artemis

“Bay Area trip-hop artist Artemis’ CD, ‘Gravity’ (RTFM Records/Magnatune) is a sensual blend of daydreamy beats and starry- eyed breaks. Keyboard Magazine called the New York native's self-described ‘lush, symphonic electronica’ a ‘world-class creation.’ We just call it damn good!” – Bill Picture, San Francisco Examiner If such a joyous sonic welter as the music of Oakland's Artemis needs a handle, then call it “pavement psychedelia,” or “urban robot raga” or “trip-pop.” On a song like “Hypn...

“Bay Area trip-hop artist Artemis’ CD, ‘Gravity’ (RTFM Records/Magnatune) is a sensual blend of daydreamy beats and starry- eyed breaks. Keyboard Magazine called the New York native's self-described ‘lush, symphonic electronica’ a ‘world-class creation.’ We just call it damn good!” – Bill Picture, San Francisco Examiner If such a joyous sonic welter as the music of Oakland's Artemis needs a handle, then call it “pavement psychedelia,” or “urban robot raga” or “trip-pop.” On a song like “Hypno,” spectral keyboard washes and sinuous dance beats set up a feeling of warm alienation before the singer's voice heats things further. Over the thump and shimmer, she croons with detached fervor, the production dissolving in a storm of pixie-dust disco until a rude riot of effects snaps the tether and she vanishes. Aesthetically, the band is a poppier variant on trip-hop, with layers of beats and synth effects providing atmospherics for sophisticated classic rock song structures and the velvet swoop of Artemis's vocals. Artemis co-produces and performs with various members of the RTFM collective, which includes the polymathic likes of Daniel Berkman (aka Colfax, multi-instrumentalist and wizard of the kora, a twelve-string harp-lute used extensively in West African music), Cliff Tune (the drummer, who adds to orthodox skin-pounding masses of programmed beats layered for pallidly funky effect), Keith Crusher (producer, programmer and sonic theoretician) and newcomer Daniel Durrett, who doles out mind-bending effects and textures with ease, lowering the ambient temperature to dry-ice. Despite the variety of syncretic means, the whole wraps around the singer in true rockist fashion like a flash-frozen Big Brother & the Holding Company. The music pulses with downtempo beats while ambient sound FX sinks tethers from the world outside into the listener only to pull them pleasantly loose with the band's coruscating riffs and hooky churn. Artemis presides over this aural slow-burn like one of Wim Wenders' angels; warm, wise, detached and waiting for you...