Collapse album
Commissioned by REDCAT and premiered on March 27, 2014, COLLAPSE is a post-ecological Requiem – a unique performance with interactive visuals about the environmental catastrophes caused by humans, composed by Daniel Corral. Performed by Timur and the Dime Museum and produced by Beth Morrison Projects, COLLAPSE is envisioned as a sardonically theatrical mass service, where different stories are refracted through the hauntingly eclectic sound of the band and the post-punk voice of TIMUR. Re-imagining the traditional Requiem form into a band-driven song cycle for the 21st century, COLLAPSE will also feature live-mixed projections by the award-winning video artist Jesse Gilbert (World Technology Network fellow). Costumes of the progressive LA fashion designer Victor Wilde of the Bohemian Society (Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week 2014), will further create a raucous portrait of the human-made impact on the planet.
2015 press for Collapse
Vanity Fair: Can the Mississippi River dead zone ever be alluring? … the “multimedia glam-rock meets classical baroque concert” seeks to start a bold conversation about our effect on the environment
Blouin ArtInfo: Glam Rock Environmentalism
Brooklyn Rail: The Rocky Horry Picture Show for the coming Apocalypse?
Gothamist: …Dark and satirical performance…
Exeunt: When writing about the genre-defying sound of LA band Timur and the Dime Museum, you might run out of hyphens—their charming glam-rock-cabaret-punk-opera-mischievous magpie-style requires experiencing first-hand to fully appreciate the influences embedded in their eclectic approach to music.
Neat Beet: On the vanguard of both drama and rock music is Timur and the Dime Museum, an experimental rock band out of LA that aims to fuse the two together into an explosive combination.
arts.meme: an art-rock tour of the daily dump of ecological disasters, with songs composed by band member Daniel Corral
2014 press for Collapse
LA Times: “nastily seductive… popsy, preachy, beat, grungy or ferociously apocalyptic, with texts to match.”
Fusion TV: “Think: revival tent-type screamer about the perils of Atlantic salmon. Think: a New Wave-style dance number about algae clumps brought together by rising oceans. Think: The kind of environmental message you can seriously not forget.”
Miami Herald: “Collapse” is so full of dark intensity and black humor that you’ll feel fine for experiencing it – but maybe a bit pensive as well.”
Miami New Times: “Intelligent, binary breaking, issue-driven entertainment that breaks binaries and reforms them into a multi-verse of music.”
Artillery Magazine: “It’s a coherent, even cogent, but stylistically unwieldy sequence of songs. It takes a special talent to impart that cogency, that urgency.”
NewMusicBox: “Daniel Corral, the Dime Museum’s accordionist and composer-in-residence, takes an inspired, unexpected approach, turning the whole thing into a psychedelic rock opera of sorts, with catchy hooks, doo-wop harmonies, and a pantheon of stylistic references. This spoonful-of-sugar tactic works wonders for the show, which is more likely to generate delight than despair. I almost feel guilty for enjoying it.”
Artificialist: ” I am well aware that ‘organic unity’ is not the sole criterion by which the quality of musical works ought to be judged, but when it is aimed for and achieved so impeccably, it’s hard not to ooh and ah.”
LA Downtown News: “Collapse has all the elements of high opera with elements of a twisted cabaret and rock and roll”
Stage Rows: “Stage Rows was among Thursday’s opening night’s audience and can testify that everything about Timur’s stage presence and Corral’s new tunes positively reeked of coolness.”
The Constance Gradual: “That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is.”
Stage and Cinema: “the sort of music you would love to dance to if not for the guilt-trip inducing lyrics about bee colony collapse, radioactivity, flooding, nuclear disaster, atmospheric hypoxia, and the gradual trash plasticization of our oceans.”
