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BELLMER DOLLS
PlayLouder @ The Old Blue Last, London UK
Wednesday, December 6th 2006
Three years ago I interviewed a man called James Sclavunos. If that name rings a bell, it might be because Sclavunos is the Bad Seeds' drummer, The Horrors' producer and a member of the emergent Grinderman. The subject of our conversation, though, was Sclavunos' own band The Vanity Set, creators of avant-garde music that's equal parts jazzy, progressive, gothic, literary and burlesque. At one point Sclavunos told me about his guitarist Peter Mavrogeorgis. "I quite disliked him when I first met him," recalled the six-foot-eight-inch aristocrat of his six-string accomplice, "but I've come to quite adore him... There's a couple of Greeks in the band; there's some sort of weird magnetism there."
Based in New York City, Bellmer Dolls aim to infuse ugly trash-blues with an air of Weimar decadence. Mavrogeorgis is their singer and guitarist, so it's no surprise to see Sclavunos in the audience. It's even less of a surprise to see Gallon Drunk singer (and erstwhile Bad Seed) James Johnston here, for his is perhaps the band that Bellmer Dolls most resemble.
The week before this gig, I saw the Dolls play a slightly sloppy, indulgent show at Hoxton Bar & Grill. Tonight, it's a different story: they're fierce and focused. Driving the band forward is bassist Anthony Malat who, rather perfectly, runs a New York menswear boutique called Sinner/Saint. Malat looks like he should be in a cowpunk band and, equally, like he could kill with his bare hands, and he plays his bass like he's wrestling an enraged serpent. Yet in sonic terms he's the band's sensible one. His pounding, hypnotic bass-lines provide a solid structure from which Mavrogeorgis (and drummer Daniel Sheerin) can depart on flights of fancy.
Always a restless, twitchy presence, Mavrogeorgis occasionally goes through something like an onstage exorcism. It happens tonight during the penultimate 'Push! Push!' (the fire-and-brimstone sermon that opens debut EP 'The Big Cats Will Throw Themselves Over'). As the song slow-burningly builds toward climax, Mavrogeorgis flips out. Diving from the stage, he starts screaming the song's titular invocation while swinging his guitar wildly about by the strap. It whizzes within inches of the front row's noses, but nDONOTBLOCKOURADSobody moves a muscle. We're transfixed.
Mavrogeorgis here exhibits the same deranged preacher-man intensity in which James Johnston once specialised. Also like Gallon Drunk, Bellmer Dolls are maybe best described as blooze-hounds: their take on old-school rhythm & blues sounds like it's full of strong liquor and tweaked beyond reason. Behind the drumkit, Sheerin is a cyclone of intensity. Out front, Mavrogeorgis frenziedly coaxes noise and feedback (plus the odd shimmering melody line) from his Rickenbacker, while delivering reference-loaded lyrics in a breathless, strangulated croon.
After 'Push! Push!' has provided the set's crescendo, Bellmer Dolls find themselves in the classic Trail of Dead quandary: the stage has pretty much been trashed, but there's still one song to play. They persevere, though: wires are untangled, equipment plugged back in and straps reaffixed to guitars, and during the subsequent set-closer the impression is of a vicious storm dying down and calmness descending. When the Dolls finally take their leave to approving roars, a passing fan records pity for whoever has to follow them.
This, then, is Bellmer Dolls. I disliked them when I first met them, but I've come to quite adore them. There's some sort of weird magnetism there.
Niall O'Keeffe (playlouder.com)
ROCKSOUND UK:
DARK AND DAMAGED --- JUST HOW I LIKE MY ROCK AND ROLL" - JIM JARMUSCH.
MOST BEAUTIFUL 2006. --- PAPER MAGAZINE
CHECK OUT DILETTANTE FILMS' LIVE VIDEO COLLAGE SET TO "THE DIVA", FROM BELLMER DOLLS' UPCOMING EP "THE BIG CATS WILL THROW THEMSELVES OVER", AVAILABLE JUNE 6TH FROM HUNGRY EYE RECORDS US/ CARGO UK WORLDWIDE:
Manifesting the spirits of their namesake, Bellmer Dolls may not directly embody the influence of Hans Bellmer or the New York Dolls, but they certainly exhibit tendencies that both expose their punk ethic and betray their affinity for the darker, seedier, and more controversial faces of life and existence. Just as German anarchist Hans Bellmer used his art to revolt against the Nazi partys cult of the idealized human form, dismembering and reassembling doll parts and contorting them into awkward surrealist sculptures of mutant, pubescent female figures, Bellmer Dolls wield their music as a wily weapon of desecration. Captivating audiences with their elegantly tormented performances, Bellmer Dolls spew musical venom that creeps into and seizes its hosts as a deliciously insidious pleasure.
Shrouded in layers of mystery and intrigue, Bellmer Dolls fashion themselves as dark dandies and dapper misfits. Voted onto Paper Magazine's Top Beautiful People list, the bands hermetically archaic aesthetic almost renders them into a surreal vision of tableaux vivants. Onstage, however, they are much more than mere living incarnations of their images: the figures jolt as if resuscitated at the first beat of the drum, unleashing virile, robust rhythms and emitting raw, provocative energy. Adopting Brechtian dramatics that would make Kurt Weill proud, Bellmer Dolls draw upon a base of Weimar-era influences, channeling Goethe even, charming suspects into a musical Faustian pact.
Hypnotic and harrowing, the music crafted by Bellmer Dolls defies any standard categorization. Lending themselves to comparisons to Nick Cave/The Birthday Party and in a similar vein as deathrock bands like Gun Club and Cop Shoot Cop Bellmer Dolls music merges neurotic, jangly guitars with incantational drumbeats and a brooding bassline. With vocals that seem to conjure the spirits of decadence and debauchery, Mavrogeorgis raspy, funk yelps sound like the remnants of an as-yet unfinished bender. Fractured chords twitch anxiously and insistently, as if invoked for some ritualistic séance. Threads of tension weave the musical components together; tugging at this fabric only unravels more haunting sounds, as the soulful and sinister howls, bluesy beats, and sassy shrieks further ensnare the listener. Proceeding with cautious trepidation, the listener can make but a futile attempt to avoid succumbing to the bands carnal appeal.
After a year rehearsing in self-imposed seclusion, Bellmer Dolls surfaced as a tight unit with a repertoire of seeping, squirming, sultry songs. With an almost palpable sense of danger and doom lingering in their music, the bands concoction of throbbing, urgent songs, coupled with their macabre spunk, seduced the socks off Jon Spencer. After an initial string of dates sharing stages with the Blues Explosion and luminaries like Enon, We Are Wolves, The Bravery, and Pretty Girls Make Graves, Bellmer Dolls recorded and self-produced Never Sates Nor Palls and set off on two U.S. tours. Earning themselves a residency in L.A., Bellmer Dolls were soon rewarded with critical accl.. The Village Voice pronounced them Brooklyn noise-goth royalty, while The New York Times ran a cover story on Malats Sinner/Saint menswear line.
Accolades continued in 2005 after the release of their first EP, courtesy of Hungry Eye Records: The Big Cats Will Throw Themselves Over, produced by NYC post-punk stalwart Jim Sclavunos (of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Sonic Youth, Cramps, and currently with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds). As their breed of raunchy, bluesy horror-punk began to infiltrate the mainstream, magazines like Nylon, Blackbook, V Magazine, and XLR8R became compelled with their strapping swagger, ribald wit, and infectious, compulsive songs. Proudly displaying all the skeletons in their closets, Bellmer Dolls now have bones to pick. With a full-length LP projected for release in 2006, the band will maintain a fixed, unflinching stare as they march ahead. As they set off to lure Europe with their musical bait, the trios ravishing gusto and probing songs will puncture and permeate audiences abroad, spreading their essence like the Plague. First they took Manhattan; next they'll take Berlin. -Kateri O'Neil
