Helen Money – Effects / Cello / Goodness

A while back I talked about Steve Albini and his band Shellac playing in my home town (a town he called home as well). The opening act of that show, and for the other west coast dates in 2011, was Helen Money. I didn’t know anything about Helen Money, so I pulled some YouTube clips and was surprised to see it was a solo act, playing a cello with effects and loops. Very interesting. I was very excited to this as well as Shellac.

Alison Chesley who uses the stage name Helen Money plays with an assortment of overdrives, delays and loopers to create a very haunting sound scape. I spoke with her after the show, and we’ve been talking about doing a full on interview here on EffectsBay, so hopefully that will still come together in the near future. I bought her CD “In Tune” after the show and it’s damn good, and would highly recommend picking this up for some great atmospheric instrumental music. Also, it was recorded at Electrical Audio – nuff said.

Why I’m writing about her today is because I came across an interesting video by GearWire where she talks about some of the effects she uses to help her shape her sound. Her pedal board has evolved since this video, but I really liked how she explained why she uses a few of these pedals.

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Some of the pedals featured in this video were:

ProCo Rat 2
Boss PS-6 Harmonist
Boss DD-7 Digital Delay
Fulltone Ultimate Octave
Boss RE-20 Space Echo
Boss RC-20 Loop Stations

Alison has also laid cello tracks on albums for Bob Mould and The Broken Social Scene. She is incredibly talented and innovative. If you get a chance, be sure to check out Helen Money!