Rainbow Arabia Live at EchoPlex in Los Angeles, CA 11/09/2010

Rainbow Arabia are an interesting electronic duo out of the Echo Park area of Los Angeles. I just found out about them through their opening slot on the Nitzer Ebb concert at the EchoPlex.

My first impression was that they reminded me of The Creatures due to the ethnic sounds used on some of the loops and samples, bringing to mind the era when Siouxsie and Budgie experimented with islander influences and other regional rhythms and sounds.

They do vary quite heavily from this generalisation however, in that they also have a very trippy sound that could stray into shoe-gazer atmospheres at times.

The lead singer is a rather attractive woman who is also rather hard to get a read on as you can never really see her eyes while singing. Her vocal styles range quite a bit even in one song but they can be pretty atmospheric at times, it being questionable whether she is singing lyrics at many points or just using her voice as an instrument but it also reminded me of at times, Aural Vampire from Japan. Both of these comparisons are meant to be compliments and I usually don't make those parallels unjustified.

Her counterpart was a man in plaid and a fedora manipulating electronics, and at times manual sound making devices to be sampled, looped, or processed in some fashion. One thing I really liked was that all of the sounds were coming from live generation, even if at times there were awkward silences or odd adjustment phases to some of the synths.

The singer also played guitar on some songs, the sounds being heavily processed and becoming cool modulating walls of sound rather than articulated finger plucked guitar, it worked quite well with their over all sound.

While not being exactly what I would have expected playing a gig with industrial EBM legends, Nitzer Ebb, they were interesting and managed to hold their own. The good thing about Nitzer Ebb fans is that many of them went through the evolution of electronic music that bands like Nitzer Ebb brought about in the eighties so they are very open to new forms of electronic music.

The singer would at times crouch down in front of the keyboards, almost curled up into a ball of angst (or a bad trip, hard to tell from the lyrics I understood). This worked OK because the place had not filled in yet but with the stage only three feet of the ground, if it had been packed, she would have only been visible by the first couple of rows.

Overall, I thought they did a good job and held the audience into their vibe. I do use the word vibe though, as it is definitely kind of a trippy journey with an interesting layering of styles and textures.

I do find their thematic and lyrical content a bit hard to decipher. A name like Rainbow Arabia brings a lot of possible connotations to mind and honestly none of any questions about the choice of the name or what they are about were answered. In many cases, I am not sure that the text is the point and the vocalizations are just meant to be another layer of music or meant to be studied and a message gleaned.




						Rainbow Arabia Live at The EchoPlex in Los Angeles, CA November 9th, 2010 Rainbow Arabia are an interesting electronic duo out of the Echo Park area of Los Angeles. I just found out about them through their opening slot on the Nitzer Ebb concert at the EchoPlex. My first impression was that they reminded me of The Creatures due to the ethnic sounds used on some of the loops and samples, bringing to mind the era when Siouxsie and Budgie experimented with islander influences and other regional rhythms and sounds. They do vary quite heavily from this generalisation however, in that they also have a very trippy sound that could stray into shoe-gazer atmospheres at times. The lead singer is a rather attractive woman who is also rather hard to get a read on as you can never really see her eyes while singing. Her vocal styles range quite a bit even in one song but they can be pretty atmospheric at times, it being questionable whether she is singing lyrics at many points or just using her voice as an instrument but it also reminded me of at times, Aural Vampire from Japan. Both of these comparisons are meant to be compliments and I usually don't make those parallels unjustified. Her counterpart was a man in plaid and a fedora manipulating electronics, and at times manual sound making devices to be sampled, looped, or processed in some fashion. One thing I really liked was that all of the sounds were coming from live generation, even if at times there were awkward silences or odd adjustment phases to some of the synths. The singer also played guitar on some songs, the sounds being heavily processed and becoming cool modulating walls of sound rather than articulated finger plucked guitar, it worked quite well with their over all sound. While not being exactly what I would have expected playing a gig with industrial EBM legends, Nitzer Ebb, they were interesting and managed to hold their own. The good thing about Nitzer Ebb fans is that many of them went through the evolution of electronic music that bands like Nitzer Ebb brought about in the eighties so they are very open to new forms of electronic music. The singer would at times crouch down in front of the keyboards, almost curled up into a ball of angst (or a bad trip, hard to tell from the lyrics I understood). This worked OK because the place had not filled in yet but with the stage only three feet of the ground, if it had been packed, she would have only been visible by the first couple of rows. Overall, I thought they did a good job and held the audience into their vibe. I do use the word vibe though, as it is definitely kind of a trippy journey with an interesting layering of styles and textures. I do find their thematic and lyrical content a bit hard to decipher. A name like Rainbow Arabia brings a lot of possible connotations to mind and honestly none of any questions about the choice of the name or what they are about were answered. In many cases, I am not sure that the text is the point and the vocalizations are just meant to be another layer of music or meant to be studied and a message gleaned.


























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