Guelph, Southwest Ontario. Known as the ‘Royal City’, this town of 120,000 people is perhaps the most fitting place on Earth in which to find Evan Abeele and Denis Nuvion.
For starters this locality is rated in the Top 10 places to live in Canada-which is saying something considering the overwhelming cleanliness and natural beauty of said nation. Secondly, the residents are thought to be amongst the most educated in the country, and its streets are the safest.
As for the two musicians, known together as Memoryhouse, they create a rich aural tapestry that references dream pop, ambient electronica, and progressive rock. Think Explosions In The Sky melded with The Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, and Air. For want of a better summary, it’s the kind of soundtack destined for some emotive piece of celluloid, suggesting love, peace, happiness, and, above all else, a life void of stress.
And that makes perfect sense. Their debut album, The Slideshow Effect, just arrived, and has earned them some critical praise in the right places. The title itself is a reference to a camera trick wherein pictures appear ‘animated’ thanks to a series of zooms and pans, giving life to that which was still. Furthermore, Abeele and Nuvion began their partnership as a duo that matched the former’s music with the latter’s short films and photography.
Suffice to say then their suitability for cinema and visual media is not accidental. Even now Memoryhouse regularly accompany their arrangements with video work when performing live, so we should expect something similar when they touch down for a British tour in March. Dublin, Manchester, Bristol, and London are all on the agenda, any of which should be highly worthwhile checking out, so for further details head Sub Pop online, the label carrying their work;
http://www.subpop.com/artists/memoryhouse
This post was written by Tim Osbourne
