Escala

A couple years ago, a certain car company ran an ad for their newest line, using an orchestral piece that seemed unnecessarily epic. I can't find the video online, otherwise I would link you to it, but I remember the music from that commercial. A friend of mine found the track and downloaded it onto her iPod, because it truly was amazing.

Sometime later, one of my brothers took me and our mom out in his car, and in his car stereo he had a CD of music by the all-female string quartet named Escala. I only realized sometime later, after my brother bought our mom the CD because we both loved it so much, that it was their signature piece 'Palladio' that I'd first heard in that car commercial.

The music that Escala plays is amazing. They mix classical orchestral music with modern percussion and electric sounds with a very interesting effect. The instruments that the girls play are actually electric versions of the string instruments they learned to play in professional orchestras; when I first saw the instruments, I thought they were artistic representations, and it took me a while to realize they were fully playable as well.

Normally, I don't care too much about music, but Escala's is one of the CDs that I'm really glad we own. As I've mentioned before, I recently started driving, which I took as a reason to start listening to music again. Unfortunately, our car doesn't have a CD player, so I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. Using my skills of heightened resourcefulness, I managed to plug a small boom box into the cigarette lighter in the car, gaining he ability to blast music from the passenger seat on my way to class in the morning. I brought along the Escala CD, knowing that I'd enjoy it while I worked on burning a mix CD of music from our hard drive.

They only have the one CD out so far, and from what I understand, most of the tracks are their covers of classical songs (Including one cover of Led Zeplin's 'Kashmir'). However, I'm excited for any new stuff they may be working on, and I know I'd be willing to buy any future CDs they release.

The official Escala website has more information about the band, including a bit of their history, tour news, and audio of all the songs on their CD, available to listen to for free. (In case anyone is wondering, my favorite track on the CD is 'Children', a cover of the Robert Miles song of the same name. I'd never heard the original before, but I really love Escala's version.)