Melody Maker feb 17 '96 
     ALBUMS section 
     by Neil Kulkarni 

     Music For Egon Schiele 
     "One has to realise what restraint it needs to express oneself with such beauty. Every glance can be
     expanded into a poem, every sigh into a novel. But to express a novel in a single gesture, joy in a single
     breath, such concentration can only be found where self-pity is lacking in equal measure." - Arnold
     Schoenberg, quoted in sleeve notes. Rachel's "Handwriting" LP, 13 infinitely evocative songs without
     words but with plenty of orchestration, was THE great lost underground American classic of 1995. Such
     gorgeous shocks are never repeated. Here they're suppressed, "Songs For Egon Schiele" is, if anything, even
     more of a unique delight. It is, in a word, incredible. 

     This suite of pieces was written for a piece of dance and theatre based on the life of Schiele, performed in
     Rachel's home town of Louisville. But, for a piece so specific in it's reference, you find your mind running
     further than you've felt it in years. I want my retirement to sound like this; while it's on, I can't stop
     thinking about my childhood. More minimal than it's predecessor (Rachel's are now pared down to just
     strings and piano) this LP, from it's stark opening to its sparse, shattering coda, is a million miles away
     from the implicit superiority of most "classical" music. Rather than being concious that you're listening to
     Something Without Guitars Or A Beat, you're so instantly transported within your own imagination that
     within a minute you're locked into its spell, the piano lacing fingers over your spine, the cello and violin
     filling out the sound, picking out melodies that seem to suffuse the room with changing moods as they wind
     their way around you. 

     Dark, mournful at times; even though training and the like are probably involved, I prefer to think of
     Rachel's as writing these pieces like pop songs and then tearing them light years from the moorings of band
     and noise and letting them float free in the emotional chiaroscuro that only these instruments can create.
     It's less important that this the most impossibly moving American record you can hear right now, or even
     that the care in it's recording and exquisite packaging make it feel like a personal gift to you (IT IS).
     What's important, what's overwhelming, is that your room can be a constant stage with this record. Be
     ready for your close-up and let your mascara run. 
     There'll be no stopping it. 
     Perfect and unafraid. Let it in. 



     Feb '96 - WIRE 

     "There were totally strange circumstances in recording it," says Jason Noble referring to the sessions for
     Handwriting, the first album by the Loisville, Kentucky group Rachel's."It's not like there was any
     budget- we traded stuff for time in the studio: artwork, and one of the sessions actually went unpaid for." 

     Although born from penury, the record, released last year, introduced the group's open approach with
     Philip Glass-like chamber pieces, austere atmospherics, and one very noir-ish Angelo Badalamenti-like
     big-band piece. The group's core- Noble on guitars and tapes, pianist Rachel Grimes and viola player
     Christian Fredrickson was augmented by 13 other musicians, including Shellac's bass player Bob Weston
     and members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. 

     "We have a semi-notated, semi-verbal way of playing," Noble explains, "because half of the people
     playing didn't read music. It's a bit of a free for all. The people that are from a straight academic
     background get a taste of rock'n'roll elements, but the people from my background have to learn to keep
     up with their language and it's kind of challenging." Rachel's was formed in 1991 while Noble was still in
     the much-feted (and now defunct) avant rock group Rodan, initially because he wanted to write some
     quartet pieces. He argues that there are strong musical links between the two apparently dissimilar groups,
     but concedes that the route from fringe rock to chamber music is a road less travelled. "I think you can be
     a little intimidated to want to change gears and throw people off or something - but we're not Aerosmith,
     we don't have quite the same rabid fanbase. And it (Rachel's) existed in tandem for a long time (with
     Rodan)." 

     As a unit, Rachel's is so open to individual members' ideas that Noble doesn't actually play on the new
     album, Music For Egon Shiele. Instead, piano and viola are augmented by a cellist in a suite of sorts,
     originally played as live accompanyment to a dance and theatre piece performed in Chicago last year.
     Rachel Grimes (coincidentally named, it transpires) explains the concept. 

     "I'd been studying (Schiele's) paintings, reading the play and talking to the choreographer for a while, so a
     lot of that imagery just evoked the music. There are scenes and thematic motifs that run through the whole
     thing, alluding to different characters or states of his work." "If we're talking about the chamber music
     that was actually going on in the Vienna of his day - Schoenburg, Webern and Alban Berg - it's really
     nothing like it. It's similar in flavour to the music that was going on elsewhere in Southern Europe. 

     One of the reasons Grimes got involved in the project was because it was "similar to the idea of working
     with film", and the group are enthusiastic about the possibility of other multimedia ventures. "We are
     involved a little bit with that in our shows at the moment because we have projections, our movies that
     we've shot which we play live," explains Noble. "So we're sort of a variety act!" 

     The group's members all have other occupations: Grimes is a piano teacher and has played in rock groups
     and Renaissance ensembles; Fredrickson is a music student at Juilliard; and Noble is a designer and mural
     painter. Noble reckons that the group is so fluid and mercurial that it would be virtually impossible for it
     to cease. "We're not playing with a typically rock set-up or a classical set-up. It can be any
     instrumentation it wants. If we decide to do an all bagpipe record and if everyone agrees we'll go find some
     bagpipe players. 

     "When we play live, we're playing mainly in rock clubs and to rock audiences, and their getting a different
     aesthetic or atmosphere. If we play one set-up of stuff, it culd be totally different the next night. It could
     be a petite gathering for one evening and be really bawdy the next." 

     MIKE BARNES