BLACK FOREST / BLACK SEA -
Forcefields and Constellations CD (INRI076)
'BLACK FOREST/BLACK SEA is primarily Jeffrey Alexander and Miriam Goldberg, an unusual folk styled duo who sound straightforward enough on first hearing, until something unexpected turns the simply plucked banjo song they are playing upside down. Backwards backwoods playing, electronic effects, a shortwave radio and some knob twiddling are all incorporated into their sound, which twists from traditional folk Americana to beatbox improv and back again. Nothing, however, is quite what it seems, and this constant sound shifting gives Alexander and Goldberg's musically metamorphic contribution to the New Weird America cult an edge over the competition. For BF/BS are genuinely strange.'
- The Wire, UK, 2004
'From the ashes of The Iditarod rises this remarkable new musical vehicle. Jeffrey Alexander plays a plethora of instruments, when there are vocals they are mostly by Miriam Goldberg, who also plays some Omnichord, drums, and employs her cello to great effect throughout. Miriam's voice brings to mind Alison Statton's work with Young Marble Giants. Black Forest/Black Sea are at once darker, and warmer than the Iditarod, Miriam's voice is much less chilly than the departed Carin's. The former band's more folky overtones have been replaced by a much wider and more complex musical vocabulary that spreads it's wings to include; free improvisation, field recordings, chamber music, ghostly atmospherics, psychedelia, drone, pop, early Brian Eno, ancient Euro folk roots, and much more; to be truly beguiling on this introduction.
- George Parsons, Dream Magazine, 2003
RIYL: The Iditarod, Last Visible Dog, Sun City Girls, Vibracatherdral Orchestra, etc...
FORCEFIELDS AND CONSTELLATIONS
INRI076
• Orion
• Nylon 2
• These Things
• Kyy Plays Perpetual Change
• I'm in love...
• ...with a dead man I've never met
• Fish No Fish
• F vs. BF/BS
• Hung Far Lowish
• Nylon 1
• The Last Night in Troy
• Tangent Universe
• Jamestown
also available:
search: THE IDITAROD