| Oh Perilous World | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | June 26, 2007 | |||
| Length | 70:47 | |||
| Label | Filthy Bonnet | |||
| Rasputina chronology | ||||
| ||||
Oh Perilous World, the fifth full-length studio album from American cello rock band Rasputina, was performed by the band's creator cellist/lead singer Melora Creager and drummer Jonathon TeBeest with second chair Sarah Bowman contributing additional vocals. It is a concept album and was released by the Filthy Bonnet Recording Co., with distribution through Rykodisc. [1]
Following the release of her 2006 solo album, Perplexions , singer/lead cellist Melora Creager spent the time scouring world events and adapting them into songs. She said:
"I wrote the songs featured on Oh Perilous World over the last two years when I realized that current world events were more bizarre than anything I could scrounge up from the distant past. I obsessively read daily news on the Internet and copied words, phrases and whole stories that especially intrigued me and compiled a vast notebook of this material." [2]
The storyline of Oh Perilous World, essentially, is an audit of six years of post-9/11 America and its domestic and foreign policies under President George W. Bush's administration, but told through a fictional steampunk parallel universe. In this world, America is ruled by the tyrannical Queen of Florida, Mary Todd Lincoln, threatening war and occupation of the small, third-world sovereign of Pitcairn Islands (a metaphor for the Middle East) using her blimps and airships. Her opposite number in Pitcairn is an Osama bin Laden-like resistance leader, Thursday October Christian I (in real life the offspring of Fletcher Christian, leader of the Bounty mutineers who settled on the island). [3]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| allmusic |   [4] |
| PopMatters |   [5] |
| Prefix |  [3] |
| Rate Your Music |  [6] |
Travis Woods of Prefix commented, "The strange alt-history storyline works by allowing the listener to step back from the haunting immediacy of current events and yet still gauge the emotional heft and consequence of the pixelated horrors broadcast on our nightly news...Having loosened their corsets enough to allow modern resonance to finally seep into one of their albums, the members of Rasputina have contributed to the pantheon of good art created in the wake of terrible events. Here's hoping, though, that next time around we'll hear an album of great art, with a world less ready to inspire with its televised peril. Or, at the very least, that they'll leave the rawk-guitar bombast for the Capital G's and Good Soldiers of YearZero." [3] Andy Whitman of allmusic commented "..forget the linear, rational explanations and just bask in the audacity of it all. This is a universe inhabited solely by Melora Creager... Oh Perilous World offers the kind of cracked world-view that will either strike you as inspired eccentricity or insufferable lunacy. In either case, it's a wild ride made more palatable by a restless musical imagination. You're unlikely to find a stranger -- or more strangely compelling -- album this year." [4] Jennifer Kelly of PopMatters commented "Literate, carefully constructed, ferociously belted and rocked and drummed, these are songs for a hard-rocking apocalypse. The cello—like the Victorian females who populate these songs—is stronger, and angrier and more desperate than it seems. I’d get out of the way if I were you. This perilous world is about to blow." [5]
All songs written by Melora Creager. [7] [8]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "1816, The Year Without a Summer" | 4:23 |
| 2. | "Choose Me for Champion" | 2:36 |
| 3. | "Cage in a Cave" | 3:50 |
| 4. | "Incident in a Medical Clinic" | 3:52 |
| 5. | "Draconian Crackdown" | 4:02 |
| 6. | "Child Soldier Rebellion" | 3:49 |
| 7. | "Oh Bring Back the Egg Unbroken" | 3:55 |
| 8. | "Old Yellowcake Breaking News" | 0:35 |
| 9. | "In Old Yellowcake" | 4:05 |
| 10. | "We Stay Behind" | 3:19 |
| 11. | "A Retinue of Moons / The Infidel is Me" | 7:05 |
| 12. | "The Pruning" | 4:18 |
| Total length: | 45:56 | |
Standard Edition bonus tracks
| Year | Chart | Position [9] |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Top Heatseekers | 25 |
|
|
Melora Creager is an American cellist, singer-songwriter, performing artist and founder of the rock band Rasputina.
A Radical Recital is a live recording of a Rasputina recital held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at Mr. Smalls Funhouse on Halloween, 2004. It contains songs from the previous Rasputina albums, and lead singer Melora Creager's spoken introductions. It also has their first recorded release of their cover of "Barracuda", a staple of their live shows.
How We Quit the Forest is the second studio album by American rock band Rasputina, released in 1998 by Columbia Records. After years of being out of print, it was re-released by frontwoman Melora Creager on her own label, Filthy Bonnet Recording co., on CD and, for the first time, vinyl in 2011. Former Nine Inch Nails drummer Chris Vrenna produced the album and provided many of its sounds and samples.
Frustration Plantation is the fourth studio album by American rock band Rasputina, released by Instinct Records on March 16, 2004. While not strictly a concept album, Frustration Plantation does have many songs darkly relating to women's lives in the Old South.
Transylvanian Regurgitations is an EP by Rasputina and remixed by Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez which was released in 1997 by Columbia Records. All songs are by Melora Creager except track 6, Brand New Key by Melanie Safka.
The Lost & Found is an EP record by Rasputina, the first edition of which was self-released in 2001 and the second edition, featuring two more cover songs, was released in 2003 by Instinct Records. It consists of covers of songs by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Pink Floyd, Marilyn Manson, Pat Benatar, The Velvet Underground, and Led Zeppelin, as well as a rendition of Mother Goose's nursery rhyme "This Little Piggy." The cover art and packaging was designed by artist Ryan Obermeyer.
Perplexions is an album by Melora Creager, frontwoman and founder of the band Rasputina, which was released on December 4, 2006, through her own record label, Filthy Bonnet Recording Co.
Rev is an album by the American band Ultra Vivid Scene, released in 1992. It was the band's third and final album. The single, an edited "Blood and Thunder", reached number 27 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. Ultra Vivid Scene supported the album by touring with Grant Lee Buffalo.
Jonathon S. TeBeest is an American drummer, born and raised in Montevideo, Minnesota best known for his work in the cello-based group Rasputina. He was a member of the band from 2002 to 2008 and previously been associated with the act 3 Minute Hero where he garnered the nickname "ATHENS-manservant". Jonathon now fronts his band, Sawbones.
Melora a la Basilica is a 1000 unit collector's edition live recording made by American cello rock band Rasputina in Basilica Industria in Hudson, NY, "a behemoth of a defunct glue factory". It is a collection of previous Rasputina songs reworked with new second chair cellist Daniel DeJesus and covers of songs by Goldfrapp, Pearl Jam and the Sweeney Todd and A Clockwork Orange soundtracks. The sound and atmosphere of the record was patterned after the recitals given earlier in the year by Creager and DeJesus.
The Willow Tree Triptych is a limited edition EP by Rasputina, of 100 units which were released in 2009. The album contains 3 different songs from 3 countries, all titled "The Willow Tree", in American, English, Irish. The album also features individual hand-numbered and hand-collaged covers by Melora & Hollis so each CD packaging is unique.
Ancient Cross-Dressing Songs is a 2009 EP by Rasputina. The album contains 3 ancient folksongs about female-to-male crossdressers. It also features a personal message from the band's front woman, Melora Creager. Much like their two previous EPs, Melora a la Basilica and The Willow Tree Triptych, the album is available only via the band's website and is hand-crafted by Creager herself. Of the decision in not using the distribution services of a record label, she opines that,
It's interesting to me that today's music fan sees recordings as "cost per song"- a real iTunes mindset. You will feel better if you look at it like, "Melora made this thing for me with her bare hands."
The Pregnant Concert is a live recording of a recital by American rock band Rasputina held at the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on September 13, 2009. It contains songs from various previous Rasputina albums, covers of a variety of other musicians, and the songs "Holocaust of Giants" and "Kinderhook Hoopskirt Works" from their then upcoming album Sister Kinderhook.
Sister Kinderhook is the sixth full-length album from American rock band Rasputina. It was released on June 15, 2010.
Great American Gingerbread: Rasputina Rarities & Neglected Items is a limited collector's edition compilation album by American cello rock band Rasputina. It was released on April 5, 2011.
Riding a Black Unicorn Down the Side of an Erupting Volcano While Drinking from a Chalice Filled with the Laughter of Small Children is the eighth studio album by dark cabaret singer Aurelio Voltaire, released on September 2, 2011. Beginning with this album, Voltaire would start releasing his material under the moniker "Aurelio Voltaire", in order to avoid confusion with other acts also called "Voltaire".
Raised by Bats is the tenth studio album by Cuban American dark cabaret singer Voltaire, released in 2014. The album's production was crowdfunded by Voltaire's fans all over the world via a successful Indiegogo campaign; it would reach US$53,793, surpassing its originally intended goal of US$10,000. The album is a major departure of Voltaire's musical style; instead of his usual dark cabaret style, Raised by Bats is more death rock- and gothic rock-oriented. According to Voltaire in his official website:
In truth, it's a tour of all of the kinds of music I loved growing up. There are songs on this album that are goth rock, death rock, new wave, New Romantic, dark wave and dark folk. It's the album I've always wanted to make. Some of the songs were written as far back as 1984, when I was 17 years old!
Unknown is the seventh full-length studio album by American cello rock band Rasputina. It was released exclusively on CD through Melora Creager's website on April 10, 2015, and is unlikely to ever be released in digital format – in response to Creager's websites, social media accounts and her own computer being hacked by an identity thief.
Rasputina is an American rock band based in New York City, known for their unconventional music style, as well as their fascination with historical allegories and fashion, especially those pertaining to the Victorian era.
Luis Mojica is a musician & somatic therapist. He began developing his musical style in New York City's East Village. In 2012, he moved upstate to Woodstock, New York.
| |
| Studio albums | |
| EPs | |
| Live albums | |
| Compilations | |
| Related articles | |
