Cabiria – No time for Dreaming.

While I have no intention to make a regular habit out supporting local bands, the sound represented by Cabiria is rare enough to merit an exception. I first became aware of their melancholic trip hop music through a co-worker who invited me to see their show. Ok, I said warily, expecting another unpalatable drop in the sea of self indulgent garage rock and post punk pop. The band I encountered had little to do with current fads though, invoking instead murky black and white atmospheres through Claudio Morella’s film buff compositions. Still as with most unusual acts I decided I needed more than one listening (and drink) to take it all in, and luckily after going to a couple of shows and putting myself on the mailing list I was able to procure a copy of their first release.

‘No time for dreaming’ picks up where albums like Portishead’s ‘Dummy’ or Tricky’s ‘Nearly god’ left off. In other words this brand of trip hop is not thinly veiled dance music; it is a dreamlike venture through cautiously paced songs with great synth, piano and drums as a sturdy backbone for Valerie Brinker’s ethereal soprano vocals. Rounding out the Sex and Violins appeal is the strong string performance of Erin Mcfee who makes songs such as Still sound much better than a bands first album should.

Thematically speaking every time I spin this album I get flashbacks from Christopher Nolan’s (Memento, Batman Begins) early zero budget film ‘Following’. Following is a grainy neo noir movie that revolves around breaking into peoples homes just to study their personal possessions and draw conclusions about their lives. Likewise ‘No time for dreaming’ keeps us in a gray world devoid of artificial light while we sneak peeks into the diaries of Claudio Morella, Vallerie Brinker and Jen Barone who provides spoken word samples from her book Simple Language. This guilty pleasure is accentuated by the type writer and notebook themes used in the CD’s interior art.

The albums only significant flaw is one I would have not even noticed where it not for the bands name. Cabiria takes its name from Fellini’s Oscar winning ‘Nights of Cabiria’, a film that responds to life’s disappointments with layers of beautifully orchestrated chaos. ‘No time for dreaming’ never indulges in the gleeful insanity that marks the movies climax, or in other words for a group of Berklee college of music alumni they really shy away from performing the solos they are capable of. While one could argue that doing so would betray the sober, mature mood, I would love to see somebody try to replicate with their instrument the dancing, laughing agony that Giulietta Masina exposed us to when we first saw ‘Nights of Cabiria’.

Purchase this independently published album at www.cabiriamusic.com