Dueling Cellos

"We strive to expose people to new music through the cello; support local musicians and give them the opportunity to work with an orchestral accompaniment; and to make Portland, Oregon the cello capital of the world, perhaps one day changing its name to Celloland."

-Portland Cello Project co-founder, Doug Jenkins

Well, if there is ever a national referendum on the topic, you've got my vote Doug. Although Finnish cello-metal quartet Apocalyptica might argue the point with you.

What are the odds of getting not one, but two albums dedicated to cello music in the same week? Amazingly, it happened to me, and I was tempted to call the folks over at Ripley's. The first disc that appeared was The Portland Cello Project, which is a loose confederation of any and all cello players that want to contribute in the Portland area. Although I've not seen them myself, I hear that they play a mean combination of covers, both classical as well as modern, and their disc represents that. Some tracks have a very classical feel to them (try Robing Hood Changes His Oil), while others are obviously very contemporary (Toxic, of course!).

While the Portland Cello Project reaches wide for diverse source material with cellos as the primary form of instrumentation, Apocalyptica takes the cello and adds a fair dose of other harder rocking instruments as well to make a more modern sound that alternates between soothing your nerves to encouraging you to thrash (all in the same song)

Although both consider themselves cello groups, they are quite unalike from one another, as you can probably guess from the above descriptions. Get both though - one for the dinner party, and one for the late night party.

Portland Cello Project - Gideon Freudmann: Robin Hood Changes His Oil : Portland Cello Project

Portland Cello Project - Toxic (Britney Spears cover) : Portland Cello Project

Visit their website and become their friend on MySpace.

Apocalyptica - Grace (Feat. Hotei Tomoyasu) : Worlds Collide

Apocalyptica - S.O.S. (Anything But Love) (Feat. Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil) : Worlds Collide

Visit their website, their label Jive/Zomba, and become their friend on MySpace.