Silica Gel create music that draws influence from early medieval music, early electronic music and folk rock. Their debut album adapts a series of art songs from the 12th - 14th centuries including the political satire Roman de Fauvel. The group uses custom made instruments including a hand-cranked electronic organ, a hacked megaphone, and a homemade harp to create original art songs.
Albums:
May Day
Wooden Shoe
Swan Pond
Compilations:
Seasonal Séance: Summer Solstice
Syd’s Songs Sung (WFMU Fundraiser Comp)
Patchwork Symphony
“Excellent lathe LP released last year by this wonderful Birmingham, Alabama outfit. Part of the Sweet Wreath arts collective (an organisation in the same Alabama surrealist tradition as Say-DayBew and Trans-Museq), the top of Silica Gel’s sound is the blend of Laura Thomas and Lauren Jones’s vocals. The backing group include multi-instrumentalist Jasper Lee, strings/electronics guy Joel Nelson and clarinettist Gary Wheat. The music takes many forms – raps that sound like jump rope songs, ghost folk crinkles in time, whiffs of The Manhattan Transfer, oddball Southern-fried pop in the style of Athens, Georgia’s more avant practitioners, and more! It’s all lovely stuff.”
-Byron Coley, The Wire, November 2023
“Describing Silica Gel's Wooden Shoe is like trying two place to magnets together. Words can get close but the sounds seem to move away just when a connection is near.....Silica Gel transitions with pendulum motion, each track sweeping in another direction. For example, "Fog" to "Steamboat Joe", the most angelic and traditional high choir piece to a jangle of strings and playful storytelling balladry. The last track and the longest, "Coming Age" is the most melodic and connective to its medieval foundations. Still, Silica Gel is ready to pounce, easily turning a page to blurred futuristic sound waves.”
- Lost In A Sea of Sound
Albums:
May Day
Wooden Shoe
Swan Pond
Compilations:
Seasonal Séance: Summer Solstice
Syd’s Songs Sung (WFMU Fundraiser Comp)
Patchwork Symphony
“Excellent lathe LP released last year by this wonderful Birmingham, Alabama outfit. Part of the Sweet Wreath arts collective (an organisation in the same Alabama surrealist tradition as Say-DayBew and Trans-Museq), the top of Silica Gel’s sound is the blend of Laura Thomas and Lauren Jones’s vocals. The backing group include multi-instrumentalist Jasper Lee, strings/electronics guy Joel Nelson and clarinettist Gary Wheat. The music takes many forms – raps that sound like jump rope songs, ghost folk crinkles in time, whiffs of The Manhattan Transfer, oddball Southern-fried pop in the style of Athens, Georgia’s more avant practitioners, and more! It’s all lovely stuff.”
-Byron Coley, The Wire, November 2023
“Describing Silica Gel's Wooden Shoe is like trying two place to magnets together. Words can get close but the sounds seem to move away just when a connection is near.....Silica Gel transitions with pendulum motion, each track sweeping in another direction. For example, "Fog" to "Steamboat Joe", the most angelic and traditional high choir piece to a jangle of strings and playful storytelling balladry. The last track and the longest, "Coming Age" is the most melodic and connective to its medieval foundations. Still, Silica Gel is ready to pounce, easily turning a page to blurred futuristic sound waves.”
- Lost In A Sea of Sound