Los Angeles based Garretson & Gorodestsky have been following their dreams for decades, and entertaining their audiences with them – as well as their nightmares – both in solo shows and as a duo. Garretson’s “Weba Show” was a masterpiece of SoCal theatre in the 80s, while Godoretsky can be heard playing bass, and his songwriting is heard in the jazz-punk-funk projects such as Universal Congress Of, and The Mecolodiacs, both in collaboration with Joe Baiza. ‘Insambia’ sees Weba Garretson tackling insomina from the left field, with a piece of avant-garde pop which owes as just much to Latin music, jazz, and off kilter theatre. The song comes with a video beautifully shot by Alex Italics.
‘Insambia’, from the duo’s latest set, ‘In The Year Of The Firemonkey’, the most recent in a series of equally intriguingly-named releases, including ‘What Must The Hummingbird See?’ and ‘My Skin Craves Soil’, is inspired madness but in a very good way. It’s a pure, off-the-wall, but fun party number, while at the same time conjuring up the feeling of psychic destabilisation which is all too common to insomina.
In the video we see Garretson addressing the camera, while Gorodetsky tosses in bed. Both are a little too wired, and are seemingly all too susceptible to the lure of the ‘Insambia’ sleeping medicine on the bedside. Suddenly we’re confronted by a plethora of images: a stabbed pillow, resulting in an avalanche of feathers; a never-ceasing alarm clock; and a snare drum, packed with pills. Shot in black and white, it’s given the feel of a 1930s or 1940s film – think ‘Reefer Madness’, or anything from Hitchcock. The music is experimental and jazzy, and perfectly conveys that too close to madness feeling you get when you just.can’t.sleep.
Check out more about Garretson & Gorodetsky on Weba’s website.
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