Program

LA based transgressive post-punk duo from Australia, Carisa Bianca Mellado + Andrew Dalziell create a dark mythic world of sex death horror + ecstasy

Night Tongue is a transgressive post-punk duo from Los Angeles. Originally from Melbourne, Australia, the duo create a dark mythic world of sex, death, horror and ecstasy constructed from modal vocal virtuosity, bright shimmering guitars, filthy bass, drum machine, synth and cello. Carisa Bianca Mellado and Andrew Dalziell (of Concrete Veil) combine their energies to create a music of violence, prayer and transcendence.

Carisa Bianca Mellado is a singer, performer and composer of her own brand of synth heavy dark dream pop, gothic shoegaze, black opera music. The descendent of legendary opera singers Antonio Tambourini and Giulia Tambourini, she began her passion for singing at the age of 3.

Originally from Melbourne, Australia, now based in Los Angeles, California, Carisa Bianca Mellado began singing and performing at a very early age and began composing songs at the age of 12. She got her start singing and playing bass in a variety of punk, post-punk and dark music projects, most notably The Time of the Assassins who released the sprawling darkness of the Steve Albini-recorded Awake in Slumberland prior to disbanding in 2008.

Upon relocating to Los Angeles, Carisa collaborated with a variety of artists. Carisa performs regularly, in live collaborations with Mira Billotte (White Magic), Nora Keyes (Rococo Jet, Fancy Space People, The Centimeters) and Gregg Foreman (Cat Power). She performed in White Magic’s infamous Cinefamily live score to Haxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages, put together by The Source Family documentary director, Jodie Wilie. She also performed in Rococo Jet’s moving live score to Cinefamily’s screening of the silent film classic, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. Carisa also appears as a guest vocalist on two songs off Nick Hudson’s Academy of Sun’s critically acclaimed record Ganymede in a State of War, released in July 2016. Since moving, Carisa has performed shows on the same line up as other Los Angeles favorites, including Gitane Demone and Rikk Agnew (Christian Death), Geneva Jacuzzi, Diva Dompe, Paul Roessler (The Screamers), Puro Instinct, Ariel Pink and San Diego’s cholo-goth pioneers, Prayers amongst others. Carisa’s band consists of Seth Styles on guitar, Elle Haert on synth and vocals, Kimbo Calico on drums and Andrew Dalziell on cello.

In 2013 Carisa brought her apocalyptic experimental concept album The New Queen to the stage. Written, recorded, and produced in its entirety by Carisa, The New Queen is a dark opera that explores themes of madness, desire, delusion and the search for meaning. Carisa created classical pieces heavily influenced by the stark, dissonant and often vocal based, pre-renaissance songwriting styles of the dark ages, to create lofty terrifying monuments of experimentalism and maddening dirges pulled back from the brink of death by vocals blending tenderness, passion, hysteria and pain.The New Queen was officially released in Sept 2013 and after this Carisa set out to begin work on her next album Kore, which was released in June of 2015.

Kore follows the story of a Sirian Dolphin Princess who goes through the underworld journey of being born on Earth as a human girl. The album title, which means ‘girl’ or ‘maiden’ is also another name for the Greek Goddess Persephone and the album explores themes of birth, sex, death, desire, intoxication, the shadow self, love, rebirth and surrender through the mythic stories of Persephone, Inanna, Psyche and the cosmic creation myth of Eros.

Set to music that marries diverse influences, such as Cocteau Twins and Cyndi Lauper, Kore is at once catchy and challenging, presenting an atmosphere unique to the record yet instantly definable: a dreamy shoegaze pink goth pop space opera that seamlessly transcends into sultry swaying death jazz.

Carisa Bianca Mellado is an occult expert and her music and composition is complemented by conceptualized mythologies, occult symbolism as well as video and art that often incorporates these dark, mythical themes. Carisa has a paralyzing phobia of orcas, whales and dolphins, that features heavily through her work. She believes herself to be an incarnated orca guardian from Sirius B. From the age of 18, Carisa worked full time doing out-of-body channeling, tarot, astrology, palmistry, jungian psychology, mediumship and readings. As well as this, she is a Reiki Master and taught classes and workshops on the occult, tarot, mythology, psychic development, spiritual health, meditation and Reiki for many years. She wrote and released two oracle card sets through Blue Angel Publishing and Simon and Schuster, before limiting her work to the musical sphere. She draws on these themes through her videos, art and music. These influences combine to bring glittering pink intergalactic explosions together with a deep, dark, velvety dream and the mysterious underworld and otherworldly realms where heroes’ journeys are taken.
PROJECTS

The New Queen: 2007-2013

Written, recorded, and produced in its entirety by Carisa, The New Queen explores themes of madness, desire, delusion and the search for meaning. Carisa created classical pieces heavily influenced by the stark, dissonant and often vocal based, pre-renaissance songwriting styles of the dark ages, to create lofty terrifying monuments of experimentalism and maddening dirges pulled back from the brink of death by vocals blending tenderness, passion, hysteria and pain.

There are hints of the chamber music of Nico, the phantasmic classical compositions of Diamanda Galas, and the harsh experimentalism of Scott Walker’s most recent albums in Carisa’s work, but the unique scope of this project renders even influences as fleeting ghosts. The New Queen project presents a video that accompanies each piece on the album, creating a series of landscapes and portraits that will serve to further accentuate the concepts of the tale.

Carisa launched the album in Los Angeles at a full theater performance of The New Queen, with Nora Keyes (of The Centimeters) and Elle Haert as The New Queen‘s Divine Dryadic Choir and Seth Styles, Loto Ball (of Phantom Limbs), Kimbo Calico, Melissa Pleckham and Ken Ramos (of Black Lullabies), as The Black Fae Orchestra. The event was opened with a beautiful performance by Gitane DeMone and Rikk Agnew of Christian Death.

The album is out now through Magic Monster Records.

The Garden: July 2013

In July 2013, Carisa Bianca Mellado embarked upon an ambitious song-a-day challenge entitled The Garden. The project focused on Carisa writing and recording a song each day for the month of July that reflected aspects of a Garden. Each song allows the nature of that aspect of a literal Garden, to reflect a deeper internal Garden as well as a deeper collective Garden. Exploring Birth, Death, The Sun, The Moon and a variety of flowers. The Garden project finds Carisa at her most versatile, composing simple, stripped a cappella pieces alongside sprawling, dense tangles of goth rock and new wave, the result being a florid kaleidoscopic audio oasis. Sessions from The Garden provided several demo traces that later evolved into songs for her forthcoming record, Kore.

Kore: 2014-2015

Carisa Bianca Mellado’s latest record, Kore, follows the story of a Sirian Dolphin Princess who goes through the underworld journey of being born on Earth as a human girl. The album title, which means ‘girl’ or ‘maiden’ is also another name for the Greek Goddess Persephone and the album explores themes of birth, sex, death, desire, intoxication, the shadow self, love, rebirth and surrender through the mythic stories of Persephone, Inanna, Psyche and the cosmic creation myth of Eros.

Set to music that marries diverse influences, such as Cocteau Twins and Cyndi Lauper, Kore is at once catchy and challenging, presenting an atmosphere unique to the record yet instantly definable: a dreamy shoegaze pink goth pop space opera that seamlessly transcends into sultry swaying death jazz.

Kore features artwork by Los Angeles artist Astral Eyes, who was named “The Psychedelic Icon Maker” by LA Weekly, as well as photography by Los Angeles artist Kaliisa Conlon.

The album was released in June 2015.

Video Art: 2013-2015

Carisa has a long history with video art. Her father was a photographer and filmed weddings for a living and as a very young child he and her mother created a video series starring Carisa called “The Carisa Bianca Mellado Show”. The show featured dances, songs, language and writing lessons amongst other segments. The videos progressed into elaborate, choreographed music videos with costumes, sets and basic editing. Over the span of her childhood Carisa completed dozens of videos, ultimately leading her to creating many of her own short experimental films during teenage years and into her 20s.

Carisa finally graduated into marrying the two concepts together, creating her own experimental music videos. She created videos to accompany each song on The New Queen album as well as videos for various individual songs. A video for the song “Human Things” from Kore was released in late 2014 and “Dance of the Rose” a video for another song from Kore is currently in pre-production and set to co-star Geneva Jacuzzi, Nora Keyes, Elaine Carey and Diva Dompe.

A new series of videos is being released as of January 2015 based on the idea of spontaneous creation. Carisa is working within the self-imposed guidelines that both song and video must be completed within no more than a week of inception. The videos and songs, which are themed around inner space and inner landscapes, work hand-in-hand within this project. Often times the song is written to or around the visual concept. So far “Sirius Rising” and “The Offer” are available to view on the video page with more to come throughout 2015.

Old Market Show in Brighton, U.K. with The Academy of Sun

In February of 2015, Carisa was invited to the United Kingdom to perform selections from Kore at the renowned Old Market Theater in Brighton as part of modern baroque pop artist Nick Hudson’s Academy of Sun show. This show was unique in that, in addition to performing a set of her own compositions, Carisa performed backing vocals for the entirety of the Academy of Sun’s set, performing selections from their forthcoming record Ganymede in a State of War. Carisa also appears as a guest vocalist on two of the album’s tracks.

Queer gnostic post-punk band from the UK, led by composer Nick Hudson

'Nick Hudson (b. 1981) has been creatively active in various media for many years. Based in Brighton since 2003, he has already produced a vast wealth of music, eclectic in scope and form.

Through his earlier, lo-fi solo works of elegiac, twisted folk, through to the richly-crafted modern composition of his more recent output, and via collaborations with Asva, Hexenverfolgung, Ekca Liena, members of Kayo Dot, and David Tibet (Current 93), Nick's music remains singularly dynamic.

Nick has performed in various guises/venues throughout the UK, in churches, galleries, dungeons, boats, at the base of a mountain in Scotland, and at a literary conference in Ireland, garnering a cult acclaim for his commandingly intense performances.

In addition to performing solo, he performs with The Academy of Sun a hydra-headed entity of rotating membership, weaving densely-textured arrangements into truly epic music, encompassing progressive rock, modern composition, jazz, folk and outright psychedelia, as befitting an ensemble whose members are drawn from disparate worlds of classical, noise, doom and rock. The Academy Of Sun has performed with Shara Nelson (Massive Attack), Matthew Seligman (Bowie, Morrissey) and Kayo Dot, amongst others.

He has also collaborated closely as a score composer with director Michael Salerno on various films including 'Godland' (2010) and 'Dans Le Silence' (2013).

His collages, photography, totemic sculptures and assemblages grace the covers of many of his album sleeves and related media.

His prose and poetry has been published in various international anthologies.

Recent works 'TERRitORies of disSENT' (2009), 'My Antique Son' (2011) and 'A Day Without Comfort' (2011) and 'Letters To The Dead' (2013) and 'Ganymede In A State Of War' (2015) collectively known as 'The Phoenix Archaeologies'.

Nick is a prolific and far-reaching composer-performer whose work, whether solo, band-based or for film is captivating, unique and impactful.'