Collectress
Their collective ethos, aesthetic and approach are inspired and informed by the practices which complement their performing lives: visual art, composition for film and TV, dance for camera, music informatics and free improvisation. Collectress are a band of process and resourcefulness, and like you to hear as they make. Their broad and dense experimental structures utilise voice, toy instruments and found sound samples alongside layers of more traditional, often romantic, strings, keys and woodwind - violin, viola, cello, flute, piano and guitar. They rail against the airbrushing of an autotuned music industry and record most of their music live, in situ and as a group.
Described as "possessed Brontë sisters teasing an unsuspecting dinner party" (Foxy Digitalis), Collectress are a quartet of musical collaborators from London and Brighton. Their music treads a joyful line between the intricate and organic, with a nod to everyone from Philip Glass to Bach to John Adams, improvisers like The Necks to lo-fi chamber groups such as Rachels.
With a collective biography of collaborations which includes some of the UK's most innovative musicians and performers, including Bat for Lashes, Penguin Café, Philip Selway (Radiohead), Icarus, Ron Caines (East of Eden), Mary Hampton, Patrick Wolf, The Paper Cinema & Secret Cinema, Collectress craft music both daring and unique, but also compellingly familiar and filmic. Recent and forthcoming invitations include: performances at The National Portrait Gallery, Union Chapel, King's Place and The Southbank Centre's WOW Festival; live film scores at the Roundhouse, Greenman Festival & National Portrait Gallery and an installation and performance in response to the Bergman Österberg Archive, Stephen Lawrence Gallery. They were PRS Women Make Music award winners in 2013.