As soon as I heard about Feed the Beast, debut solo foray of Motocade’s mouth, Eden Mulholland, I was eager to get my hands on it. There comes a time in every young slave to the wage’s life where you’re forced to listen to music you really wouldn’t if you had a choice.
For me that time was my tenure as a customer service drone at a prominent fast food restaurant. During those dark times there were two tracks that shone through the pre-autotune sludge that was pop; Motocade’s Bomb Squad and My Friends.
For those of you, like me, who start the musical journey that is Feed the Beast, expecting Motocade, you’re in for a surprise. Feed the Beast couldn’t be further removed from Motocade’s signature hooky poppy rock sound. What Mulholland has crafted is an experimental, multilayered aural masterpiece that defies genre.
No two songs are the same in any sense. Each track appeals to a different sense of appreciation of musical aesthetics. The entire range of human emotion is touched upon over these twelve short tracks, illustrating the incredible talent of Mulholland.
Not immediately danceable in the Saturday night in town sense, these beautiful compositions would be the perfect soundtrack to a freestyle interpretive dance. People drunk in town on a Saturday probably wouldn’t get it anyway. There is great depth to this music, so many subtleties in the layers, so many feelings evoked.
Feed the Beast is available for download and streaming from Eden Mulholland’s Bandcamp (http://edenmulholland.bandcamp.com/).
When reviewing Eden Mulholland's music a certain peculiarity of composition stands out, and that is his refusal or inability to be restrained by genre. Whether writing an anthemic lullaby such as The Big Empty for his band Motocade (2010) or the hauntingly aggressive The Virus for the dance work Body Fight Time (2012), or the tender yet manic Body Fight Time on his aptly named EP, Jesus Don't You Get My Jokes, the juxtaposition of disparate entities seems to come naturally to him. This makes for a filmic quality to much of his music and it comes as no surprise that he is equally at home composing for dance or film as he is for his band and solo work.
In his music, as in life, anything goes. Sadness can be uplifting, desire be as impassive as a rock and memories be as suddenly vivid as the monitor lizards he occasionally sees on his runs up the hill behind his house. If all this sounds poetic then the cap fits. Even his take on pop music involves unexpected arrivals and departures, conventional and operatic voices, ripped apart rhythms and ethereal bridges, solidly resounding hooks and moody ascents.
It's a compositional approach that is enough, as one reviewer said in reference to his Jesus Don't You Get My Jokes EP, "to give you major goosebumps". But this goosebump inducing element, similar to 'duende' in flamenco music or or 'wairua' in Maori composition, also yields pop's signature 'earworms' as evidenced in songs such as I will Echo from his Feed the Beast album (2013), or Holy Moly from his Motocade album Tightrope Highway (2009), songs that enjoyed radio and video impact and longevity. Consequently his artistic reach embraces both a longstanding loyal niche following as well as commercial recognition.