The Blow

The Blow is an electronic pop duo comprised of Khaela Maricich and Melissa Dyne. The Blow has taken various incarnations over the years: initially begun as a solo project by Maricich, the band was joined for a couple of albums by Jona Bechtolt of YACHT and morphed again in 2009 to take its current shape as the collaborative power convergence of Maricich and Dyne. In live performances, Maricich and Dyne work from opposite ends of the room, hugging the audience in between them, with Khaela on the main stage and Melissa on a separate stage at the back of the room. Onlookers stand in the direct path between the performers, encircled and perforated by the call and response of soundwaves, lightbeams and psychic communications between Maricich and Dyne. The shows on the upcoming tour are an open laboratory for experimentation using the elements that each artist has been honing over the years. Dyne works with the physics of sound and light, and has worked predominantly as an installation and sound artist; from her post in the back she manipulates electronic instruments, shooting waves of frequency and light like a wizard hidden by the fireworks. Maricich plays with melody and narrative and gesture, bouncing herself off of whatever materials are thrown in her direction by Melissa, by an audience, from the ether. Together they produced a new album, titled The Blow, which is being released in October 2013. The album exists as a physical manifestation of the odyssey of experimentation on which The Blow has embarked, a mass of cells ready to divide and explode into new forms and mutate with the local populations, ready to see what could happen.