Forgotten Backlog Multiply and 360: Clockwork Quartet, a strange musical experience

Saturday 27 March 2010

Clockwork Quartet, a strange musical experience

http://www.clockworkquartet.com/

It’s strangely reminiscent of something vaguely gothic. Also uniquely entertaining, it’s burlesque reinvented.

This is what they say about themselves on facebook;

From their East London warehouse, a coterie of young musicians and artists have grabbed the attention of the previously US-centric Steampunk scene. No longer beholden to the traditional media industry, the internet generation have harnessed the hardware, software and distribution channels they grew up with to give birth to a new culture – the first truly indigenous folk culture of the internet. Steampunk is an aesthetic of the mechanical inventions of the industrial revolution, the last great period of technological upheaval. The Steampunk look has been adopted by a rising counterculture whose ideals echo punk-inspired self reliance and anti-establishment sentiments, but with nihilism replaced by an optimism about human potential. The past year has seen a slew of Steampunk specific festivals and events across the world, the creation of a peer reviewed journal ("Neo-Victorian Studies"), and features in The New York Times, Wired magazine and on MTV.

"The Clockwork Quartet is a Dresden Dolls-esque collective of 20-odd musicians, actors and cabaret performers who all play various bizarre and morbidly dark characters. Intrigued?" – NME

The Clockwork Quartet consists of a core quartet of guitar, bass banjo, violin and cello, with help from accordion, oboe, piccolo banjo, Stroh violin, musical saw, and the magnificent Steamdrone, as well as the percussive possibilities of clocks, metronomes, discarded mechanical parts and found objects. Members include two trained luthiers, a carpenter, a jeweler, a prop maker and sculptor, a doctor of zoology. Available through the band’s website are beautifully crafted leather-bound Victorian-style pocket books filled with song lyrics, music and original illustrations, along with unique Clockwork Quartet jewellery.

The Clockwork Quartet are based at House of Strange studios (Noah and the Whale, Emmy the Great, Mumford & Sons).