Black Flamingo at the Echo on Monday March 28th, 2011
Opening on Monday night at the Echo – there were actually 4 bands playing that night, but I only stayed for two! – was Black Flamingo, a six-member band, 3 girls and 3 guy, with four frontman/women, Kimi Recor and Ammo (Amberlie Bankoff) on vocals, guitar and bass, wearing long black dresses, Mareeesa Stertz vocals and keyboard, wearing a contrasting short glittering one, and Chris Vick on guitar, exhibiting high black horse boots.
Their sound captivated right away the audience with its choral-like female airy vocals floating above stretching-hypnotic keyboard notes, like in songs called ‘Black Heart’, and ‘Proud Head’ which had something haunting-relaxing and extremely soothing, opening infinite and quiet landscapes.
Their hybrid folk-pop was sometimes evoking the 70s, probably because of the Mamas and the Papas side of their choir-like melancholic vocals, but it was obviously much more complex than this and a combination of several things. They even used an harmonica and a mini accordion at some point.
On their page, they define their sound as ‘tropical goth’, a very strange word juxtaposition which does not completely make sense! But if I understand the goth aspect, I did not hear much of the tropical part except than one of the guys (Alex Possell or Poul Johansen as they were two guys doing percussion) was using bongos.
I understand they want to be dark and goth, but I found most of their tunes quite upbeat, working like the magic concoctions of some good witches with breezy voices flying high above the guitars and the bongos.
