Silica Gel - May Day
LP
Coming out of the underground DIY scene of Birmingham, Alabama Silica Gel's sound is a unique synthesis of early medieval music with custom electronics and avant-folk elements. The core of their debut album adapts a series of songs from the 12th - 14th centuries, including the satirical text Roman de Fauvel, which tells the story of a vain horse who rises to prominence in the French royal court. Silica Gel transforms this music into a fitting political allegory for our time through distortion & repetition of language, layering time upon itself in a conceptual historical loop. The music evokes the sound of peasants being churned through the wheels of industry..disembodied voices return to us from the other side of a several hundred year technological process.
This record is a caterwauling from a long-displaced subconscious - an elegant and haunting
construction that creaks with all the psychic weight we’re feeling ourselves to be bearing.
Silica Gel has offered us a medieval meal upon a greasy newspaper spoon, a pre-packaged
euphemistic eucharist for this modern festival from before the future.
-The Earth Hotel Podcast, Dec 3, 2020 episode interview with Silica Gel
Taking the record as a whole, the sounds stretching back to Early Music and into the future
of mixed electronic and acoustic music, the commentary, art, and other visuals, I couldn't
ask for a more perfect experience than Silica Gel's May Day. The most recent contemporary
record I similarly related to is Julia Holter's Aviary. When I first heard May Day, I thought
of Holter writing a folk horror score, which I hope they take as a compliment.
-Stephen McClurg
B-sides & Ballads Review
LP
Coming out of the underground DIY scene of Birmingham, Alabama Silica Gel's sound is a unique synthesis of early medieval music with custom electronics and avant-folk elements. The core of their debut album adapts a series of songs from the 12th - 14th centuries, including the satirical text Roman de Fauvel, which tells the story of a vain horse who rises to prominence in the French royal court. Silica Gel transforms this music into a fitting political allegory for our time through distortion & repetition of language, layering time upon itself in a conceptual historical loop. The music evokes the sound of peasants being churned through the wheels of industry..disembodied voices return to us from the other side of a several hundred year technological process.
This record is a caterwauling from a long-displaced subconscious - an elegant and haunting
construction that creaks with all the psychic weight we’re feeling ourselves to be bearing.
Silica Gel has offered us a medieval meal upon a greasy newspaper spoon, a pre-packaged
euphemistic eucharist for this modern festival from before the future.
-The Earth Hotel Podcast, Dec 3, 2020 episode interview with Silica Gel
Taking the record as a whole, the sounds stretching back to Early Music and into the future
of mixed electronic and acoustic music, the commentary, art, and other visuals, I couldn't
ask for a more perfect experience than Silica Gel's May Day. The most recent contemporary
record I similarly related to is Julia Holter's Aviary. When I first heard May Day, I thought
of Holter writing a folk horror score, which I hope they take as a compliment.
-Stephen McClurg
B-sides & Ballads Review