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Laconic Chamber

Laconic Chamber, as the name might indicate, plays music that is a mixture of chamber music and post-rock. Built around the songs and vocals of Dorothy Geller, their sound is somewhat similar to that of Mazzy Star in how its sluggish tempos, drones, and whispery female vocals build a sense of depressing yet seductive torpor. Laconic Chamber differs from Mazzy Star, however, in that they don't feature quasi-psychedelic guitar distortion in their arrangements, instead building their arrangements around more classical-chamber-influenced components. The violin of James Wolf is featured prominently, although they're still a rock band with an electric guitar and rhythm section. Like Mazzy Star and some slowcore or sadcore bands, the languorous drone, dark obtuse melodies, vague half-obscured lyrics, and overall sense of foreboding adds up to an atmosphere suitable for brooding or, more bluntly, nodding off to. After contributing a track ("Ink-Blots") to a 7" compilation on the local Washington, D.C., indie Nightshade, they put out their first album, A History of Epidemics, on the Australian Camera Obscura label in 2000.