Bloomin' Nora, the information on the bandcamp site tells us, is a 56 year old retired RE teacher/novelist and her musical mates. Which makes a welcome change from being told you're about to hear an 'alternative rock' band with no ideas of their own or some other such promised mediocrity
Even more reason to suspect this was going to be great was prior knowledge that those 'musical mates' include Phil South and Brent Jackson, whose musical CVs, separately and collectively, include such fascinating musical adventures as The Sinatra Test, Late Road Lunatics and Anonymous Bosch (incidentally, check out Phil's brilliantly curated Crowdrock project - more of that in my March Dandelion show).
Here they step back and let 'Nora' take centre stage, her darkly deadpan spoken word pieces brilliantly complemented by their fractured instrumental soundscapes. I'm playing title track 'Nowt O'clock' in my Dandelion Radio show this month. Here the vocals produce their own rhythm as they collide in demented harmony with the bastard jazz musical going on underneath.
Other pieces - such as opener 'I'm Not Invisible' - see music and vocals clashing brilliantly, the poetry sometimes running ahead, sometimes stopping to do battle with the wild sonic collage, or 'This Is Now', where something akin to an eccentric dance groove emerges from the intoxicating vocal repetition and battered percussion. The result, as you'd wish, is something like a high scoring draw.
Nowt O'clock is a hugely arresting, unique listening experience. and it's available from bandcamp for only 99p. So what are you waiting for?
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