"The best flutist in the Bay Area." -- Celeste Hutchins, composer and Other Minds Board member

Reviews of Polly Moller live

"For better or for worse, Hammer Girth provided the single most memorable moment: The quartet threw itself into a sloggy parody of a grand rock opera like a nerdy Zeppelin, comlete with hooded cloaks and incoherent mysticism. Get down with Mercury retrograde, flautist Polly Moller sang in an overwrought falsetto, adding lightly tripping La la la vocals as if she were gamboling through the Swiss alps. As a finale, one slow and bombatsic riff kept building and building and building, but to no end -- just starting over again and again until the audience was literally moaning and screaming for release from the rock 'n' roll equivalent of blue balls. 'Now let's see whose song gets stuck in your head,' bassist Vicky Grossi crowed as the crowd continued to chant the riff once the band finally finished, amid cries that might as easily have been 'uncle' as 'encore'.

'Kill them!" someone shouted." -- Sam Hurwitt reviewing the Rock Lotto, East Bay Express, April 20, 2005

"Polly Moller is a performance artist who has expanded her classical flute training and more traditional avant-garde background with diverse influences such as Celtic, new wave, and trip-hop. To close the evening's program, she was joined by Grant Gardner, guitar, and Jim Carr, bass. Each of Moller's four selections utilizes a text of some sort which is frequently associated with some sort of movement/choreography. The spoken sections were sometimes inaudible, which may have been intentional or possibly just a problem with the sound system. Especially effective were the alternation of flute with spoken word in "Three Quarters" (Nubanusit & Contoocook) and the hypnotic repetitive patterns in "Taste the Wall." -- Susan Waller, SF Classical Voice (02/24/04)

"Polly Moller, an artist from the San Francisco Bay Area, delivered a song-like poem about a bayou spirit that receives a familiar sacrificial gift. Using her breath to draw out each word, she hung on each tone and sound. With sounds from a self-produced ambient creation oscillating in the background, her performance had an ethereal yet ceremonial flavor." -- Amy Coombs, Santa Cruz Sentinel, September 24, 2003 (covering Polly's performance of "Plaquemine Brulée" at the Woodstockhausen festival)

Reviews of Polly Moller - Diogenes

"Diogenes is very nice and surreal. This CD rocks." -- Xavier Vasquez, KCR/KPBS

"Alter your impression of the flute
forever and expose yourself to the angst-ridden beat of Polly Moller. Spawned from an orchestra that no doubt harbored repressed anger, in 1995 Moller rebelled, taking fragments of instrumental sections with her. Abandoning the traditional classical fare, Moller transforms her life’s traumas into spoken beat pieces that twitch and taunt. The “urban assault flautist” will call you out with her driven beat-conscious voice and draw you in with angry instrumental interludes during which you will chew on her vivid descriptions. When she whispers, you will listen. Occasionally, she busts out with a high voice featuring operatic overtones, but only briefly before she reclaims her monotone rant, hypnotic and disturbing, compelling yet unsettling. Note her novel percussion used to accent her words as a counter-beat that is just as random as her speaking. According to Moller, inspiration for her daring dissonance goes to Diogenes, a Greek Cynical philosopher whose quest for honesty she has adopted as her own. Join her evolution. Make it yours." —Amanda Martinez, Good Times (Santa Cruz), 4/17/03

Reviews of Polly Moller - Summerland
Reviewed by Jim Foley, KXCI, Tucson, AZ

"If all else fails, we can whip the horses' eyes, and make them sleep, and cry." (Jim Morrison and the Doors, "The Soft Parade")

It was quite an ear-opener when, back there in seminary school, Jim Morrison and the Doors revealed to me not only that you cannot petition the Lord with prayer, but that lyrics can thoroughly dominate a musical experience, yet remain deeply dependent upon that music for thematic support. Polly Moller demonstrates a visceral comprehension of this dynamic on "Summerland," her second recording. She delivers her allusive blank verse as if from a trance, at times babbling brooklike, at others reluctant and coy, but ever dramatic, to the tribal accompaniment of her flutes and clattering percussion, and the bass of Jordan Avon. "Summerland" demands the listener's full attention, but richly rewards it.

In "Don Dorcha's Revel," Moller informs us in hypnotic yet insistent tones that everything we know is wrong, things are worse than we can suspect, but that truth can be accommodated if not necessarily impaled on certainty if it does not overly "matter to you at whose party you are seen." The flute warbles dreamily on the verses, and the chorus ("One day becomes seven at his revel") is underlined by pulsing percussion, at times suggesting the work of Jenifer Smith or Laurie Anderson. "Io" is dreamlike yet emphatic, flute a hollow harmonic dirge, Mollers' delivery magisterial, viscous but erupting into vehemence ("I want to wear those garlands") or subsiding into reverie ("we're the last ones in this empty city. May I have this dance?").

The drum machine appropriately drives the breathless "Aurora," supplication to an antique yet returned goddess "who is no longer rosy-fingered Dawn, but a machine unbounded by the laws of flight." As the flute shrieks, Moller mutters imprecations. Have mercy on us. "Deal gently with your people when you next appear." Thomas Dolby's "One of Our Submarines" illustrates the synergy between poetry and music, beginning with a sung, a cappella, almost Celtic, underwater history lesson punctuated by sonar squeaks, before breaking into a galloping, bass-driven reprise. The Celtic influences become more explicit in Diarmit MacDiarmada's wave-swept "Gaoth Barra nd'Tann" and the martial, vindictive "Song of Coinchend Cennfada."

Back there in seminary school, I used to obsess on what all this might mean. These songs, these incantations, might indeed have discernable meaning, but even Polly Moller might not be able to clarify them further, at least not without loss of force. So feel the force, immerse yourself in "Summerland," and contact the Silver Wheel web site for a copy of the libretto.

---------------------------
Jim Foley
Captain Crackpot Web Site: http://www.azstarnet.com/~foleyj/

Reviews of Polly Moller: Taste the Wall
reviewed in Sonic Boom - Feb. 1998

1. Taste The Wall 4:59 2. Keeny Zuke 4:31 3. Smoke 7:02 4. Skara Brae 7:42 5. The Swan 6:29 6. Four Lives 3:49 7. Road Spiders 4:26 8. Aerodynamic 6:03

Polly Moller definitely has created one of the most unique hybrid projects in my memory with the release of "Taste The Wall". The core of the music is jerky electronic percussion and bassline, overlayed with a real flute and spoken poetry. The majority of this music was all written solely by Polly Moller, and would be impossible to recreate in a live session because of the sheer variety of instrumentation utilized. Nevertheless, this is the kind of thing I think would go over well in a modern coffee bar, with a DAT machine playing most of the electronics and the solo artist standing at a microphone with her flute interspersing it with various vocal diatribes.

The whole album has a really hip Bohemian feel to it that would certainly make it a hit in someplace like the East Village in Manhattan. Kudos to Polly Moller for being daring enough to develop an unique style of music with the potential to crossover into the mainstream under the right circumstances.

Contact: Silver Wheel Music 428 View Street Mountain View, CA 94041 E-mail: music@silverwheel.com

Polly Moller: Taste the Wall
Reviwed by Daniel Sanford

As much as we all joke about the seventies, quite a bit of good came out of the musical industry of that time. Much of the best material from bands such as Genesis and Jethro Tull, came out of that decade. The end of the psychedelic era of rock occurred in the early to mid-seventies, and progressive rock was at an all time high. Though I am not interested in revisiting the seventies, many influences from that decade can be found in today's music.

Contemplative, brooding, and haunting, Polly Moller brings a fresh new approach to psychedelic music. Not entirely inspired by the seventies, Polly amalgamates aspects of ambient/techno, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, and alternative rock into an audio rumination for the ears and spirits of ambient and psychedelic rock fans.

A former member of Octagon New Music Ensemble, Polly Moller brings twenty years of classical training and her flute into a deep form of music. Much of her presentation, lyrical and vocal performance styles on her new album, "Taste the Wall," reminds me of the early works of the band Hawkwind. Often esoteric, the English and Gaelic lyrics are mysterious and thought provoking. The listener is left to come to their own conclusions about the music and the theme.

Harsh flute work on tracks like "Road Spiders" and "Keeny Zuke" are reminiscent of Jethro Tull and their use of the flute to alter mood and texture in a variety of ways. The rhythm and percussion is reminiscent of Trent Reznor on a couple of the tracks, though a more ambient, Katherine Blake feel is often the key to this album's mood.

Many tracks, such as "The Swan" and "Aerodynamic" hold together a dynamic yet mild blend similar to the works of Miranda Sex Garden. The dancy overtones are comparable to Siouxsie and the Banshees, while some of the more smooth and syncopated moments sound like some of the synth-melodies on the first Deep Forest album.

Though aspects of her music are comparable to many other styles, Polly Moller does blend all of those styles together to create a musical confection that is unique. Some Miranda Sex Garden fans may find an entertaining thread in her music. I believe that fans of the early seventies works from Hawkwind will find this a bit mild, but quite enthralling. Any of you who like contemplative or psychedelic music ought to check this out. There are sound clips available for sampling at http://www.silverwheel.com/tastethewall.html (Silver Wheel Music).

Until the next time I inflict my observations upon you, I'm Daniel Sanford, Freelance Reviewer.

If you would prefer the ancient methods of obtaining a copy, you can call Silver Wheel Music at (650) 964-7231.

"For though I fly, I too may die if I lose my grip on the firmament Have you time in your heart to sing for the planes that fell from the sky" -Polly Moller, from the song "Aerodynamic"

Review of Polly Moller -- "Bullet the Blue Sky"
on the Mindspore Records comp cd, Distributed Shared Memory

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)
December 27, 1998, Sunday, NORTH THIS WEEK EDITION

Mindspore's first release, "Distributed Shared Memory," is a compilation of artists who were asked over the Internet to submit music.

Synthesizers and samplers are prominently featured. Blended are the hummings, buzzes and bleeps of electronic machines that fans refer to as ambient soundscapes.

The oddball of the bunch is the only unplugged number, "Bullet the Blue Sky." The U2 cover, performed and barely whispered by Polly Moller, combines flute and hand drum in a jazzy and witty work notable also for its simplicity.

(from Polly: I feel obliged to point out there's no hand drum in "Bullet". I made all the non-vocal sounds using the flute, in this case key percussion.)