Room for manoeuvre
IT'S 6pm and Dyonisis members pour in, gradually, to their unusual rehearsal space - a front room off Bramall Lane.
"We don't have a drummer," says bassist Marcus Cave, "so we don't make that much noise. It's also one less person to argue with."
But while, at least in rehearsals, the band might not be busting the decibels, they do push the scope of their songs. From synthetic dark beats to clean folk-like vocal melodies - Dyonisis' musical vocabulary is vast and surprisingly disparate.
Strong, organic, feminine vocals are fused with industrial, inorganic beats. Guitar playing is epic but set in compact melodies, producing a repertoire packed with surprises.
"There are a lot of influences," says Nel Cave (vocals), "including some folk influences in the vocals. There are lots of melodies in folk music that have stood the test of time, though other members are not that into it, like Tom (Chaffer, guitarist)."
Lyrically, songs explore personal experience, touching on universal themes: "Sometimes lyrics pop into my head, whereas other times I have to work at them. With the track Oxygen I was listening to the demo while tidying up the house and it just came to me," says Nel, the band's lyricist. "I usually write about things that are on my mind.
"Being in a band is great in that sense, you can express things that you can't express elsewhere in life. There are things from my past that have affected the rest of my life, which I find difficult to express through any other medium than song."
Such themes have resonated with audiences. "The songs are broad enough in their interpretation that people can see elements of their own experience in the songs. We actually had a couple contact us through our MySpace page to ask if they could walk down the aisle to one of our songs," says Marcus.
Marriage is not an unfamiliar theme to the band as Nel and Marcus are married. She said: "We were together before the band started but it works out as it takes up so much of your time. You learn to switch into another mode.
"I'm also a sound engineer so I am deeply involved in that, so when we're playing gigs we don't look much like a married couple."
The band was formed by Nel and Tom Chaffer. "Tom and I started writing - we used to mess around with synths and programmed beats and gradually incorporated them into songs," says Nel.
This week Dyonisis release their album, Intoxicated. "It's more cohesive than our EP, which includes a lot of oddities, like a 16-minute version of a track called Rainy Day. The EP bridges the material me and Tom wrote and us as a four-piece band, whereas the album is just us as a band,"? says Nel.
The album features a guest drummer and master violinist Matt Howden, aka Sieben, who will also be playing live with Dyonisis for their album launch at Penelopes this week.
Already Dyonisis have built up a following across the country, gigging outside of Sheffield on a regular basis.
"Lots of bands in Sheffield ask us how we manage to gig so much elsewhere but it's because we travel light. We don't have a drum kit and big amps so for 40 we can get to Coventry."
And while next month sees the band travel to Newcastle, York and Manchester, for now the band are focused only on the album: "I hope people will like it and enjoy it enough to buy it," says Marcus. "That's enough for us."
Dyonisis play at Penelopes, Arundel Gate on Saturday (May 29).
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Weather for Sheffield
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Heavy snow
Temperature: -2 C to -0 C
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