The Los Angeles-based a cappella sextet Sonos has few rules, but those it
abides by are ironclad.
“We do our best to defy stereotypes,” says Jessica Freedman. “The whole
approach has been to distance ourselves from kitsch,” chimes in Ben
McLain. “And we don’t go ‘dow,’” adds Rachel Bearer.
Dow?
“That’s one of the words vocal groups use to emulate an instrument, like a
guitar, with a made-up syllable,” Freedman explains. “We steer clear of that
in arrangements.”
With a cappella vocal groups proliferating madly on college campuses and
infiltrating the mainstream via TV shows like Glee, Sonos couldn’t have
emerged at a more propitious time. But the three women (Freedman, Bearer
and Katharine Hoye) and three men (McLain, Chris Harrison and Paul
Peglar) who produce its tapestry of tones are swimming against the tide of
jukebox set lists, doo-wop inflections and collegiate shtick in their quest to
take a cappella music to a new, more sensual, more musically adventurous
destination.
They’ve already won plaudits from such tastemakers as Chris Douridas of
L.A. bellwether station KCRW-FM, who praised Sonos’ “innovative vocal
arrangements” and “inspired repertoire, supremely delivered.” “Prepare to be
stunned,” advised the U.K. newspaper The Guardian, while Campus Circle
lauded their “unaccompanied magnificence.” Beyond admiring the group’s
sonic achievements, critics also noted its “sexual tension” (L.A. tastemaker
outlet The Deli Magazine) and “sex appeal” (Pasadena Weekly).
On its debut album, SonoSings, the group combines a rich, classically choral
sensibility with an ultra-modern repertoire and sonic toolkit. The result is a
spellbinding fusion of ancient and contemporary sounds, as songs by the
likes of Radiohead (“Everything in Its Right Place”), Sara Bareilles (an a
cappella veteran herself, she joins Sonos for a rendition of her “Gravity”),
Fleet Foxes (“White Winter Hymnal”), Bon Iver (“Re:Stacks”), Rufus
Wainwright (“Oh What a World”), Björk (“Joga”), Imogen Heap (“Come
Here Boy”) and other cutting-edge creators are transformed into
mesmerizing vehicles for voices only.
The only pre-existing pop megahit in the batch is “I Want You Back,” but the
group’s moody, trip-hop rendition radically re-imagines the tune – bringing
out the dark, despairing lyrics that were all but negated by the Jackson 5’s
bouncy, bubblegum original. With the passing of Michael Jackson, the
version serves as an emotional homage.
Harrison produced and mixed the disc (with Gabriel Mann and manager
Hugo Vereker, who assembled the group, provided A&R direction on the
album and dreamed up the stark reworking of “I Want You Back”); he also
handled several arrangements.
“Chris is a freakin’ genius arranger,” enthuses Freedman, “but we all have
experience arranging and writing music, and we bring so many diverse
backgrounds to the table that we’re greater than the sum of our parts.”
Indeed, Freedman, Bearer and Hoye all contributed sterling arrangements to
SonoSings. Agrees McLain, “If any of us weren’t what we are, Sonos
wouldn’t be Sonos.”
Performing “I Want You Back” and other songs live, Sonos further pushes the
envelope with the judicious use of effects pedals, guided by resident
“gearhead” Harrison. McLain, in addition to singing leads and harmonies,
contributes beatboxing that’s looped into a panoply of polyrhythms. (He
developed the latter skill while lying in bed in his small-town California home,
listening to hip-hop station KMEL-FM; his first cassette, he volunteers, was
Very Necessary by Salt-N-Pepa.) But that’s just the tip of the technological
iceberg.
“We’re very comfortable performing purely acoustically,” explains Englandborn,
L.A.-bred Hoye, who attended the famed Berklee School of Music
before heading to UCLA, where she met her future co-harmonizers. “But in
the studio and playing live with a sound system, we essentially make
electronic vocal music. We think of our collection of pedals and loops as the
seventh member of the group.”
“When we sing ‘I Want You Back,’ I use an octave pedal,” she adds, referring
to a device that splits notes played or sung into two tones an octave apart.
“That way, I get to fulfill my fantasy, as an alto, of singing bass. You can
hear a bass part, but I’m the only one singing. It confuses people.”
That said, the electronics are a small part of the picture – the Sonos
experience is first and foremost about how “You can go from nothing to
something just by opening your mouth,” as Cleveland-born Cali transplant
Peglar – whose stratospheric range is variously described as “rock tenor” and
“ballsy falsetto” by his compatriots, and who’s been spotted playing
keyboards on the aforementioned TV series Glee – puts it.
Like almost everything else about the group, its origin and development have
been unconventional. “We sort of became a band backwards,” explains elder
statesman Harrison. “We formed, rehearsed, made a record and then
started performing live.”
The San Diego native – who grew up watching his dad playing in bluegrass
bands – sang in the famed UCLA vocal ensemble known as Awaken A
Cappella with Bareilles and fellow future Sonos members Freedman (who
comes from Santa Rosa, Calif.) and Peglar. The latter two had attended high
school in Santa Rosa with McLain.
Bearer – who grew up singing opera in Tulsa, Okla. (“the buckle of the Bible
Belt”) – had been kept from pop music by her musical-purist parents, but
says singing a cappella changed her life completely. She attended both UCLA
and USC, and was a member of celebrated a cappella ensemble SoCal Vocals
when she met Harrison, who invited her to audition for the group; after a
mere five rehearsals, she flew to New York for a performance.
Rather than bang out the record over a few months, Sonos took its sweet
time. “We recorded the Radiohead track nearly three years ago, and we
added two new tracks the day before it was mastered,” Freedman reveals.
“It spans our entire evolution as a group. We’ve really grown into our own
sound and style.”
They performed their first gig at the Santa Rosa high school Freedman,
McLain and Peglar had attended together. While their vocal mix clearly
delighted the crowd, Peglar recalls, their visual presentation hadn’t yet
evolved. “I watched a video of it and promptly deleted it,” he relates,
“because it was not what we wanted to present to people.” Some seven
months passed before their next show, however, and the group soon
developed its signature presentational style – sleek, sexy and
confrontational, with an air of mystery not often found in the a cappella
world.
Perhaps the ensemble’s most revelatory live moment thus far came in the
gorgeously austere confines of a 17th Century London church, where they
sang for an audience of fans, friends and industry folk. Performing “White
Winter Hymnal” and “Gravity,” particularly, in such a setting, Peglar
remembers, “Was kind of a checkpoint, because it was the six of us and the
audience, with nothing in the way. I’d never even been overseas, so just
being in London was amazing; compounding that was making music with my
friends in this incredible church.”
“There’s something organic and mysterious about singing a cappella,” Peglar
continues. “It’s beautiful and intangible. It could’ve been centuries earlier
with a piece of classical music, but we’re taking something from last year and
making it just as haunting and interesting. I think that’s what’s most
captivating about us.” Manager Vereker reports that the music-business
types in attendance were stunned. “Almost every one of them came up to
me afterward,” he says, “and told me they’d never seen anything like it in
their lives.”
With its debut album complete at last, the group is prepared to bring its oneof-
a-kind vocal blend to the world – and plans to pepper its tour schedule
with venues like performing-arts centers, colleges and even living rooms.
But whether they’re in a courtyard, a club or a concert hall, Sonos will always
seek that intangible, mysterious, intimate fusion of timeless tones and
modern meaning – with nary a “dow” to be heard.
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