Comments On Carousel Tour

with AOTNZ October 2005

Great group.  Really enjoyed.  The Boatshed Cafe Karapiro

Were delightful.  Audience participated with spontaneous dancing.  

Grey Dist Community Arts Council

Excellent.  Twizel Community Arts Council

We had a couple from US that had picked up postcard on West Coast.........they said they were one of the highlights of holiday! 

Mackenzie Arts Festival

Excellent. 

Alexandra Community Arts Council

Great talent, unique style, presented beautifully. 

Lyttelton Community Arts Council

WOW!  Best non stop interest to date.  Good luck to them and come again.  Inagahua Arts Council

They were amazing!  We would like to have them again if they are taking part again in the future.  Ashburton Art Gallery

Excellent.  Opotiki Community Arts Council

The group were well organised, professional, performance was excellent.  Their attire was fitting for the music performed.  Just Imagine Art Gallery Keri keri

Praise for Carousel’s Bob’n’Spin:

The latest review from SingOut!

The tracks on Bob’n’spin are what you might get if you took classically trained musicians and told them to play anything they want so long as the final product wasn’t uniformly “classical.” This is fusion music with the precision and control of classical, the energy of pop, the tight, circular construction of Celtic, the mandolin-driven melodies of newgrass and the introspection of folk.

Gypsy melodies are second nature to guitarist Peter Mrkusich and his mandolin-toting son Eli. The title track is especially steeped in that idiom, though modern flourishes make us aware that this is new music, not a well traveled public domain tune. The mix between timeless and timely is one of the delights of listening to Carousel. “Clown’s Waltz” for example, lives up to its quirky title. Parts of it are elegant enough to evoke Tchaikovsky, while other parts sound like a lost sound track from an old Outer Limits episode. Taking a different track, on the edgy “How Are You Mikayla?” cellist Francesca Mountfort moves easily between the conventional grace of her instrument and the seam that connects psychedelic and industrial rock. And Carousel turns absolutely retro on songs like “If You Stagger” and Face to the Sun,” either of which would have been at home in the circa 1968 repertoire of the Jefferson Airplane. In fact, Susan Colien-Reid even invokes a bit of Grace Silk-like vibrato. She also dusts off operatic Valkerie tone for “Night of the Goblin Ball.”

All of these threads could make for tattered cloth, except that Carousel weaves the musical cloth too tightly to allow fraying. Their mix is consistently thick, and they embed melodic hooks deeply before launching radical departures. This music defies labels, so lets’ just say that Peter Jackson isn’t New Zealand’s only innovative export.

Rob Weir - Singout!

Local group Carousel have a solid following; gigging regularly and now they reward fans with a self-released album. Recorded live in the studio, the chugging mandoling of Eli Mrkusich, the deft acoustic guitar work of Peter Mrkusich, the sold rhythmic and melodic playing of cellist Francesca Mountfort and the gypsy-styled violin of Susan Colien-Reid will delight fans. Similar to another local group, Waiting for Donald, Carousel’s sound moves from solid shanty–like instrumentals, such as the title track and Clowns Waltz, to the ballad, Long Way From Here. The songs are all originals and have strong folk melodies, with the mandolin and guitar providing a base for the violin and cello to weave in and around. Sometimes the sound is slow and gentle (In the Garden), other times it is far more lively (Flinders Fling), but at all times this comes across as a competent set of tunes from a well structured group, who’s live of performing is obvious. Available via their website  www.carousel.net.nz

Simon Sweetman - The Dominion Post

Carousel started busking in Wellington in 2000. This year the jazz, classical and Celtic four-piece band has released their second album Bob’n'Spin. The follow-up to their debut self-titled album is a mature sounding collection of music from four talented musicians. Susan Colien-Reid’s warm vocals are a highlight, in Long Way From Here her unique vocal timbre, which has snatches of Sinead O’Connor and Shona Laing, is shown off at its finest. Carousel’s driving rhythms are supplied by father and son team mandolin player Eli and guitarist/vocalist Peter Mrkusich who together provide tight rhythmic stability for the band. Bob’n’Spin and Clowns Waltz will get your feet tapping with cellist Francesca Mountfort’s Romanian folk influenced rhythms and you will be whisked away to a magical garden In the Garden. Carousel has produced a beautiful album. 4.

Janina Nicoll – Capital Times

Praise for Carousel’s debut album

Carousel is and innovative, genre-breaking acoustic quartet based in Wellington, New Zealand. Much of the band's sound is experimental in nature. You'll hear echoes of classical, jazz, newgrass, Celtic, tango, and gypsy, but these are mainly frameworks for departure, rather than compositional centres.

Carousel consists of cellist Francesca Mountfort, violinist/vocalist Susan Colien-Ried and the father and son team of Peter and Eli Mrkusich on guitar, mandolin, and banjo. This unorthodox line-up of instruments is the seedbed from which their innovations spring. "Chucky's Big Day Out." For example is actually a series of quirky cello mandolin variations based (very) loosely on themes from soviet composer Sergei Prokofeiv, complete with Peter and the Wolf. But said venture into nouveau classical is followed by the tango-spiced ‘A Postcard from Spain’, then the lighter mandolin driven ‘Sailing’, whose arrangement evokes early newgrass recordings. This latter piece is also one of two to feature the vocals of Colien-Reid, whose moody soprano is a bit evocative of Sinead O'Connor and Marianne Faithful in the way in which she punctuates her phrases with catches, elides, rises and falls.

Although Carousel members are unfamiliar with his work, many North Americans will undoubtedly compare Mountfort's cello work to the sonic explorations of Gideon Freudmann, especially as it appears on the offbeat ‘Here Come the Elephants’ and ‘Marika’. (Mountfort claims inspiration from the Penguin Café Orchestra) Carousel offer pastoral contrast to their singular experiments.

Their names sake tune opens to Peter Mrkusich's fluid guitar work, then cuts to Eli Mrkusich's mandolin links and provide a mix reminiscent of McKendree Spring recordings in the 1970s. The galloping banjo/cello/guitar combination of ‘Cowboys and Indians’ evokes the wide-open plains, and Colien-Reid makes her violin sound like a train for good measure. This well-conceived album ends with Mrkusich's watery guitar and mandolin runs building the pace for Colien-Reid's big violin finish. Forget the labels; this is simply a fresh, smart, and impressive debut from a band of talented Kiwis.

R. Weir from Sing Out!