Stella Polaris Project - Dragonfly

Hear The Track Here

Fourth time up for current MP3 Unsigned darlings Ricky Mancini (aka MD1-Project on the same site) and dulcet toned Melinda Mohn who collectively make up Stella Polaris Project. As it happens, I have been snowed under over the past month with CD's of all shapes and sizes, including Orphans, the latest from this duo. Regular readers will remember the impact this duo have made on me, getting into the year end reviews on the space of a couple of Orphans tracks - Hello Anonymous (October 2007) and The Question (November 2007). The main reason for this seemingly insane frothing at the mouth is because Stella Polaris Project are doing something very different with a very tired genre: electronica. For those who know Ricky Mancini's solo work, that'll come as no surprise - he has always been one to severely push the envelope.

That's caused a couple of problems in the past but I have to say - in my defence as it were - that IMHO teaming up with Melinda has rubbed a lot of the rough edges of his work. He is still as wild sonically as he ever was, but then Melinda's own instrumental and vocal work leavens the incredibly hard edge Ricky generally brings to the party. Bovver boots music....(Ed: He'd better understand that's a joke eh?) Anyway, to get back to the point, since I have had the CD it has been played consistently and Dragonfly has become a well known track to me. Although (again IMHO) I have to say that my all time favourite Stella Polaris Project track is still Hello Anonymous but Dragonfly is another of the CDs highlights and an excellent starter for the CD itself.

MD1-Project has made a whole career out of glitching/cutting and otherwise mangling sound into unwholesome shapes and on Dragonfly he is applying it to what is pretty much the rhythm track, giving the whole thing a light, skipping-on-the-surface feel that couldn't possibly be described in print. Melinda is at her most sultry, squeezing out the notes between huge dollops of honey - reminding me strongly of our own Alison Moyet and believe me that is a compliment indeed. As I said earlier, it is that special combination of these two quite different talents that make Stella Polaris Project stick out from the norm, and I absolutely guarantee you are not going to hear anything quite like this anywhere in the electronica field.

Outstanding song. Outstanding band. (another) MUST HAVE.