It's sort of silly but I've still never seen Dark Himaya play live here in Hong Kong. My wife and I caught a few minutes of their set at last year's Lamma Fun Day (heck, we could hear them from our balcony as their tunes soared up from the beach).
But I enjoy their music and now their full-length CD is out.
So what better way to spend the rest of this typhoon-ruined day than to enjoy the full album from Dark Himaya up on Soundcloud? You can play it for free but then you should buy it.
There are a lot of currents here in this album. The clear and powerful vocals from Ivy Fernie and Aileen Alonzo really carry these songs through sometimes atmospheric elements.
Overall, the production and audio mix of the instruments is quite good too -- the drums (a solid Keith Woodfin) and guitars sound live, like they were recorded together and I always like that. The keyboards and piano do the heavy lifting on quite a few of these tunes -- "Isadora" and its hint of mid-period Kate Bush mixed with Heather Nova -- but there's also something funky here too -- the Tony Levin-isms of the bass-work from Ales Dini are supple and affecting. There's a hint of Tori Amos in a few places -- "Running to Lust" -- and even a faint trace of Enya -- a few piano-runs -- and Alanis Morissette (!) in "Cursed Muse". (But don't worry 'cause it's post-"You Oughta Know"-Alanis after she got a lot of things out of her system!)
Dark Himaya manage to make dark music without giving in to a lot of goth nonsense -- there's nothing too heavy here -- and the tunes are light and nimble but still serious.
No mean feat to pull that off.
I'm making my way through these tunes as I watch the dark clouds hover over Lamma Island.
You can buy the album on CDBaby.com.