Two
days before his death, Edgar Allan Poe disappeared following a voyage
on a train travelling to Baltimore. When finally found, he was in
the midst of a hallucinatory panic attack. He died prematurely at
the age of 40, from what and why, no-one knows…
“ The Night’s Plutonian Shore” is an evocation of
the last voyage of the cult writer Edgar Allan Poe. This epic concert
sets to music the mysteries of his ultimate escapade.
Film noir, Prog Rock, Circus, Trance, Funeral Brass Band,
Voodoo... The stylistic lineages fuse and collide in an imaginary
and primordial musical landsape.
The
show explodes with acid humour, with the darkly manic vocals of Chris
Palmer offset by the buoyant, addictively captivating compositions
of Lucien Johnson. They are joined by Village of the Idiots, an infamous
Wellington prog rock band featuring Anthony Donaldson (the Six Volts),
Patrick Bleakly (Blerta), Toby Laing and Joe Lindsay (Fat Freddys
Drop), Amanda Mclean, Deane Hunter and Alphabethead providing just
the right mixture of driving rhythms and electrifying soloing.
Extracts from Poe’s most famous works literally melt
into each piece: “Murders in the Rue Morgue”, “The
Raven”, “The Black Cat”, “The Pit and the
Pendulum”, “The Descent into the Maelstrom”, “The
Masque of Red Death”…culminating in the terrifying, sensational
finale “The Premature Burial”.
Visual effects created by New Zealand film legend Geoff Murphy ranging
from the gothic to the psychedelic appear unexpectedly, apparitions
of props and accessories dissolve before your eyes and musicians regale
in acrobatic fantasies. “The Night’s Plutonian Shore”
leads the spectator into a universe of the senses and of metamorphosis.
After
an intial season at Happy in Wellington the concert was presented
at the Nelson Arts Festival 2007, the Wellington International Jazz
Festival 2007 and WOMAD NZ 2008.
An album entitled “The Night’s Plutonian Shore”
has been released on Explorer’s Club Recordings (click on recordings
to hear extracts).
A DVD inspired by the concert is being created by Geoff Murphy.
THE PRESS:
"Be
warned, there's nothing safe about this journey. These are
the haunting, menacing strains of the soundtrack to the last
night of your life."
John Psathas on The Night's Plutonian
Shore
"The
mood was pure Poe, dark and gothic"
"A
musical phoenix rising from the renegade discordant ashes"
"A
cool noir fog you could cut with a knife menace and evisceratingly
brilliant musicianship"
Nelson Mail
"a
wild and eclectic musical ride inspired by the works of writer
Edgar Allan Poe"
"this
is one tribute I'm certain that Poe, even if he was still
alive, would never have expected."
"one
hell of an entertaining and not to mention diverse listening
experience"
Sea of Tranquility
"Anthony
Donaldson’s Village of the Idiots have never sounded
better than they do here, buoyed up by Lucien Johnson’s
inspired writing & arranging"
"Horns
and organ swirl mysteriously, coalesce into driving, intoxicated
circus tunes and marches, then drop into background whispers"
"The
Night’s Plutonian Shore might be the soundtrack to an
especially obscure Hammer horror film or a steampunk opera"
New
Zealand Listener
“Dark
as cancer!”
“All
that momentum! All that energy!”
Concert
FM
"Wellington's
redoubtable Village of the Idiots gets to run free with a
vengeance"
NZ Musician Magazine
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