Conquering Animal Sound – On Floating Bodies   - album cover

CONQUERING ANIMAL SOUNDOn Floating Bodies

1. Ultimate Heat Death Of The Universe
2. The Future Does Not Require
3. Warn Me
4. No Dream
5. I’ll Be Your Mirror
6. Gloss
7. A Noise Remains
8. Ipse
9. Mimese
10. Treehouse
11. Inner / Outer / Other

Glaswegians Anneke Kampman (vocals/loops) and James Scott (guitar/loops) started experimenting with different kinds of music since 2009. Their love for trialling different beats evolved into the group, CONQUERING ANIMAL SOUND (also known as CAS).

As well as committing to CONQUERING ANIMAL SOUND, the duo have their own musical projects: Scott is involved in another equally successful project called THE JAPANESE WAR EFFECT, and released an album, It’s All Downhere From Hill, in September 2012. Kampman is recording under the name of ANAKANAK.

Heavily influenced by their outside projects, CONQUERING ANIMAL SOUND took the plunge of releasing their much- talked about debut album, Kammerspiel, in 2011 with Gizeh Records. Since releasing the 11 track album, CONQUERING ANIMAL SOUND has been on the road – pretty much throughout 2011- with three UK tours, two European tours as well as performing at countless of festivals. Kammerspiel earned them a nomination for the SWAY awards in 2012.

For a debut album, Kammerspiel caused quite a stir in the music industry – and this caught the attention of Chemikal Underground Records who (in no time) snapped them up to record their second album, On Floating Bodies, which on the verge of release (18 March 2013.)

Generally, their signature sound has been described as ‘essentially pop’ by any music critics. The fact that they use a mixture of broken beats and a collection of samples makes it very complicated to categorise. So can it be put in the alternative/experimental music pigeon hole? Probably. However there are few elements in some of their songs that can be easily compared to BJÖRK. The ‘Bjork-ness’ is very present in the song I’ll Be Your Mirror.

The highlight of the album has got be Ultimate Death of the Universe. Far from being an ‘essentially pop’ song, it features powerful and broken beats which is rather reminiscent of a 1980’s computer game. Kampman ditches her usual light and airy vocals and goes all forceful and high-pitched. It all sounds very strange – but at the same time, it feels so good!

On Floating Bodies won’t be everyone’s cup of tea – if you get the chance to listen to the album, there’s no denying that these guys are extremely creative and are in a league of their own.

––
CONQUERING ANIMAL SOUND

CONQUERING ANIMAL SOUNDOn Floating Bodies