:: Kolliope - Oracles and Glands

Kolliope

Oracles and Glands is the debut album of Byron Bay duo Kolliope. They're an interesting band who sell not only the usual t-shirt at their gigs, but fruit flavoured lolly pops whose proceeds go to supporting foods which are not genetically modified. This said, the band scream hippie, but the music that comes from their rather anatomically spiritual titled CD, is a bit of something else. Kolliope is Randolf Reimann and Michelle Taylor, who met when she was reading his tarot in the late 90s, (I'm wondering if she saw the band in the cards?) Their music is dreamy, poetic, calming and a little bit hypnotic. As a band they seem to be a little bit different, which can only amount to a good thing. The opening track immediately reminds me of a band I was a huge fan of in the late 90s. I bought a Stella One Eleven album titled “Mr Big Car” because I liked the name; I listened to the CD over and over for a while and kind of forgot them. Flicking through the Kolliope insert I found that a couple of Stella One Eleven band members had played a roll in the production of Oracles and Glands. It’s good to see that Australian musicians are able to share their style with others and come up with some more diverse sounds. The music is a little trippy and their choice of accompaniment is interesting - think ‘the children of the Cape Byron Steiner School for their singing’ and ‘messy self-oscillating gadgets’ - and you’ll start to understand the nature of the band a bit better. The lyrics are crazy, but philosophically poetic - “With the planets dancing round and round, we’re all by Oracles and Glands. And all slightly mad, all slightly mad!” All in all, the band doesn’t appear to take themselves too seriously, and it’s the perfect CD if you feel like hearing the strange ideas of other people.