Cloudboy Return For One Performance Only By Popular Demand

Sunday 20 May Paramount Theatre, Wellington

When avant-pop group Cloudboy commenced their nationwide tour at the end of March, Noel Meek of LOOP posed a question: "Many may ask why Cloudboy were cooped up in a venue the size of BATS when there were people turned away at the door every night and their sound is potentially stadium-filling. Utterly unmissable a second time."

Now, in response to public demand, strong sales for the 'Down At The End Of The Garden' album, and huge radio play during the b-net NZ Music Week, that second time has come.

The Dunedin/Wellington pop experimentalists bring back their lavish theatrical musical extravaganza to treat Wellington again, with a special performance at the Paramount Theatre.

This will be your last chance to experience the show that audiences throughout New Zealand have been describing as the best show they've seen all year.

The Cloudboy show blurs the boundaries of concert and theatre in a combination of live and electronic music, film and pantomime, with material drawn from 'Down At The End Of The Garden', a collection of 15 avant-pop gems ranging from detailed miniatures to lushly epic soundscapes.

Core players Demarnia Lloyd (singer/narrator), Craig Monk (violin, guitar, keyboard) and Johannes Contag (flute, electronics) will be joined by vocalists Andy Cummings, J T Mitchell and John White, and a group of guest musicians including Chris O'Connor (drums) and Phil Boniface (double bass) picked from Wellington's improv jazz scene, in front of film projections staged by Dunedin Fringe Festival VJ Alan Thomasson. Donna Demente, who has been transforming Oamaru's historic quarter and defining the tone of Nelson's Wearable Arts awards, provides sets and costumes and also appears in the show.

The three sold-out shows at BATS Theatre that opened the recent NZ tour drew immediate and enthusiastic responses.

Cam, a regular and knowledgeable contributor to the online NZ-POP List, attended the first two performances. He described the Cloudboy sound as "drawing from pulsy Krautrock, classical, dance, European folk music and anything but the blues... Rich and rewarding, seductive and complete, Cloudboy hark back to the art-band mischief of the late 70s with the sound of the new century - think Mental Notes-era Split Enz filtered through Spiritualized! It's the return of theatrical rock!"

In weekly scene guide The Package, reviewer The Knave was also entranced: "Bathed in a soft green and incense, Cloudboy hold me captive in their garden... The mood and emotion of their music and the theatrics slipped tastefully hand in hand, creating a complete and enchanting show."

The performance at Arc Café in Dunedin was described as "unbelievable" by Roi Colbert, doyen of that city's sound. He went on to say, "I haven't seen anything this good in this country for a long time. So much to watch and hear and reel from... movies... costumes... weird people scampering across the stage with bowed shoulders... a backing chorus... Demarnia was beyond compare."

The Auckland performances drew a number of enthusiastic luminaries, including Shayne P. Carter, who has himself been getting many positive notices of late. With typical ascerbity, Carter described the show as "brilliant."

The songs in the concert come from the debut Cloudboy album, five years in the making. The 15-track CD is receiving rave reviews throughout local print media.

In the NZ Listener, Nick Bollinger wrote of the album's "sparkling poppy gems", and described it as "insanely hooky... stubbornly individual and curiously beautiful."

Russell Baillie of the NZ Herald gave the album a four-star review: "imaginative pop of just-so poise with a hint of darkness."

Four-star reviews were also forthcoming from Ripitup's Brock Oliver ("Down at the End of the Garden is a fragile lullaby that swoons and crystallises like snowflakes, gently brushing your senses... Devonshire electronica, with minimal lashings of cream ."), and Darryl Baser in the Otago Daily Times ("pop heavenŠan indy-dance album of international standing").

John Taite in Real Groove was similarly enthusiastic - "Equal parts psychedelic fantasy and orchestral experiment - an eclectic slice of brilliance that will be treasured by those who possess it." - as was Noel Meek in Loop: "A startlingly original avant-pop album album of rare beauty and exquisite composition... there is genius hidden in this exquisite seraphic voice."

Good as the album is, the live performance by Cloudboy will take you into another dimension entirely.

Do not miss this last chance to see the Down at the End of the Garden show.

CLOUDBOY
Paramount Theatre One Show Only 8pm,
Sunday 20 May Book now through Ticketek (local outlets, or phone 384 3840 / www.ticketek.co.nz). $20 standard tickets; $15 concession (students, seniors, CS card and Activecard holders)

For more on Cloudboy, check out:
http://coffee.co.nz/cloudboy/main%20page.html (the Arc Café-hosted site)
http://loop.co.nz/?m=634 (full reviews of the BATS shows)
http://loop.co.nz/?m=715 (full review of the album)
http://loop.co.nz/?m=581 (un-chart-ed Cloudboy feature on mp3)
http://loop.co.nz/?m=602 (Demarnia interviewed)

or contact mark@cubey.com, 021 2200 400

Cloudboy will perform in transformed guise at Radio Active's Stars In Their Ears show (local artists interpret classic Kiwi hits), at Indigo in Cuba Street this Friday 11 May.

Cloudboy will also do an in-store performance at Real Groovy Records, corner of Cuba and Abel Smith Streets, next Friday 18 May at 6pm.

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Mark Cubey / mark@cubey.com / 021 2200 400 PO Box 9699, Wellington, Aotearoa (New Zealand)

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