You often hear Lucky Dragons, the Los Angeles-based duo of Luke Fischbeck and Sara Rara, discussed in the context of Animal Collective. There are some connections: Both groups are fond of looped hand percussion, day-glo melodies, and spirited improvisation.
The difference is, Animal Collective’s project is fundamentally musical – Lucky Dragons’ project is fundamentally conceptual, rooted in the broader context of the art world.
To Lucky Dragons, process seems at least as important as results, and their process is heavily indebted to Pauline Oliveros’ methods of turning spectators into actors. Lucky Dragons ask audiences to grab wires and hold hands and dance, and for each person at the show to whisper a pretty secret into her neighbor’s ears. Lucky Dragons’ music is inextricably bound to their other pursuits, so the album format presents obvious challenges and even seems to contradict the essentially participatory nature of their projects.
Lucky Dragons | Honeycombhouse
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=iusxbRCjn5I&feature=related
A large part of what makes Lucky Dragons’ music engaging is Fischbeck’s use of the techniques of heterophony, and organic, almost accidental, polyrhythm. Heterophony is a term sometimes used to describe music in which the melodies are intuitively or instinctively varied and embellished, as is common in folk songs, for example, or, on the other side of the spectrum, Brian Eno’s Discreet Music.
Skeletons drink from a similar pool of inspiration as fellow New Yorkers Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective, although as with both these bands, they don’t strictly resemble any one thing, exactly. People reveals them to be a peculiar chimera of influence, blending Afro-pop, Krautrock and jazz fusion with unlikely ease.
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Lucky Dragons & Skeletons LIVE
Sunday, 16 October 2011 | 20:00 CET
HAU 2 | Hallesches Ufer 32 | 10963 Berlin/Kreuzberg
www.luckydragons.org | www.myspace.com/luckydragons | skeletonstv.tumblr.com | www.hebbel-am-ufer.de
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