There is no way a posse of four women, each with classical musical instrument, is not a sexy sight. They don’t even have to play the instruments, just posing for a photo shoot is enough to draw interest from a few men.
So don’t be too hard on yourself if this is how you respond to Sterling EQ’s latest CD, Pulse, on which the four local beauties flaunt their musical instruments on the cover. But what you hear on the CD from the quartet is even more appealing.
“It was always my dream, even when I was at school, to do something that made use of my classical training, but also appeals to a wide audience in a pop context,” said Carina Bruwer, who is a flautist.
“When I was younger I really enjoyed Vanessa Mae’s DVD and that’s when I learnt of classical instruments being used to make pop CDs,” Bruwer said.
As the most experienced member in the group, Bruwer saw a business opportunity in music and set out to start something simply to survive. The business was a music agency which saw Bruwer work behind the scenes for other musicians.
“I ran that business for a couple of years until I realised that I missed playing. So I had to evaluate what I really wanted to do. I knew I didn’t want to play in an orchestra so I thought of going the electric pop route because it has been established in Europe, but is still growing here,” she said.
She and Ariella Caira, who plays the electric cello, are long-time friends so it came as no surprise that the two decided to form a band. But they needed more musicians.
“We used to play with different musicians in the beginning, but when it was time to release an album we decided to tie down a four-piece. We auditioned and Eriel (Huang) impressed us and got the spot. We had another girl who left after a year so we auditioned again and Renate (Riedemann) joined us,” explained Bruwer.
And three years and three albums later the group is still going strong. With their third release Pulse, the band aims to reignite the magic they made with Nova (2009) and Sterling Speel Afrikaans (2010). In April 2010, they released Sterling EQ Live in Concert which earned them a Sama for Best Jazz/Instrumental/ Popular Classical DVD last year.
“In the past, we took mainly existing songs and gave them a classical twist – our interpretation. At first we did not know what to put on Pulse. It took us months of brainstorming,” said Huang.
“We have five original songs on the album and took elements of existing songs and fused them, creating a new song. You can’t call it a cover, but a mesh of different interpretations. We do have a song, the Mission Impossible theme, which we thought was fun to play as a straight cover,” Caira said.
The group is touring the country to showcase Pulse and if the Sama body is fair, then another accolade is coming their way.
• Pulse is available at your local music store.