words can say. In conclusion, we the fans are keeping our distance, but still waiting - for more news of the band and the singer, and even (we hardly dare hope) another album that's ALMOST as moving, disturbing and profoundly beautiful as this one.' (COCA-EBOLA)