The 5.6.7.8's are an all-female Japanese garage rock trio, whose music is reminiscent of American surf music, rockabilly and garage rock. They frequently cover songs from American Rock & Roll records. The group have so named themselves because they play music reminiscent of 1950s, '60s, '70s, and '80s rock.
Benjamin Frankel's music, if you have not encountered it before, is atonally lyrical - Berg rather than Schoenberg. His violin concerto (also on CPO) is among the finest works of the century and can easily stand compare with the Berg and the Schuman. The film music, of which there are many scores (most of which will have to be reconstructed by the hopefully indefatigable Dmitri Kennaway), are fibrous British film music of the 1950s and 1960s in which Frankel marginally softens his pallet for cinema audiences. Interesting that Elizabeth Lutyens made money from using her avant-garde style for horror films. Frankel's concert and chamber works (CPO have the complete string quartets) are ominous, lyrical, threatening, gloomy, charged with the uncertain catastrophic spirit of the times. These various works achieved as …..Rob Barnett @ musicweb-international.com
Naturally 7 came into being in 1999 in their home city of New York. Seeking to revolutionize the a cappella music genre, the seven vocalists not only created beautiful harmonies, but broke new ground by creating the rhythm tracks (including guitar, drum, bass, and horn sounds) with their voices alone. Calling their new approach to instrument-free music "vocal play," the band wowed audiences all over the States, leaving concert-goers in disbelief.