CALVA LOUISE: On The Edge Of The Abyss

In one word, Calva Louise is driven. Whether that means touring London’s pubs to hand out demo CDs or learning how to use Unreal Engine to fully realise the visual elements of their latest project’s universe, their genre-bending fourth album ‘Edge Of The Abyss’, the band’s drive to create is matched only by their ability to craft it. 

“[DIY] was born out of necessity, but now it is such a part of who we are. When something needs to be done, and you don’t have the means to achieve it by other routes, you just have to figure it out yourself” Calva’s drummer Ben Parker muses on our mid-morning zoom call, “if we don’t know how to do something, lets try…it’s a never ending journey of learning and discovery.” 

Calva Louise’s DIY manifesto can be seen in the dynamic keyboard designed by guitar player Alizon Taho. It sits on a sliding tray and lets vocalist Jess Allanic play the piano parts that she began to incorporate into the band's latest live shows, whilst also working around some of the logistical issues that come with the instrument. Taho begins, “Having a piano live is complicated - when you also play guitar and sing - because you might be stuck behind the piano the whole set, which is not great, and setting up a second mic is not a good option either. So we kind of came up with this idea where she needs to have something that she can just put away when she’s not playing the piano,” gesturing a sweeping movement with their hand. 

This is not the first stage piece that Alizon would design, going on to describe a tray he had made for friend of the band Bobby Wolfgang for his synth. Little did they know that it became the inspiration for a now-iconic element of Wolfgang’s stage setup. “It was a lot of trial and error to get it right”, he admits; the formula in the end was skateboard bearings and a wooden tray, and the piece was recently updated for their US shows in January with ZETRA. “It’s a shorter tray so it fits into the guitar cases, and a stand that breaks apart into small pieces to dispatch them across the luggage, so we’re flying with one big metal stand.” 

Alizon follows in their father’s footsteps, who is a set designer by trade. “I grew up in a workshop…I’ve had this kind of upbringing where I could see it was possible to make things yourself, so I feel like that gave me the confidence to get started.” 

Meanwhile, Jess turned her attention to the CGI that they wanted to incorporate into the album’s high-concept music videos, teaching herself how to use Unreal Engine over lockdown to make the band’s striking visuals. The Calva Louise universe was first created by a 10 year old Jess, carrying her creation with her from her Venezuela homeland to France, where she’d meet Alizon, which then found its home in the band the pair would create with Ben upon their move to the UK.  

“It’s always been there, it's always been a part of what Jess was doing and what we’re doing. There was never really a sit-down conversation about “this is what I want to do” because it was always there,” Ben begins.

The band agrees that the early iteration of Calva Louise was way more abstract than it is now. “The essence was already there. It's just being able to develop ways to translate that story in a much clearer way,” Alizon finishes.

Edge Of The Abyss

The story of their latest album, ‘Edge Of The Abyss’, mainly focuses on Johnny impeccable, heading back in time from 2034 to explore how he came into Calva Louise’s world of deadly body doubles, lifeforce-sucking entities and inter-universe hopping. “Under the Skin is mostly set in the future, then we come back in time to see the origin story of Commander Johnny. You find Johnny young in ‘Impeccable’ and see what happened to him to move into the other world”, says Alizon. Whilst that may sound complex, Alizon lets us know that the overall story is too big for one record, so the band are releasing lore in small parts, so that their listeners can piece it together.

‘Edge of the Abyss’ is an album of revelations. At its core, it thematically explores accepting a changing world, and is set against a high-concept backdrop. Sonically, the record leaves listeners gaunt running from electro rock to metalcore influences, with the introduction of harder style vocals. Here, you can feel the angst running through Jess’ lyrics.

Tracks such as ‘Impeccable’ are emblematic of the electro-rock features, whilst also showing Jess' lyricism in both sung and spoken word. Elsewhere, other tracks demonstrate a harder style of vocal akin to a more metalcore sound. ‘Barely a Response’ does so in its angst, matched with a drum and bass style mix and chopped vocals, while ‘El Umbrial’ shows off the full extent of Jess’ scream, adding chaos as it transitions between heavy guitar and the airy electro breaks that melt into a piano/floor lead warm-up and breakdown.

‘Edge of the Abyss’ also includes Jess writing and performing in Spanish over tracks such as ‘Lo Que Vale’, ‘The Abyss’ and techno-infused power ballad ‘La Corriente’. In the world of Calva Louise, the duality of both English and Spanish lyrics is emblematic of the evil body doubles, intensifying the disconnect of the world through a dual perspective, especially as the band speaks up on complex issues such as persecution and the need to be left alone. 

Ben and Alizon have been practicing the songs from their new album in preparation for their live shows, with a debut performance of some of their live track at 2000Trees Festival. Agreeing on the aggressive ‘Hate In Me’ is one of their favourite new tracks. Ben states, “I’ve been going back to it to practice it… and I’ve rediscovered it on my own. It breathed new life into it.” 

“It's funny because when you’re working on it for the record…you’re deep listening to the tracks - or maybe just the bass - trying to listen for the imperfections or going through it with a fine-tooth comb, it's much more analytical and scientific. When it comes to it and you re-listen to the songs and start learning for the live performances,, you’re like “oh! I remember this! This is great!” Ben adds on that point”

“Or why did I do this to myself?!” Alizon punctuates. 

“Oh crap, now I have to play that” Ben laughs.

While the music remains central to the Calva Louise universe, it is a multi-media project, including a Graphic novel collection published back in 2018, with music videos taking influence from early Tarantino and 90s aesthetic.  “One of the sticking points for all of us in terms of film was Tarantino when we first met, and a lot of his early films are kind of set around that time”, Ben muses.

“I think the later videos are more like horror, sci fi…we bonded over love for cinema and love for visuals. Even just like the music I feel like cinema is a big influence - people like John Carpenter who wrote their own soundtrack to movies. The project itself is multi-disciplinary so by essence everything kind of merges into one project and its different ways to tell the story underlying.” Alizon adds. “Each video is like a window into the bigger picture, which focuses on different characters.”   

The work is paying off for them, with the Vukovi co-headline evening slot at 2000 trees a couple weeks ago, and recently touring with Bloodywood. Alizon explains its the best tour the band have ever done. “Hands down. Fantastic tour, fantastic people, fantastic music. It kind of came up a bit last minute but we were super excited.” 

“During the tour I was really impressed with how involved they are with everything which kind of reminded me you can play these sized venues and you can still be involved with all the aspects of the show; even like halfway through the show they were still trying to improve everything that could be improved. I love that because it shows such care for detail for their craft and what they do”

“What I love about the Bloodywood guys is that they’ve perfectly struck the balance between being professional and having fun.” Ben remarks before reminiscing on some tomfoolery, “the second last show of the tour was like ‘prank night’ - which we didn’t know about, no one told us! - but on our last two songs they gathered their entire road crew and the support band as well, and they all just walked out on stage all with like some piece of fruit and they all just like stood around the three of us and just stared at us deadpan eating fruit for the whole of the last two songs” this incident just added to their admiration of the New Delhi nu-metalers, with Ben praising their ability to drop the professionalism for a night and being able to have fun.

Photos: Simon Arinze

“That was so stressful” Alizon admits, “it was super intimidating! [to Ben] They started taking your drum kit apart!” 

Ben puts his head in his hands for a moment “Yeah [the lead singer] started grabbing my cymbals and just walking off with them.” In retaliation, the trio got the crowd involved in the antics. 

“They walked off before they’re encore, and we jumped onto the stage and got everyone to hush so no one cheered for one more song. Eventually, Raul sheepishly looked out and walked on. Oh yeah, and they had like a wall of death on stage” 

They also played their third 2000Trees Festival two weeks ago, on the back of a forest stage/silent disco set the year before “Our sound engineer was a bit stressed, but everybody loved it”, remembers Alizon. “We love 2000Trees, such a good vibe, we always leave with loads of friends….it isn’t like a big machine.” 

The core of Calva Louise is authenticity. The universes they have built are authentic to the writings of a young Jess, carried thousands of miles across the world and shared with thousands of people. The more they have leaned into showcasing the universes at the centre of the project, the stronger and warmer the coal fire of their career has become. 

“It’s probably the number one thing we strive for as a band. I feel like to me that’s super important. We never wanna be something we’re not, but at the same time you wanna be the best version of yourself; it’s like a balance of always being true to yourself and what we’re doing musically while still trying to push yourself to be the best you can,” Alizon says on this point. 

Photo: Simon Arinze

Ben finishes, “I think authentic is the only thing you can try to be. If you’re trying to pretend to be something you’re not, or project what you think other people want, it’s only gonna warp yourself ...why would you waste time being something you’re not?”

The multimedia multiverse of Calva Louise is only set to get bigger, with Edge of the Abyss out as of July 11th via Mascot Records, and a co-headline tour in the US with Mike’s Dead in September. Calva Louise are hitting their stride as artists; their work is paying off. Here’s to the fruits of this labour being as sweet as those fruits Bloodywood ate in front of them.

Edge Of The Abyss is available now via Mascott Records. Catch the band later this year in the UK supporting Stray From The Path on their farewell tour.

Words: Julia Brunton

Cover photo: Henry Calvert

Cover design and accompanying photos: Simon Arinze

With thanks to Mascot Label Group