December 2012 – Audiofemme

EVENT REVIEW: African Children’s Choir Gala

The 4th annual African Children’s Choir gala was held at City Winery this December 3rd. Hosted by ABC’s Nashville actress Connie Britton, and presided over by Big Kenny of Billboard Country chart topper Big & Rich, the night showcased the African Children’s Choir and raised funds to facilitate their travel costs.

The night began with guests enjoying cocktails and light hors d’oeuvres. Attendees mingled while the New York based rock act Emanuel Gibson and band played an opening set to warm up the crowd. Gibson kicked it off with classic rock style guitar riffs, soulful, rich vocals and a driving energy. The band included Poyraz Aldemir on drums, percussionist LS Bell on congas and Zito Bass on, naturally, the bass. Gibson brought edgy style to the stage and kept the night from starting off stiff and overly formal.

The lights dimmed and MC Connie Britton introduced New York’s longstanding crowd pleaser STOMP. The group consisted of five of the cast members, including Daniel Weiner, who also played as house band drummer, Keith Middleton, John Angeles, Marivaldo Dos Santos, and Patrick Lovejoy. The versatile crew performed sans the iconic trash can lids and push broom props they are known for making music with, and the result was a rhythmically rich, layered performance with only hands and feet as percussive instruments. I only wish they had been given time to perform more than one piece, as the crowd clearly loved the exclusive experience of seeing STOMP up close in an intimate setting.

Marty Thomas followed suit with his pop rock rendition of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror”. His performance was engaging, and he even persuaded the crowd into joining in on the refrain. Thomas is a Grammy nominated recording artist, with Broadway credits Xanadu, The Secret Garden and Wicked under his belt. His crisp Broadway honed vocal style and technical ability was inspiring and refreshing to hear.

Stephanie J. Block was a special treat to see perform, as I had been blown away by her voice years ago when she played Elphaba in the First National Touring Company’s performance of Wicked. She has starred in Broadway hits such as Anything Goes, 9 To 5: The Musical, and The Pirate Queen, and can currently be seen in the title role of The Mystery of Edwin Drood at Roundabout Theater. Her strong vocal belt and ability to deeply emote continues to make her a distinguished performer.

Despite a star studded lineup, the true stars of the night were the children. The African Children’s Choir performed high energy Christmas themed selections and had the gala crowd on their feet. The kids truly looked to be enjoying the spotlight, and most likely enjoyed staying up past bedtime to get in on the gala action. The choir consists of children ages 7-11 from several African nations. They share their performances with audiences all over the world, and the City Winery attendees seemed thrilled to be a part of the choir’s success.

The live auction rounded off the night, and turned out to be nearly as entertaining as the performances. With prizes such as Chanel watches and a meet and greet with Miss New York 2012 on the line, and Big Kenny as a well intoned auctioneer, the bidding was a dramatic show. A surprising highlight involved an impromptu agreement from Connie Britton to sing a duet with Big Kenny if two bidders matched their price and shared an autographed violin. The gala crowd continued to raise the stakes on bids for a night with Big Kenny at his estate, and that was by far the big draw of the auction.

Big Kenny received the Malaika Award, which awards individuals for outstanding work on behalf of Africa’s children in need. He was recognized for his work in Sudan, and a music video highlighted his time spent in Africa working with the children. I had hoped Big Kenny would perform a final song with the Choir, but his closing speech inspired and ended the night on a note of hope.

According to www.nashvillecountryclub.com, the event raised over $50,000 for the African Children’s Choir.

Finding French Music In France

Having lived in France for the past four months, I’ve grown accustom to certain aspects of French culture: always say “bonjour” upon entering an establishment or you’ll be considered incredibly rude; don’t try to do any shopping on Sundays or Mondays – most everything is closed then; and there’s no need to rush out and do errands on your lunch break (all two hours of it) since the banks and post offices are shut during this time as well.

Although I studied in Paris two years ago, working in Chambéry – a small city surrounded by snow-capped mountains – has offered me a completely different cultural experience. Being here, I actually feel like I’m living in a different country.

So after weeks of not being able to see an American movie or find a normal-sized jar of peanut butter, imagine my surprise when I was able to spend three hours at a bar hearing nothing but American pop music. The homesick part of me relished those three hours. It was almost as if I had been transported back to college, “ironically” singing along to some Pop Princess with a group of friends.

A few weeks later I had kicked the mental malady and felt strong enough to commence a search for current French music. This proved to be a harder task than I had originally expected. Blaring through my French roommate’s door I heard the same three songs over and over: Nat King Cole’s “L.O.V.E”, Katy Perry’s “E.T” and something I assume was Christina Aguilera. It was an eclectic trio, but an eclectic American trio nevertheless.

Continuing the hunt, my English roommate Maddie bought a radio for our kitchen. As we scanned through the stations we couldn’t believe how many American songs we were tuning in and out of. Where was the French music?! (Even on the Billboard Charts, there is currently only one French artist in the top ten).

As a last resort I took to the Internet, searching and sieving through an immense amount of French artists. Here’s what I have to show for it: five of my favorite French songs released this past year.

1. Françoiz Breut – “La Chirurgie des Sentiments”: Françoiz Breut’s mesmerizing and angelic voice only add to her adorability factor.
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2. Lescop – “La Foret:” It’s a little repetitive, but fun electro-pop nonetheless. If you’re into Twin Shadow or Wild Nothing, you might like Lescop.
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3. Ooh La La! – “Un Poing C’est Tout:” Ridiculously catchy and Natacha Le Jeune seems pretty badass.
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4. Marie-Pierre Arthur – “Si tu Savais:” I might be breaking my own rule with this one, since she is actually French-Canadian, but I wanted to mention Marie-Pierre Arthur anyway. Listen to how she channels her inner-Feist.
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5. MOZIIMO – “Le Secret:” A beautiful and gradual build throughout the song makes it impossible to turn off.
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BOOK REVIEW: Neil Young’s Waging A Heavy Peace

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Last year, Neil Young performed a feat many famous musicians seem to be doing these days – he worked hard on a memoir that was published recently and gave it a few twists.

The overall premise of Waging Heavy Peace is that of Young peering into his brain matter over a period of a few months in 2011 and recording it (in writing, and only in writing – sort of). He talks about everything he’s currently doing and working on, complete with whatever thoughts pass through. It goes on for 497 pages. At times it was easy to forget that the book is that long. At other times it suddenly occurred to this reader to look ahead to check how much longer it was going to be before a next chapter, or to the end of the book, but it definitely had its moments.

Those looking for seriously deep insights and a more solid chronology from Young’s memoir are better off hunting down Shakey, Jimmy McDonough’s biography of the man. Peace finds Young holding to his chest the cards that proclaim how he feels about his closest family members and about many other matters that require intense introspection, but he’s quite willing to expound on many musicians and artists he’s played with, especially the ones who have passed away – original Crazy Horse guitarist and vocalist Danny Whitten; Larry Johnson, the filmmaker with Young’s Shakey Pictures who was best known for working on Young’s Human Highway; David Briggs, the producer with whom Young feels he made his best albums. There is a profound respect for what these people have meant to him and to the lives they led that is revealing in its own way. In a world he’s created that consists of music, family, close friends, and technology, Young can be an astute observer of surface.

Much has been made of the focus of Peace. It’s too easy to get caught up in that, and part of me wonders if that’s one of Young’s feints, a series of obstacles placed in the way of the readers that keep the man himself comfortable inside his own castles. They are edifices largely built of old cars and a need to present sound and music as he feels it should be heard. Young sings praises of the Lincvolt – his project transforming the innards of a ‘59 Lincoln Continental into a 21st century machine with a clean-burning engine – and a type of sound quality player and distribution system that would supposedly blow MP3s out of the water. He finances these enterprises, does some work on them, but mostly revels in a sort of nostalgia over these things. They are symbols of his American dreams, in a sense, of days when big cars helped bring him to his earliest gigs and larger vehicles like tour buses seemed to have lives of their own. Days when, even though the sound of his own albums may not have been perfect at the time, they sounded better than the CDs and iTunes digital files of the present. Repeated references to all of this stuff borders on annoying, making me wonder if Peace isn’t much more than a sales pitch.

If it is, it isn’t a very good one.

The Voodoo Music Experience is one of New Orleans’ attempts at being all things musically relevant to all people from all over the world – and to somehow, some way, make a profit while doing it. Its name makes it stereotypically New Orleans while differentiating it from the more well-known Jazz and Heritage Festival, somehow hinting at providing more “dangerous,” off-the-mainstream musical offerings than JazzFest would have.

The reality is that the Voodoo and Jazz Festivals are coming closer together with every passing year, both of them booking performers that wouldn’t be out of place in either festival context. One of those performers happened to be on the Le Ritual stage at Voodoo Fest earlier this year, rocking the audience with mostly new music that sounded a lot like his older music. Not that there’s a thing wrong with that, as Neil Young and Crazy Horse can still bring it. Put it in the context of Young’s recent memoir, though, and brace yourself for questioning why one would even attempt to categorize what he does at all.

Young’s interests and doings have gone well beyond wielding a pencil and paper to write songs, then wielding his trusty guitar, Old Black (among many other instruments over the years) to record them and perform them live. Watch him onstage with Crazy Horse, however, and you wonder why he would want to do anything else. Despite Young’s sobering hearkening back to past music on occasion with a bit of “Needle and the Damage Done” and the more recent, unblinking portrait of a couple’s travails over nearly twenty years of marriage in “Ramada Inn” from the newly released Psychedelic Pill, what he and the members of the Horse were best at was a sheer joy in playing rock. The massive expanse of the festival stage was shrunk not only by Young and the band members clustering together as they played, but also by the attitude they brought. An attitude that screamed This is fuckin’ FUN.

An occasional, recurring afterthought of sorts in Waging Heavy Peace is what playing with Crazy Horse means to Neil Young. It’s something that isn’t new to the memoir; Young has spoken of the Horse as an entity unto itself that kicks him into a higher gear both musically and spiritually many times before. He anticipates getting the group back together at the White House on his Broken Arrow Ranch and schemes to get each one of the musicians in on sessions that created Psychedelic Pill, another rock set destined to burnish their massive legacy (it’s of no little surprise to me that there’s a song called “Walk Like A Giant” on it). But watching them all performing live drives home one thing that Young’s memoir only hinted at…

…These days, the road is Neil Young’s drug. His music is still, largely, his greatest gift to us all in life. And the mirth he and Crazy Horse guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro took in 1990’s “F*!#kin’ Up” on that stage at Voodoo Fest was not to be missed – nor was the shredding that Old Black took, its strings a tangled mess on the rug after the encore of “Like A Hurricane.” These small, intense windows into Young’s innards are, truly, the best we as an audience will ever get.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

THOM YORKE, ‘ATOMS FOR PEACE’ & “HOLLYWOOD DOOOM”

Thom Yorke’s side project Atoms for Peace has an album coming out. F i n a l l y. We are excited about the debut from Yorke, Flea (of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame) and uber-producer Nigel Goodrich. But we are also just as excited about this live animation thing. The album art is wild and mysterious and apocalyptic, so why not animate it on the side of a building? Created by Radiohead visual artist Stanley Donwood and INSA, the aptly named “Hollywood Dooom” mural was done stop-animation style to give us a GIF on the side of a building. It is badass. See it HERE!

BEAUTIFUL NOISE DOCUMENTARY ON KICKSTARTER

Check out the campaign happening now on Kickstarter, by the folks working on the documentary Beautiful Noise. 8 years in the making, Beautiful Noise explores how bands such as the Cocteau Twins, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and My Bloody Valentine created a fascinating sound that would influence generations to come. If this group succeeds in reaching their goal, Beautiful Noise will be released worldwide (and will definitely be a contender at the festivals.)

EMBATTLED MEGAUPLOAD FOUNDER BACK FOR ROUND 2

Kim Dotcom, whose property was recently raided by the New Zealand police and F.B.I in a spectacular ambush fit for a world class arms dealer, due to his controversial file hosting site, Megaupload, launched a new site in spite of his pending trial and the potential 20 years he faces. Dotcom, who is awaiting extradition, is seemingly unmoved by the charges. Mega, his new free file storage and sharing site, was flooded with traffic as soon as it launched yesterday, with more than half a million users lining up to register. “Legally it’s probably the most scrutinized Internet start-up in history,” Mr. Dotcom quoted to the New York Times. “Every pixel on the site has been checked for all kinds of illegal — potential legal challenges. We have a great team of very talented lawyers that are experts in intellectual property and Internet law, and they have worked together with us to create Mega.”

ARTIST PROFILE: TalkFine

They’re hard to describe, but maybe the best part about TalkFine is how incredibly unique their electro-pop blend of sound is. With dashes of humor and cues from a variety of genres including soul and R&B, TalkFine considers themselves a pop duo, and there is no better blanket term for their fun, sweet, and ferociously catchy brand of tunes.

With two EPs, a few YouTube videos of the boys covering artists like the Bee Gees and Rihanna, and several shows around the city, Clark Baxtresser and Pierce Siebers, Ann Arbor, Michigan natives, current roommates, childhood friends, and masterminds behind this unsigned act, are keeping themselves continuously busy with their band and a variety of special projects.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Baxtresser, the taller half, on the goings-on of his group as they prepare for two shows this month at Arlene’s Grocery. After two fantastic tours with fellow University of Michigan graduates and theatre troupe Team StarKid as the music director, Baxtresser has been working with Siebers on integrating TalkFine full-force into the New York music scene.

Take a listen here!

AUDIOFEMME: So what was the evolution of TalkFine?

CLARK BAXTRESSER: I started writing music with Pierce in high school, and we mostly would write funny songs. But we’d also perform or just play cover songs. A lot of them were Broadway ballads or classical arias. [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Laughs]

AF: Is that your next album?

CB: Probably! [Laughs] So we established a musical partnership early on. We’ve known each other forever. So, I guess the partnership was there for a long time. The name TalkFine and the band idea, the idea that we would sort of be a unit, didn’t totally come about until middle of college. We spent our summer together after our sophomore years, and that’s when we thought of the name. We wrote this huge chunk of music, and that was, in terms of our work together, a huge turning point.

AF: Did you both go to college together?

CB: He actually went to Vanderbilt in Tennessee. He was a composition major.

AF: I get a very electro-pop, R&B vibe, especially from the songs on the new album. What would you say are your biggest artistic influences?

CB: We have a lot. The new album that we just released has a number of influences that are kind of soul, R&B…sort of like a throwback aesthetic. But we are huge fans of Rufus Wainwright. His great songwriting and love of melody, I think, is something that speaks to us because we both have very voice-centered backgrounds. Pierce was in the boy choir growing up, and I experienced a lot of that as well. So we love melody, and we love singing so that’s a big one. We also love Radiohead [laughs] it’s hard to call these influences but it’s things we love, so I’m sure it works somehow.

AF: In terms of songwriting, does it get done together or separately?

CB: We usually do almost everything together. Sometimes one of us will have a certain kind of idea and bring it to the other one and then we’ll work from there. But sometimes it really just takes one idea for us to build a whole song out of it, and when that happens it feels like, from that first idea, everything is built together — song construction, lyrics, production. It definitely feels like a true partnership in how we operate.

AF: Does the duo have any plans to tour in the future?

CB: We’d love to. Right now, we’re still getting our feet wet in the New York music scene. I know we’d love to in areas where we have friends – Chicago, LA. I’m sure if the opportunity arose we would love to set up shows there, but right now we’re just focusing on New York.

AF: When listening to the songs, there’s a fantastic sense of humor that comes across really well. So in regards to subject matter and thematic elements, what inspires you guys?

CB: It helps to have something to write for. We actually wrote a good number of songs for the latest StarKid show, A Very Potter Senior Year, and we’re working on the soundtrack for that right now. That was really an interesting experience for us because we were writing for such specific characters and scenes and feelings. We really worked well with those constraints. In terms of the songs on Lesser Known Hits, our most recent EP, we were writing a lot of those songs for our main producer [Jack Stratton]. So we were working with him very closely and a lot of the songs we were writing, we were anticipating sending to him. Some of the aesthetic and sense of humor is really attached to him and to what we thought he might find funny and want to work on. I think recently, we’ve been working with things we felt had some sort of destination. We were writing them for some sort of specific project.

AF: For A Very Potter Senior Year songs, is there more of a TalkFine influence or did you both work to stay true to what the Potter musicals had sounded like before? How did that work?

CB: We definitely were trying to keep it within the realm of StarKid musicals for sure. So we weren’t trying to make it any sort of TalkFine song. I’m sure certain parts are influenced. Our aesthetic can’t be completely removed. I think our hope is that we’ll just fit right in with the rest of the StarKid catalog, and that fans will embrace the songs.

AF: Having those two separate entities, did you and Pierce have to re-learn how to write together, or was it very natural for the two of you since you’ve been working together so long?

CB: We enjoy writing in different characters and different aesthetics. That’s part of why it’s sometimes difficult to kind of grasp our music because it’s just kind of fun to write in a completely different style sometimes.

AF: On YouTube, you’ve posted some really great covers. I love the Cranberries one you two had performed. Do you have a plan to continue with that?**

CB: Yeah, yeah definitely. We like doing covers. I’m not sure what the next will be yet, but I’m sure there will be another one somewhat soon. We’d also like to continue making original videos — music videos and other types of performance videos. We’re in the process of working out logistics for an upcoming music video shoot. We like making videos and having a visual component to what we do.

**Since our interview, TalkFine has released a wonderful cover of Wham!’s holiday classic “Last Christmas.”

AF: Finally, what’s upcoming for TalkFine?

CB: Possible music video and EP of our friend [Ahren Rehmel]‘s poetry. We’re working on the soundtrack for A Very Potter Senior Year. We’re still writing new music for TalkFine but we’re having to decide how that will be released and when it will be. Definitely sometime in the future we’ll release a new collection. Other than that, we’re just trying to focus on performing.

_____________

Check Clark and Pierce live this month at Arlene’s Grocery at 9pm on both 12/10 and 12/17. The duo will also be the special musical guest at “The Joe Moses Showses” at the The Player’s Theater 12/15 & 12/16.
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SHOW REVIEW: Matthew Dear + Light Asylum + Beacon

Watching a Matthew Dear performance is like standing before a work of art from the Italian Renaissance or Greek antiquity. You look at it, beguiled and even frustrated by the possibility that human hands could create something so beautiful. Matthew Dear himself, statuesque and always decked out in an impeccably tailored black suit even when he sleeps, I imagine, has been perfecting this aesthetic, now indistinguishable from the music itself, for over a decade. Going to his show indeed engenders that fleeting and indelible longing you feel when you’re in a museum looking at one of your favorite paintings: a longing to engage with something physically and emotionally unreachable even if by mere inches.

The tension of knowing he’s a real person who leads a real life with real things in it, and experiencing him as something so intangible and deliberately cultivated, is gripping. It keeps him shrouded in mystery, and keeps his magnetism as sharp and strong as ever; and it is precisely this tension that made his show last weekend at Webster Hall remarkable.

The stage looked beautiful. Bouquets of white roses embellished every mic stand. Massive banners in the style of abstract expressionism, of Dears most recent album artwork (created by Ghostly’s resident graphic designer, Michael Cina) hung in the background. Each band member juxtaposed one another dramatically, with two sets of percussion sidling the back, the trumpet player front and center, and the bass player in between him and Dear, who, off to the side, performed the electronics, lead guitar and vocals, conducting it all like a circus master. Everyone wore really pretty outfits. They started playing—new and old songs, all of which are so incredibly good— and the audience gravitated toward them like moths to a flame. It felt par for the course.

Then something extraordinary began to happen about halfway through. Maybe it was when he started to peel Rose petals off his bouquet, letting them fall to the floor with an improvised and unlikely touch. Or maybe it was when he started moving around the stage, dancing wildly, and even occasionally jumping off things. I think the decisive moment came, though, toward the end of the song “Do The Right Thing”. The flood lights were turned on so we could all see one another. Dear approached the audience and for the first time ever in my experience, sang the last verse and chorus directly to us, loudly and insistently, without any effects, tracking, or even much help from the band. “I was yours for escape”, he mused. He seemed to be addressing us . He seemed to be shedding his stoic affect in favor of human connection and all the ways in which it leaves one vulnerable as hell. For the last moments of the song he came right up to the edge like he was going to jump, defiantly, not singing just looking. People were generally freaking out. The girl to my right was bawling. As it all ended, he turned and retreated back, disappearing into a haze of smoke, and then the whole room went dark.

He’s clearly trying to make us care about him as a person. The question remains though, how this effort will coalesce with his music, long-associated with his personae, and the ways in which he distances himself from his audience when he’s live. On this, the verdict is still out. I think it says something mighty powerful, however, that his performance of “Do The Right Thing” that night was a singularly moving moment for I suspect, everyone in the room.

The supporting bands, Beacon, Light Asylum (and MNDR which I missed), put on amazing shows. Beacon’s performance was one of the best I’ve seen, since I think their big, cavernous sound is suited for big, cavernous places. The reverb actually had space to travel and linger, and the bass was so loud it had everyone’s hair standing up (the conventional wisdom about chicks loving loud bass is true, by the way). They performed most of their old material from No Body, as well as singles, “So Anxious” and “Last Friday Night”.

Now that they are signed, it seems they’ve come into their own. Thomas Mullarney is more confident in his vocal abilities, and therefore more inclined to sing louder. Even this simple act transforms the songs from good to really really good. For their whole set, they commanded the room–which is no simple feat when there are only two people and zero instruments. Those who were wandering aimlessly about were suddenly captivated. By the end of their set, there were three times as many people huddled toward the front of the stage.

I suspect in the not too distant future, they’ll be the headliners for shows like these.

When Light Asylum’s set started, I had no idea what to expect. I had only heard of them in passing. Flitting about on stage, plugging in wires was an incredibly muscular, tank top wearing man who I assumed was the band leader. Soon though, a young woman appeared and set my perceptions straight. Not only does she lead the project, she dominates. Their names are Shannon Funchess and Bruno Coviello and they make wildly energetic synthpop with electronic foundations. They’ve released one EP, In Tension, and one self-titled debut. The songs are chaotic and strange, yet entirely danceable. In fact you can’t help but dance when you hear them. This is due to the music itself, of course, but also Funchess’s personality on stage, which demands that you ride along with her on her weird journey. She stands behind an electronic drum kit, and sucks you into her world, sometimes singing or making other types of noises with her voice, sometimes dancing like she’s possessed, sometimes flapping like a bird, etc. And it is extraordinary. She has the lung capacity of a lioness, and a totally unique sounding voice, as well as an unending supply of energy. All this combined with Coviello’s catchy synth makes for the type of new-wave -writ modern I wish so many other mediocre bands would create, but can’t because they simply lack the spirit of innovation it takes to do it. Light Asylum, however, has enough to go around.

SHOW REVIEW: Twin Sister + Moon King + Leapling

twin-sister-2011 — Twin Sister • Photo by Shawn Brackbill

After a last minute cancellation by headliner School of Seven Bells, Long Island based band Twin Sister stepped up to the plate for an electrifying performance that truly stole the show. Singer Andrea Estella has a mesmerizing demeanor, and her hushed, waif-like vocals beckon listeners in. The full band has a seasoned stage presence and sound quality. The band mates are clearly in tune with one another on stage, and this resulted in some great moments of ebb and flow between instrumentation. The set focused primarily on their newest album In Heaven, which was released in 2011, although die hard fans did their part and called out for the oldies.

Twin Sister falls into the category of some sort of Dream Pop/Disco hybrid, and keyboardist Dev Gupta defines this style with a mastery of classic synth sounds. Estella joked that Gupta has a space station setup onstage, and his pile up of gear certainly looked the part. Gupta uses a modular synth, a Yamaha DX7 vintage synth, and a midi controller he hooks up to music software programs Logic and Ableton. I appreciated the precision of his playing and his sonic choices, although it left out the option for more spontaneity on stage. At one point, Estella wanted to add in a song the audience was calling out for, but it wasn’t set up on his computer to play, so they had to skip it. Yet this small inflexibility was a small price to pay for the quality he adds to the overall sound.

A highlight of the night was when guitarist/singer Eric Cardona kicked in on vocals for the song “Stop”. His crisp, easy flowing voice was a nice surprise to add into the mix part ways through the show, and I craved mores songs that could feature him as a singer. The acoustic encore included only Andrea’s voice with Eric on guitar and vocals, which resulted in refreshingly exposed harmonies, even if the duo was a little inexact. Twin Sister captures a bizarre, spacey calmness that is truly ethereal. The band turned out to be a natural headliner at the Hall.

Twin Sister – Stop
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Moon King was raw emotional content. I couldn’t help but fall in love with this band’s sense of wild abandon. Singer Daniel Benjamin is the heart of this group, and he seems to completely lose himself in his music. I found myself desperately wanting to come along with him on the trip. The group has a grungy rock look, and I kept feeling I’d transported into an impromptu Bushwick basement party, but they certainly filled out the Hall. It is interesting to see Moon King describe themselves primarily as a duo, when the drummer was such a strong tertiary aspect to the group. He was all passion, and his hard driving beats propel the songs quite nicely. But after a bit it was clear he was going to play full blast on every song. As a result, the songs felt too similar to one another. If Moon King could take a few steps back on a song or two, the results could be an explosive calm, and the audience would have come along for the ride. Guitarist/singer Maddy Wilde’s dramatic guitar style and airy vocal harmonies are indispensable, and she could do well to take center stage more often. The band had an energetic youthfulness that will be interesting to watch mature.

Stepping in as a last minute fill in, Leapling played the opening set. This group has a laid back, indie pop feel, and they oscillate seamlessly between a simplistic, easy going style, and moments of more driven jamming. Singer Daniel Arnes has a voice that sounds eerily similar to Benjamin Gibbard at times, and I found myself flashing back to my high school days of Death Cab for Cutie more than once. Leapling’s performance was polished, and their loose, roomy style was a great kick off to the night.

When School of Seven Bells returns to Brooklyn, I will be sure to check them out, but in the mean time, I’ll be jamming out to my new find, Twin Sister.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Life After Girls: The Rebirth of Christopher Owens

In January, Fat Possum will release Lysandre, the debut record of Christopher Owens. Owens will then play two back-to-back shows at Bowery Ballroom. In all likelihood, these shows will sell out. The reason that the music world is waiting so eagerly for this particular singer/songwriter’s first solo record is because Christopher Owens is best known as half of highly celebrated indie rock band Girls.

Formed in San Francisco 2009 with bassist and producer Chet “JR” White, Girls became a huge and nearly instantaneous success. Part of the fascination no doubt stemmed from Owens’ intriguing personal history, having been raised in the Children of God cult until he was sixteen. But it was the songs that the duo created that kept audiences enthralled, their pop simplicity resonating with fans and critics alike. The effortless, often sunny chords and uncomplicated lyrics, simultaneously fun and dark, characterized the three releases the band would produce over the next few years – Album in 2009, Broken Dreams Club in 2010, and 2011’s Father, Son, Holy Ghost – before Owens announced via Twitter last summer that he would be leaving the band. Now, six months later, Owens will make good on his promise to continue to write, record and play music, but this time, he’s on his own.

With Owens poised to take this leap, what can fans expect? Oddly enough, Lysandre is a strange little epilogue to the Girls saga; it’s a loosely themed tour diary of the band’s first international outing, during which Owens met and fell in love with the French girl the album is named for. It features all the sentimentality one might see coming with such a synopsis – he describes the tender details of their first encounters and the painful realizations he came to as it ended. And in between he questions his validity as a songwriter, marvels at the cities of the world, and swoons about a million times over, all in the key of A.

I caught what I considered a slightly more than mildly awkward solo performance a few weeks ago at Le Poisson Rouge, only his second solo appearance. That’s using the term ‘solo’ a bit loosely since he was accompanied by a sort of sad looking plant, a keyboardist, a drummer, two back up singers (one of which is his new love interest) and a wizard-esque, white-bearded woodwind player who was literally playing a different instrument almost every time I looked at him. More often than not, he trilled the recurring “Lysandre’s Theme” on his rather jazzy flute. Owens and company proceeded to play his record from beginning to end, signifying further Owens’ clear intention to present the work as a whole rather than as a set of separately satisfying and sonically distinguished gems in the manner of his work with Girls. While this is admirable in its ambition, it made the material a bit harder to digest, especially coming from someone who has shown a bit of a genius as far as composing perfectly pitched pop nuggets is concerned.

The performance was awkward because everyone wanted Owens to succeed. There’s no denying Owens as an artist and when he left Girls he left the world hungry for great records that could have been. But it’s also frustrating to know that he has chosen to make indulgent and somewhat gawky folk music when he’s capable of exploring the same themes in a far more palatable way. It’s more than a little uncomfortable to watch someone coming to terms with a painful past, confronting strange desires and issues of inadequacy. It wasn’t that the music he made under the Girls moniker was less raw or honest, but the sonic intricacies of his former project provided a more clever mask for its coarser sentiments. Without that veil, Owens’ musings tend to go from earnest to embarrassing.

A perfect example of that came about halfway through the set, when Owens performed “Love Is In The Ear Of The Listener”. The lyrics are a series of questions posed from songwriter to himself regarding the necessity and worth of his work, but it sounds like something an aspiring fifteen-year-old poet might write. He wonders if everyone’s tired of hearing love songs, if he’s just a bad songwriter in general. It came across like a questionnaire Owens might send to blogs with promo copies of Lysandre, and even had the audience chuckling at certain lines. It’s entirely possible that Owens is going for a tongue-in-cheek exploration of his insecurities. It could be that he’s not actually worried about his abilities at all; someone with Owens’ degree of critical acclaim must feel that he can’t totally fail. The conclusion he comes to in the song is that it doesn’t matter anyway since he’s doomed to write what he feels regardless of what people want or expect. In this way, it acts as a sort of disclaimer for the entirety of the new material, a challenge even.

Owens closed out the set with an encore of iconic covers from Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, The Everly Brothers, and Donovan. By this point I was almost embittered enough to yell out “Cover a Girls song!” knowing that it would be completely inappropriate and even unfair to do so. But the whole thing felt like Owens had left Girls to become a glorified wedding singer – and the tables LPR had set up around the stage did nothing to diffuse that impression. Owens picked celebrated songs that definitely seemed autobiographical, communicating his fears of striking out on his own (“Wild World”), holding specific relevance to his break from JR White and Girls (“Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright”), and fleeing from the only family he knew when he was still a teenager (“The Boxer”) but also belie his fascination with classic love songs (“Let It Be Me”) and folksy caricature (“Lalena”). If these celebrated songwriting heights act as reference point for Owens’ aspirations, his goals certainly cannot be loftier. One can almost parse the moments when Lysandre makes good on these objectives but the record I’ll be more excited to hear will chronicle this current solo voyage, rather than act as a sentimental look back at the artist’s time with a band I’ll miss for a while still to come.

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SHOW REVIEW: Reptar w/ Stepdad & Rubblebucket

I first saw Reptar when they opened for Foster the People on their fall tour last year. It takes a lot for me to notice a band that is opening for an artist or group whose album I have memorized from the first to last notes, but Reptar possesses exactly that kind of high energy, enthralling dynamic that makes you wonder who you even came to see in the first place.

A year later, I’ve gained a more intimate relationship with their tunes and finally got the chance to see the Athens, Georgia quartet again. This time around, they were accompanied by Stepdad and Rubblebucket at the The Bowery Ballroom on a freezing cold November evening. In between my first to the second experience, the band has grown – both in the musical quality and the number of musicians on stage. What was once a show featuring a few boys with their instruments on stage has turned into a fuller experience complete with blaring horns and some vocal distortion.

It’s reminiscent of the way they grew after their first EP, Oblangle Fizz Y’all!, which feels minimalist in comparison to the lush layers of sophomore release Body Faucet. The new music tastes like ’80’s kitsch on a funky plate and, like their older songs, is yummier when experienced live. The band radiates a neon-bright vibrance when on stage and with additional members joining them on tours, everything feels even more like a clusterfuck of childish excitement which their name already throws back to.

Sweeping through songs off of both releases, Reptar bounced and screamed and danced and invited the entire audience to the strange frat party they seemed to be throwing at that very moment. Several times throughout, lead singer and guitarist Graham Ulicny’s twangy screams of lyrics would become a complete mess of syllables and sounds that helped build their charm. They’re messy, dirty, and ridiculously fun, and that’s what makes Reptar.

By the end of the night, Stepdad and Rubblebucket had joined Reptar on stage for an enchantingly chaotic few moments of communal good vibes. And maybe that’s always Reptar’s goal by the end of the show – to share their good vibes with a room full of people where it doesn’t matter what song is playing as long as you’re dancing. The audience has felt it both times I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing. In a smaller space, a show with this band feels like a group hug that ends in entangled bodies screaming and jumping up and down. It’s psychotically fresh and exactly what a live show should be.

While their music is better heard raw, unfiltered, and live, their initial EP and full-length album are as sweetly funky as they perform on stage. Check out these boys all over the web (and huge props to the genius who designed their throwback website) and make every effort to dive right into the middle of a Reptar dance pit when they come to town.

Content by Brittany Spanos for www.audiofemme.com

Month: December 2012