THE LOCAL presents CONQUERING ANIMAL SOUND

Event information

Another compelling slice of ethereal electronica from the acclaimed Glasgow duo.

Straddling the divide between pop and the avant-garde ought to render electronica duo Conquering Animal Sound in a position of eternal compromise, taming their experimental impulses in the pursuit of pop truth. Yet, as their second album and first for Chemikal Underground demonstrates, Anneke Kampman and James Scott have little truck with contemporary music orthodoxy, from the process of composition and manufacture through to the multiple meanings that underpin the 11 proudly cerebral songs that make up' On Floating Bodies'.

Before we continue, three salient facts:
1. On Floating Bodies takes its title from Archimedes' groundbreaking treatise on hydrostatics.
2. Each sound on the album is created, manipulated and polished by Kampman and Scott - no presets here.
3. The music of Conquering Animal Sound is a 50:50 split between Kampman and Scott.
A testament to the possibilities created by the machines and digital technology with which it was made.

On Floating Bodies was created over a period of 18 months. The first stage was for the duo to assemble the musical vocabulary and sonic palette that would anchor the music to come, with Kampman sieving a plethora of lyrical ideas spanning cosmology, science, philosophy and semantics. Next, both set about constructing the skeleton of the record texture, mood, rhythm and melody before experimenting with it onstage. The record was completed in the studio, Kampman colouring unexpected spaces within the dense synthetic arrangements with her looped and layered vocal machinery, fully inhabiting the stereo picture. The resulting music is fearless, futuristic and frosted, an alien landscape bookended by the sound of pulses, sea shells and a miniature tool set dropping to the floor Ultimate Heat Death of the Universe and a two minute burst of queasy science fiction (Inner/Outer/Other). This is 21st century pop refracted through the prism of keen minds atomised, deconstructed and reass!
embled; an ouroboros of ideas and ideals, endlessly innovating itself.

Notes:
CAS formed in 2008 after James and Anneke met at Edinburgh University. Their debut long player Kammerspiel was released through Gizeh Records, in February 2011.
Kammerspiel made the inaugural shortlist for The Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award.
Initial copies of their debut came with a remix album featuring the likes of Errors and Dam Mantle.
The duo who count The Knife, Kate Bush and Múm among their influences live in Glasgow.

On Floating Bodies was written, engineered and produced by CAS and mixed by Paul Savage (Franz Ferdinand, Mogwai, The Twilight Sad).