“Goldenrod” Pavo Pavo

Pavo Pavo have announced their new album Mystery Hour will arrive on January 25th via Bella Union. The band have shared a taste of the album with a video for the first single “Goldenrod”. Pavo Pavo is the recording project of Oliver Hill and Eliza Bagg.

Pavo Pavo on on “Goldenrod”

“Goldenrod came together in an afternoon at the piano – it was kind of the bleakest song I’d written, and when I went to make a demo, I didn’t want to hear my voice so clearly singing those words, it seemed more comfortable coming from some anonymous source. So I sang it at a lower key and pitch shifted my voice up, making a new character come out of the speakers. Then, when a garbled, auto-tuned Eliza joined in a rope of harmony all the way through, it became a sort of alien heartbreak duet, and we didn’t touch the recording anymore, we just put that demo on the record.”

Pavo Pavo began at Yale University, where the duo both studied music – they met playing in the same string quartet. Since that time, Eliza and Oliver have become prolific and vital collaborators at the intersection of classical, experimental and pop music. As a soprano, Eliza has worked closely on new music with Meredith Monk, Julianna Barwick, John Zorn, Caroline Shaw, and Ben Frost. Oliver has arranged strings for tracks by the Dirty Projectors, Helado Negro and Wet, and is a member of Kevin Morby and Vagabon’s touring bands.

The album draws thematic inspiration from a wide range of media: Ingmar Bergman’s Persona to choreographer Pina Bausch, painter David Hockney, and multi-media artist Alex da Corte. Photographer Natalie O’Moore’s album cover depicts Eliza and Oliver in turbulent conversation at the beach, resembling a film still to mirror the album’s narrative drama.

“The beach is an image that keeps coming back to us – the edge of the world, with the possibility of exiting it,” Oliver says. “The idea for this cover is that it builds on the Young Narrator cover, with two figures casting long shadows on the beach. That cover was a collage and this is a photograph, the hi-res, come-to-life version.”

Pavo Pavo
Mystery Hour
track list

1. Mystery Hour
2. Mon Cheri
3. Easy
4. 100 Years
5. Check The Weather
6. Close To Your Ego
7. The Other Half
8. Around Part 1
9. Around Part 2
10. Statue Is A Man Inside
11. Goldenrod

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