Artist description S a n F r a n c i s c o Bay Area artist Polly Moller has been variously admired as a beat poet, virtuoso flutist, and mystical avant-pop songwriter. H e r p a t h t h r o u g h m u s i c merged with her path through life. A voracious reader of Celtic myth and the mysticisms of many lands, she juxtaposes the ancient world with the modern world through songwriting, integrating the words and inspiration of the past with the musical forms of the century's turn. P o l l y ' s t w e n t y y e a r s o f c l a s s i c a l t r a i n i n g prepared her well for a swerve into uncharted musical waters, but also gave her the determination to survive a struggle for recognition after creating a musical style never heard before in independent music. A cadre of intelligent DJs, eclectic concert bookers, and loyal fans propelled her music out of obscurity and into a place where it stands poised to take over the minds of true conoisseurs everywhere.@i

Music Style Mystical avant-pop, avant garde flute & spoken word

Musical Influences Robert Dick, the Edge, Stewart Copeland

Similar Artists Laurie Anderson, PJ Harvey, Anne Clark

Artist History In 1995, encouraged by flutist Robert Dick, Polly began exploring rock, ambient, and Celtic influences upon her original music and incorporating effects processing, spoken and sung lyrics, and electronic drums into live flute performance. Determined to be heard where other rock flutists have gone unnoticed, she judiciously avoided the guitar for her first two albums, keeping the flute as the lead instrument in her music's texture. In 1998 she released her debut album, "Taste the Wall", followed up by her 1999 second effort, "Summerland". 3

Group Members Polly Moller

Instruments Flute, bass flute, drum machines, electric bass

Albums Taste the Wall, Summerland

Press Reviews Polly MollerSummerlandSilver Wheel 1999 (http://www.silverwheel.com)(music@silverwheel.com)by Jim Foley"If all else fails, we can whip the horses' eyes, and make them sleep, and cry." (Jim Morrison and the Doors, "The Soft Parade")It was quite an ear-ope ner when, back there in seminary school, Jim Morrison and the Doors revealed to me not only that you cannot petition the Lord with prayer, but that lyrics can thoroughly dominate a musical experience, yet remain deeply dependent upon that music for thema tic support. Polly Moller demonstrates a visceral comprehension of this dynamic on "Summerland," her second recording. She delivers her allusive blank verse as if from a trance, at times babbling brooklike, at others reluctant and coy, but ever dramati c, to the tribal accompaniment of her flutes and clattering percussion, and the bass of Jordan Avon."Summerland" demands the listener's full attention, but richly rewards it.In "Don Dorcha's Revel," Moller informs us in hypnotic yet insistent tones that e ve rything we know is wrong, things are worse than we can suspect, but that truth can be accommodated if not necessarily impaled on certainty if it does not overly "matter to you at whose party you are seen." The flute warbles dreamily on the verses, and th e chorus ("One day becomes seven at his revel") is underlined by pulsing percussion, at times suggesting the work of Jenifer Smith or Laurie Anderson. "Io" is dreamlike yet emphatic,flute a hollow harmonic dirge, Mollers' delivery magisterial, viscou s bu t erupting into vehemence ("I want to wear those garlands") or subsiding intoreverie ("we're the last ones in this empty city. May I have this dance?").The drum machine appropriately drives the breathless "Aurora," supplication to an antique yet ret u rned goddess "who is no longer rosy-fingered Dawn, but a machine unbounded by the laws of flight." As the flute shrieks, Moller mutters imprecations. Have mercy on us. "Deal gently with your people when you next appear." Thomas Dolby's "One of Our S ub mari nes" illustrates the synergy between poetry and music, beginning with a sung, acappella, almost Celtic, underwater history lesson punctuated by sonar squeaks, before breaking into a galloping, bass-driven reprise. The Celticinfluences become more ex plici t in Diarmit MacDiarmada's wave-swept "Gaoth Barra nd'Tonn" and the martial, vindictive "Song of Coinchend Cennfada."Back there in seminary school, I used to obsess on what all this might mean. These songs, these incantations, might indeed have dis cernablemeaning, but even Polly Moller might not be able to clarify them further, at least not without loss of force. So feel the force, immerse yourself in"Summerland," and contact the Silver Wheel web site for a copy of the libretto.m

Location Mountain View, CA - USA

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).