What started out as an experiment in
songwriting has blossomed into a productive creative outlet for
Bagheera, a husband-and-wife duo from St. Louis.
A few years ago, Theodore Moll, the drummer
in MU330, a popular underground ska/punk band, decided that it was
time to start playing guitar and writing songs. He got a four-track
recorder and started messing with it. His wife, Heather Dallape,
joined the fray, and soon they were writing tunes together,
recording them, and burning CDs to share with friends.
One of those friends was Mike Park, owner of
Asian Man Records, a low-key, high-profile one-man record company
that handles the distribution of MU330’s catalog. After
hearing the song stylings of our happily married couple, Park
agreed to release a CD of the music if they rerecorded it in a real
studio. The outcome was Twelves, a fresh, thoughtful selection of songs brimming
with strong vocals, vibrant harmonies, and peculiar lyrics.
The duo’s fascination with science and
nature shines through, even in the titles of the songs. With
“Isolation in an Accelerating Universe” hanging out
with “Shape vs. Concentration (Within a Vacuum)” and
leaving room for “Bulb-changer” and
“Solstice,” you get the feeling we’re not dealing
with empty-brained knuckleheads. Then comes “Long
Division,” a terrific collage of buzzing noises and whirling
sounds set off by naked guitar lines leading to the opening line of
“Thinking over what you said like pulling teeth from an empty
head.”
As far as I can tell, the couple never even
mentions long division, but who cares? The song has a musical
gravitational pull the size of a small planet. Last fall the duo began
filling out the sound with the addition of a bass player and drummer.
So far the group has played mostly in the St. Louis area, with a few
trips to cities around the Midwest. At the end of May they crossed the
Atlantic to gig in merry old England, playing at punk shows, festivals
and local bars. This weekend marks their first appearance in
Springfield, so support good family values and go take a listen.
Bagheera plays Viele’s Planet, (126 E.
Jefferson St., 217-525-9029) Saturday, July 23, with Resident
Genius and Tall. The music starts at 10 p.m. and goes until 2
a.m. or so.
This article appears in Jul 21-27, 2005.
