Rabbit Rabbit Radio is the song-spinning project of American, Massachusetts-based duo of violinist, violist, and singer-songwriter Carla Kihlstedt and her partner, drummer Matthias Bossi, who are founding members of the Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Fred Frith’s Cosa Brava, Book of Knots, and Causing a Tiger. Kihlstedt and Bossi publish a new song every month on the Rabbit Rabbit Radio Bandcamp page for the page’s subscribers. These songs are compiled at the end of the year into an album that features a cycle of songs with a distinct theme, with physical versions that present the songs with original collages created by visual artist and actress Rya Kihlstedt (the sister of Carla Kihlstedt). Since 2013, Rabbit Rabbit Radio has published five volumes, as well as many other theatrical productions.
The music of Rabbit Rabbit Radio draws on Kihlstedt and Bossi’s collective love of art song, folk song, industrial music, improvised music, and heart-wrenching balladry. Kihlstedt and Bossi promise that if you listen closely, you will hear traces of their many musical associations, but this project is their own personal challenge: «a dare to peel back influence and to reveal a music that is stripped down and intimate, and all the more powerful for it».
The Viennese label Klanggalerie has already rereleased Rabbit Rabbit Radio’s Volume 2 (Swallow Me Whole) and Volume 3 (Year of the Wooden Horse). Volume 4 – The Animal I Am was originally released by Rabbit Rabbit Radio in 2021 and is now rereleased by Klanggalerie. Rabbit Rabbit Radio published the following, Volume 5 – Love is Code, in 2022, and Volume 6, which completes the trilogy of volumes 4 to 6, is still in progress.
Kihlstedt does not say much about this volume, except that it is about love, and «it is more thorn than rose». The eleven poetic and often surreal songs, as usual, suggest the missing link between art-rock and free music. Kihlstedt’s evocative, commanding vocal delivery is at the center, but she, Bossi, guitarist and electronics player Jeremy Fowler, and bassist-guitarist Jon Evans are equal partners in devising the complex, dramatic, and rich musical universes of this volume. These songs will make you think and rethink about the endless spectrum of feelings love contains, as well as its vital power. But these songs will also make you move and even dance, and, no doubt, will send you searching for the other volumes of Rabbit Rabbit Radio and the other musical adventures of Kihlstedt and Bossi.
Eyal Hareuveni
Carla Kihlstedt (vocals, violin, viola), Matthias Bossi (drums, beats, synthesizer, vocals), Jeremy Flower (electric guitar, electronics), Jon Evans (electric bass, double bass, lap steel guitar)
