Dark Shadows: The Moviolas

The Moviolas is an ensemble based around the talents of composer and multi-instrumentalist Waldo Fabian, lyricist and scenarist Philip Hayward and video artist Grayson Cooke. The ensemble's recordings also feature various guest vocalists and instrumentalists. The band came together in 2014 to produce music that draws on the sonic traditions and atmospheres of cinema 're-versioned' to work as stand-alone music. Combining songs, dialogue and narration with a variety of instrumental textures and feels; the Moviolas' music creates vivid scenarios and dramatic fragments of narrative in audio form. In live performances the core ensemble is augmented by Grayson Cooke's visual improvisations that create visual textures that interweave with the musical flow to give a rich live experience. The band's debut album 'Dark Shadows' explores a number of key elements of Horror cinema. It includes songs, such as 'Trick or Treating', that draw on key themes in youth-orientated films from John Carpenter's original Halloween to the I know what you did last Summer series. Other tracks function as virtual 'mini-movies', providing an atmospheric narrative in a short format. 'The Last Tango' is an intense cameo that relates the story of a tango band's performance being cut short when a zombie contagion takes over the audience. Other tracks draw on scenes from Latin American cinema and folklore, such as the album's atmospheric title track, inspired by the popular 1960s TV horror series 'Dark Shadows' but rendered as a chilling tale of exile. 'Pincoya's Revenge' also mobilises figures from Chilean folklore to enact revenge on corrupt intruders, set to an intense sound collage. Complementing these original tracks the album also includes contemporary re-workings of classic Hollywood horror film themes from The Shining and Halloween" acknowledging the roots of the Moviolas' project.