Doramaar was a band from New Zealand. They formed in 1994, and initially consisted of Kim Pieters, Adria Morgan, Sara Stephenson, and Andre Richardson. They released their debut album, Copula, on Bruce Russell's Corpus Hermeticum label. Richardson left the band soon after this. As a trio, the band released their second album, Terra Incognita, on the Fusetron label in March 1996. They disbanded a few months later
Volcanic Tongue
"Coalescing around the inspiration of Kim Pieters (Dadamah, Rain, Flies Inside The Sun), the line-up on this album includes Sara Stephenson, Adria Morgan and Andre Richardson. Favoring a revolving door policy with instruments, the group employ guitar, bass, synthesizer, organ, drums and voice to create sound-worlds that are at once enticing and threatening, like the paradigmatic songs of the sirens in Jacques Attali's Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Their approach is strictly 'free form'; collective improvisation is emphasized at all times and the group have the uncanny cohesion and singleness of purpose which all truly great improvisational ensembles possess."
"Doramaar was Kim Pieters, Adria Morgan and Sara Stephenson. They're notable for being an all-lady (non-academic) free-improv / free-rock group (however on this first album a guy named Andre Richardson also plays a bit I think). Kim Pieters was in a bunch of New Zealand projects, most notably Dadamah, whose stuff is worth checking out if you're feeling some (more song-based) nineties-underground-rock vibes, I'd recommend searching for This is Not A Dream which has most if not all their recordings, I forget which blogs have posted that. Anyways, Doramaar were made this album and another really great one called Terra Incognita which you can still order on lp from Chris at Fusetron who put it out back in the day. I have that one too and I guess I would have uploaded it if I didnt leave all my records at my grandmother's apartment in NY and if I had some fancy usb turntable, sorry.
Even though part of this group's project was about being a group of women making unstructured music I'll avoid getting into any 'musique féminin' stuff about jouissance or whatever (There's a pretty good interview with them here where Pieters mentions some feminist motivations if you are interested). Still these are some deeply murky, oceanic, submerged-cave-y tracks. Theyre really 'raw' without being really harsh, sometimes sort of dark and heavy without seeming cold or too bleak (at least for me). And they have the nice basement / tunnel vibes you hear on a lot of the better (in my opinion) recording of free music with rock-instrumentation. I guess I could include some more descriptions about nocturnal haze or slow trips through mud to the center of the earth or something. But you should download this album and check it out if you're interested in free-form music, free-form music made by women, New Zealand 90s stuff, under-rated noise / rock from the 90s, murky stuff, drone-y spaced-out freaky stuff, whatever, all or any of those."
