Featuring: Rosalie Kaplan [voice], Noah Kaplan [saxophone], Wes Matthews [piano], and Giacomo Merega [electric bass]. (www.dollshot.com & http://dollshot.blogspot.com)
“Dollshot are a local quartet who cover an unusual selection of songs by modern classical composers like Arnold Schoenberg, Francis Poulenc & Charles Ives, as well as an old jazz standard and a couple of originals. It is rare to hear a local ensemble cover such odd material, but this is no regular quartet… I really dig that it is adventurous, often restrained, simultaneously forcing us to look closer at the crafty arrangements. Dollshot is/are one of the most unexpected gems I’ve heard recently.” – Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery
“The music’s high sense of drama, combined with Kaplan’s sweetly sonorous voice, may recall… groups like Slapp Happy or Art Bears. The alternating segments of cabaret and free music give the impression of two parallel conversations, using a popular genre to convey more avant garde intentions.” – New York City Jazz Record
“Updates of classical music are a risky proposition, rarely delivering a thrill equal to the original. Here’s an interesting exception. The songs are expanded on, but much of their original superb harmony is retained, as are their moods, generally a sort of fin de siècle brooding that’s carried over to the originals by Matthews and N. Kaplan and the jazz standard “Here’s That Rainy Day” (Burke-Van Heusen). It’s haunting in a ominous way that Dresden Dolls can only dream of.” – The Big Takeover
There will also be a performance of “Rat Lunch,” a spoken word cantata with text written and performed by Hampton Fancher (screenwriter, Blade Runner). “Rat Lunch” will be released as a single on Underwolf Records, our label, in late September in conjunction with the release of Fancher’s new book of short fiction, The Shape of the Final Dog (Penguin).
