Formed in San Francisco, She Owl revolves around composer/producer Jolanda Moletta and guitar player Demian Endian. The couple left their Italian homeland to live out their music between Europe and the United States, along with a close circle of additional musicians and collaborators. Currently, they are German-based.
Those familiar with their 2015 album Animal Eye, may recognise the opening kalimba on this newly recorded version of Mimla (due for release on July 12th) although here it has a gentler more dreamlike quality, as do the overall new arrangements which create a stronger ambience and sense of melancholy that accentuates that visual image of winter isolation that inspired the song. It’s arranged in line with the new material that will be soon performed and released. Right now, She Owl is working on a new album, inspired by recent collaborations, and they are exploring different soundscapes.
They shared the following on the new recording and accompanying video:
Jolanda: “Our music has a cinematic ambience, the visual part is so important and I’m involved in every aspect of it. Last year I personally wrote, produced and co-directed two She Owl videos. Two of my favourite directors are Wim Wenders and David Lynch: the way they shoot musical performances in their films is mind-blowing.
What I love about this live session is the interaction between the song flow and the movements of the performers, their facial expression, their emotions shown through subtle moves.
Every time I sing Mimla, I always visualize one single, specific moment in my life: it’s Winter, I’m sitting at the kitchen table, watching the snow falling outside the window. I sing and play a kalimba, Demian is listening to the very first version of the song, with a tortoiseshell cat on his lap.”
Demian: “We had total control over our musical choices so far. The feedback after our concerts is more and more positive. Nowadays images have priority over tunes, so it’s our duty to capture on video the same impression we want to convey onstage”
Mimla was born during a cold Winter spent by the nomadic couple in the Italian Alps – inspired by foxes, owls and wolves that now and then were spotted from their snowbound house. The album version evokes all the magic of that place in a minimal and romantic way: percussions, kalimba and keyboards all tied together by Jolanda’s vocal performance. This live version includes a fourth dimension by layering guitars, organs and whispered vocals “We took the winter-scape of the song to the next level of dreaminess and melancholy” – said Demian.
Jolanda: “We are conjuring some of the new sounds that you will hear on next record: this live version is important to us like a link between two worlds. There’s also something really special we never included in our concerts so far: the second half of the video is an improvisation with voices and ambient soundscapes. It was almost a transcendental experience. When I listened back to it it felt like creating a snowstorm in music.”
More here: http://www.she-owl.com/