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Review: 'SILVER LAKE CHORUS, THE'
'The Silver Lake Chorus'   

-  Label: 'Six Degrees Records'
-  Genre: 'Indie' -  Release Date: '27th May 2016'

Our Rating:
Now here's something different!

This is one of those albums that sounds better the more you understand the background but otherwise is nigh on impossible to categorize.

The 'band' consists of a 20 plus member chorus from Los Angeles. The performances are versions of eleven songs specially written for them by contemporary artists such as Sia, Aimee Mann, The Flaming Lips and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver).

The chorus were formed in 2010 by music director Mikey Wells but it was only when Australian singer and producer Ben Lee came on board that it evolved into a fully fledged recording project. Lee was able to make good use of his contacts to find artists willing to write songs to sing. He also contributes one himself (Overboard).

The broad brief was to take choral music from the narrow associations with the classical tradition of Bach or Mozart into the 21st century by using the works of Indie musicians.

The arrangements are as varied as the songs submitted. For example, Hold Up For by Tegan and Sara uses only female voices while Heavy Star Movin' by Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd is rendered as a relatively modest chamber ensemble piece.

One of the most successful tracks is From the Snow-Topped Hills by Justin Vernon which was initially sent to the chorus with gibberish in place of words. Lyrics were subsequently added after the tune was accepted. The video of this song (see below) is well worth seeing to get a clearer sense of what this album is about.    

Vernon's piece is actually one of just two tracks that uses only voices, the other being Heather Ogilvy's Home Come Home. The remaining nine tracks are backed by discreet classical instrumentation and/or synthesizers.

Nervous Soul by Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard is piano driven and ,with its Beach Boy style harmonies, sounds more like conventional orchestrated pop (albeit with knobs on!).

A remix version of this album has already been released and the further possibilities are endless so long as TSLC can continue to find artists prepared to donate original material.

It would be a pity if the chorus became a novelty act doing cover versions of familiar hits in a kind of classical goes pop enterprise. Hopefully, this won't happen as Wells has set his sights high and spoken of his ambition for the chorus to become a LA institution.

If they were from the UK you would probably think in terms of church choirs but since this is America the harmonic richness is more of the type you'd find in Broadway musicals.

Entertainment, not exaltation, is the goal and judged on these terms it is a glittering success which could run and run.



TSLC's website
  author: Martin Raybould

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SILVER LAKE CHORUS, THE - The Silver Lake Chorus