Page 121 – Audiofemme

LIVE REVIEW: Chelsea Wolfe @ The Apollo Theater

“Thanks to everyone who listened and was respectful. And to those of you that talked through the whole performance: that was fucked up.” These parting words from Chelsea Wolfe, spoken in a rather resigned tone before she played the final song of her set opening for The Eels Sunday night at the historical Apollo Theater in Harlem, characterize everything that’s difficult about the reality of a being a supporting act. It’s often a bit of an uphill battle for attention, unless, of course you’re getting negative heckles or requests for songs from Lynard Skynard’s catalogue (note: “Play ‘Free Bird’!” is not even ironically funny anymore, idiots).

While no one requested that Wolfe play Southern rock classics, her ultra-early set made the full attention of the audience pretty hard to come by. As I would come to learn after Wolfe played, fans of Mark Oliver Everett have a pretty myopic focus and a lowered capacity for interpreting anything less fluffy than “I Like Birds,” so perhaps Wolfe’s grandiose, noise-inflected baroque pop was simply over the heads of those attendees who were able to get a babysitter in time to hoof it up to Harlem to catch her performance. As the event was seated, Wolfe also had to contend with tardy folks who were innocently (if obliviously) trying to find their seats. It might be par for the course, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating, especially for a performer as artful and serious as Wolfe.

The tragedy here is that those who talked through Wolfe’s set or trickled in late missed a transcendent performance from a powerful artist. Accompanied by a violin and synths from two musicians bookending her on either side, Wolfe was able to fill the opulent space with a sound just as lavish. She played guitar through most of her songs, which at times meant picking spidery rhythms. But even more compelling was her ability to take droning chords that might have been abrasive in less deft hands and turn that textural noise into a thing of sublime, tortured beauty. As on her latest record, 2013’s veritable tour-de-force Pain is Beauty, Wolfe’s striking vocals were the truest thrill, sweeping and swelling and emotionally wrought, though never overly so; her sound was right at home in the ornate, neo-Classical surroundings of the Apollo, gleaming through her austere stage plot like the gilded balconies in the shadowy theater.

Side-by-side with the reverent, almost gospel-esque quality of Wolfe’s performance, The Eels seemed almost crassly kitschy. I should probably admit that my interest in The Eels has never really managed to stretch beyond bizarro alt-rock smash hit “Novocaine for the Soul” (which they didn’t actually play), but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t curious or optimistic about the set. Everett has a reputation for being a consummate, warm, and humorous performer and song-writer, and I gave his band more than the benefit of the doubt. But opening with a Jiminy Cricket song and ending with a cover of Harry Nilsson’s “Turn On Your Radio” places the band’s oeuvre in an all-too-accurate and rather unfortunate context. Singing a song called “It’s a Motherfucker” and having it still come off as cutesy is clearly The Eels’ bread and butter, and to some, I guess that’s impressive (though the mostly empty mezzanine wasn’t ultra convincing). Everett’s cavalier repartee cut directly into the dignity that the band’s elaborate set-up attempted to to approach, and seemed almost an affront to the hallowed venue. Early on, when he made a joke about the audience being the “whitest” Apollo has ever hosted, it rang too true for me not to wince at the nervous chuckles around me.

The moral of the story here is that it takes a certain kind of gravitas to pull off a show in such a venerated space, especially when you’re a cultural outsider. Wolfe rose to that challenge gloriously, giving her performance an essential weight and elegance. Maybe next time, more people will be paying attention.

PREVIEW: RadioLoveFest @ BAM

Who says radio is dead? Between June 4th and 8th, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) will host an anomalous little festival merging the worlds of radio, theater, music, and storytelling in order to celebrate the hundred-year-old medium. The highlight of the fest is likely to be a Saturday June 7th interpretation of This American Life live from the Howard Gilman Opera House. Stephin Merrit of the Magnetic Fields will perform songs based on real stories from the beloved NPR program, and the event will include narrations by longtime host Ira Glass himself, as well as a mini musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda, readings by Mike Birbiglia, and dance from The Monica Bill Barnes Dance Company.

The remainder of the festival has no shortage of things to offer: there are curated screenings of Talking Heads tour doc Stop Making Sense and classic anti-fairy tale The Princess Bride, live broadcasts of RadioLab, Wait Wait..Don’t Tell Me! and Soundcheck (featuring former Walkmen frontman Hamilton Leithauser, San Fermin, and comic Wyatt Cenac), free musical performances by Alicia Olatuja and “Battle of the Boroughs” winners Brown Rice Family (both hosted by Terrance McKnight), and lots of interactive series and talks that will have you experiencing radio like never before.

Get your tickets before it’s too late!

TRACK REVIEW: Crystal Stilts “Delirium Tremendous”

After the September release of album Nature Noir, Brooklyn’s own fuzzy noise pop darlings Crystal Stilts have triumphantly returned– with new single “Delirium Tremendous.” But this time, there’s less fuzz, and more sun. The track begins with a deliciously upbeat, almost Krautrock-sounding tempo, built around singer Brad Hargett’s Ian Curtis-like croon. He makes a fervent plea to be understood: “Delirium/Delirium/Deliver me from tedium.” The lyric creates a dark, complex backdrop to the otherwise light and playful pace of drums and insistent, building guitar. Perhaps a bit of shadow lurks beneath the sunny veneer.

Without warning, things change direction and a bridge builds out– a slowed tempo oozing with a “party’s over” sense of resignation as Hargett himself resigns: “And after all/Is said and done/We have to go.” But is the party really really over? No time for contemplation– as all traces of the bridge have melted away, replaced by the resurgence of the frenzied, driving pace that you were just starting to miss.

This track has the feel of being on a spontaneous road trip; and although Hargett and Co. make a pit-stop halfway through the wild ride to get out of the car, pace around a bit and contemplate the universe, they more than make up for the break once they get back on the highway; with tires screeching, steering wheel swerving, and blissful, reckless abandon charting the course through to the song’s abrupt end. Damn right, it left me wanting more.

As it happens, this month Crystal Stilts will be rolling through a slew of East Coast (and even a few Midwest) cities with some live dates. Schedule below:

6.14.14 – Rock and Roll Hotel [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”][tickets] – Washington, DC*@

6.15.14- Ottobar [tickets] – Baltimore, MD*

6.16.14- Cattivo- [tickets] – Pittsburgh, PA*

6.17.14- Mahall’s [tickets] – Cleveland, OH*

6.18.14- Empty Bottle [tickets]- Chicago, IL*

6.19.14- The Warehouse- Ann Arbor, MI*

6.20.14- NXNE- The Garrison- Toronto, ON

6.21.14- Il Motore- Montreal, QC

6.22.14- Space Gallery [tickets]- Portland, ME

6.27.14- Baby’s All Right [tickets]- Brooklyn, NY#

*with Juan Wauters

@ with Craft Spells

# with Christines

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TRACK REVIEW: Coeur de Pirate “Wicked Games”

Francophone singer/pianist Coeur De Pirate (that’s French for Pirate Heart) recently released a new album of covers of her favourite English songs for the Canadian television show Trauma. Arguably, the best song on the album is her version of a track by another Canadian artist – The Weeknd’s “Wicked Games”. Coeur De Pirate, whose real name is Beatrice Martin, has released two full albums in French. Trauma marks her first full length English album, and it does not disappoint.

Martin is Quebec born and raised, which holds a particularly special place in my heart and is one of the main reasons I first started following her work a few years ago. When I first moved to Montreal, the only thing I listened to for the first six months (religiously!) were Martin’s first self-titled album Coeur De Pirate (2008), and her second album Blonde, released in 2011.

Those familiar with Martin’s work know that the common themes in her songs are heartbreak and unrequited love, and she delivers them with a sweet but painfully lovelorn voice. Her rendition of “Wicked Games” is no different; something about the way she sings it gives you the feeling that her heart is actually breaking at the moment. Armed with only a piano and her voice, Martin delivers a version of the song that will haunt you. Having been fortunate enough to watch her do her thing live (twice) in her hometown of Montreal, I can say that her talent is as mesmerizing on a stage as it is coming through speakers.

It is obvious that Martin wanted to strip the song into her own raw form; “Wicked Games” doesn’t sugarcoat anything and is as beautiful as it is hypnotizing. The original version of The Weeknd’s alternative R&B song is sultry, smooth and exquisite, but Coeur De Pirate was able to take the song to a whole new amazing level. Elsewhere on Trauma, Martin tackles Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good”, Kenny Rogers’ “Lucille”, and the ever classic “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers, though you should probably just play “Wicked Games” on repeat all day – just saying.

Trauma is available for purchase and download via the artist’s bandcamp. Check out Martin’s video below, and compare it to The Weeknd’s original.

INTERVIEW: A Chat with Grrrl Fest Organizers

Here at AudioFemme, we’re all about making spaces for women in the music industry, whether that’s as music makers or behind the scenes – booking and promoting shows, running sound, shooting bands, and, of course, bringing you top-notch journalism reviews. So we got super excited when we found out about Grrrl Fest, a day-long celebration of women in the creative arts. Organized by an inspiring group of young feminists, it features performances from a dozen or so up-and-coming bands that feature female musicians, short films, spoken word performances, zine-writing workshops, button making, a book sale and a silent auction, and that’s to say nothing of getting your tarot cards read and covering yourself in “glitter tattoos.” Not only are we pumped for Grrrl Fest to take over Silent Barn on June 14th, we were also so impressed with the scope of the event that we just had to learn more from two of its organizers, Ebun Nazon-Power and Bridget Malloy.

AudioFemme: In your words, what is the mission of Grrrl Fest?

Ebun Nazon-Power: Grrrl Fest is about supporting and empowering females (girls and women and anyone who identifies as such) in whatever it is that they do. However, Grrrl Fest is mainly focused on the creative fields such as music, bands, dance, spoken word and art. I think our mission is to reveal to all those young women out there that it is totally okay to be creative and self-expressive in an environment where people (not just females) are being supportive and helpful. We wanted to show girls that there is no one way of being a feminist–there are tons of different kinds and ways. So being in a place where people are coming from all over the city and elsewhere and are all about equality and feminism, it can be a life changing experience and hopefully have a positive effect.

AF: Who makes up the core group of organizers? How do you work together to organize the event?

Ebun: The “core” group I guess would be myself and my other classmates: Christopher Gambino, Savannah Galvin, and Clare Burden, Esme Ahsley-White, Abbie Hornburg and of course my art teacher Bridget Malloy. However, we have plenty of volunteers from different schools who are working with us. The core group organizes at The Beacon School and all the other volunteers are organized through social media like Facebook.

AF: How long have you been doing this?

Ebun: This is the very first year that we are doing this. We honestly began this enormous project like two months ago!!

AF: What inspired you to put Grrrl Fest together?

Bridget Malloy: Some students and I were hanging out in the art room during a free period and Ebun put on her band T-Rextasy. It was such a cool sound. It reminded me of some of the 90’s girl bands. At the same time, I was looking at Savannah’s artwork on the wall. It was this really cool text piece. It reminded me of writing on a bathroom wall. So then somewhere along the way I said, “We should do a ‘Girl Fest!’” Next thing you know we are planning, making calls, getting sponsors and the rest is history. People got right on board too. It was really great how it all just formed so naturally. It really felt like it was the right time for something like this and that many people wanted to see it happen.

<a href="http://t-rextasy.bandcamp.com/album/dino-demos">Dino Demos by T-Rextasy</a>

AF: You’ve got tons of performers scheduled. What did you look for in terms of artists who you wanted to book?

Ebun: In terms of artists, we automatically knew who was going to play – She Monster, Petal War, and T-Rextasy (in fact, they were kind of the main reason grrrl fest started) which are all teenage girl bands. And then a lot of the people volunteering had some other artists they knew of that could possibly play. We also held auditions at The Beacon School for anyone who wanted to perform whether it be spoken word, dance, or music. We of course wanted mostly female artists, but since Grrrl Fest is not about excluding anybody, we also had several males in mind that were really excited to get involved such as Granted, Yabadum, The Backup Sticks, and Shemp. The only requirement is that every band performing has to do a cover of a female musician/band. We are really excited about this!

Bridget: Petal War, an all-girl band with some of the members being Beacon students and Willie Mae members, had played a show at SXSW and it just seemed like the right time to support all of these amazing young women!

<a href="http://petalwar1.bandcamp.com/album/petalwar-ep">PetalWar EP by PetalWar</a>

AF: Besides great music, what else will be happening at Grrrl Fest?

Ebun: We will have activities (weather permitting) out in the garden of Silent Barn earlier in the day, from noon to 6pm. There will be tables with hands-on activities: button making, zine making, glitter tattoos, tarot card readings and more. The activities will teach and allow people to really participate in the event. Our sponsors will be in attendance to connect with the crowd too and get them involved in their organizations. There’s a silent auction which will help us to raise money for art in schools. And there will be art for sale benefiting young entrepreneurs with a portion of their sales going to various organizations at Grrrl.

AF: How did you go about getting sponsors for the event? Can you tell us a little bit about them?

Bridget: The sponsors for the event really happened so easily. First I have to say The Beacon School has truly supported this from the start. In addition, the people over at Silent Barn were behind this idea from the beginning. Nat Roe has been a dream to work with. He has been with us every step of the way and has supported pretty much anything we sent his way. He was the one that suggested we take the event into the night and have Pottymouth and the rest of the bands play later on in the evening. Originally it was going to be a six-hour event but now it’s about a twelve-hour event! As for the rest, we literally got on the phone and made calls or emailed people we thought could add to the event. BUST Magazine and Tom Tom Magazine were some of the first to back us up. Then Bennington [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”][College] came in with a generous donation. They really supported us from the minute this whole idea began. Libby Hux was a huge player at Bennington she literally got right on it and made calls and wrote to people to make that happen. As for Planned Parenthood, Lower East Side Girls Club, Bluestockings, Center for Arts Education, CHiPS, Willie Mae, Makers… we just reached out and asked if they would want to participate. They all said yes! We were thrilled! We even had some people contacting us once people got word of the event.

Ebun: Getting sponsors was not even on my mind when we first started this event actually. It was not until one of the magazines (Tom Tom) e-mailed me asking if they were sponsoring the event and I was like “Oh, duh!” I had some connections with some of the organizations such as WIllie Mae Rock Camp for Girls which is an organization that supports girls in doing music and Tom Tom which is a magazine dedicated to female percussionists.

AF: What aspect of Grrrl Fest excites you the most?

Ebun: I am excited about almost everything! I am excited to see how everything is going to be pulled together. A lot will be going on between these 11 hours and hopefully every bit will be exciting. All of the bands and performers are INCREDIBLE, the crafts should be really fun, and the t-shirts and tote bags (made by classmate and friend Clare Burden) are absolutely phenomenal. Hopefully it will continue to happen every year, and even on a larger scale![/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

ALBUM REVIEW: Fresh & Onlys “House Of Spirits”

House Of Spirits, out June 10th on Mexican Summer, is the newest release from San Francisco psych-rock janglers The Fresh & Onlys, is a study in subtle kookiness. Fronting vocalist Tim Cohen, who wrote many of the songs on this album alone on a ranch in the Arizona desert, has a voice that seems inherently gentle and intimate. His ear for wistful pop harmonies–with golden arpeggios to match from guitarist Wymond Miles–often place this group squarely in the sphere of indie endearingness that reaches backwards towards nostalgia, not forwards towards absurdity. That was the very much the case on the group’s last full-length, 2012’s Long Slow Dance, an album brimming with romantic earnestness and stellar pop songs. But House Of Spirits is a little different.

Though the melodies don’t often give way to Cohen’s more experimental songwriting tendencies, they’re a shade spookier than par, and–especially in the first few tracks–dwell distinctly in the province of dreams. Album opener “Home Is Where?” begins innocently enough, with sweetly plodding piano chords and a quiet vocal line whose lyrics are sort of extolling the comforts of being home and knowing where you belong, and then all the sudden the song derails with the line “There is something that is off, for example there’s a bowl full of eyes on the floor.” It’s more than an impeccable instance of dream logic, this track also sets the bar for surreality. Anything is fair game, essentially, on House Of Spirits: there will be twists, and you will not be able to see them coming.

According to Cohen, all of House Of Spirits represents a search for home and the disorientation of not recognizing a place that should be familiar. However, the record’s back half takes place in waking life, as opposed to in a dream, and the kookiness gets a little watered down once the images of bowls full of eyes and stewpots full of hearts succumbs to conscious thought. The album ambles onward into daylight, and loses a lot of its sharpness. The affectionate “Ballerina” would feel more at home on Long Slow Dance, and even so, the track lacks passion. Next, though the repetition of the melody over horns on “Candy” offers a coolly sinister ending, it’s otherwise a one-dimensionally sunny song. The lack of curveballs in the latter tracks is all the more disappointing because we’ve been set up to expect twisting and turning, and we keep waiting for the song’s sinister side to poke its head up from underneath the surface. Only on the last cut, “Madness,” do we return to the disoriented search for familiar territory that kicked off House Of Spirits. Experimental, distorted guitar parts flood a gentle vocal line, reassuring lyrics give way to spooky echoes, and all the music melts into noise, and finally silence. At no point is “Madness” as catchy as “Home Is Where?” or the album’s three frontloaded scorchers– “Who Let The Devil,” “Bells of Paonia,” and “Animal of One” –but it does belong to the same surreal, imaginative dreamscape.

House Of Spirits will be out via Mexican Summer Records on June 10th. The New York Times is streaming the album in full, and you can check out “Who Let The Devil” below via Soundcloud:

VIDEO REVIEW: Phèdre “Karmic Mechanic”

Kids get bored on airplanes. To remedy this dilemma, my sister and I used to play a game while flying to numb our stinging boredom. I now know it as The Exquisite Corpse. It’s essentially a sketching game in which one player draws an appendage belonging to any phylum of flora, fauna, man or machine. The subsequent players then add their own body part to the drawing, and when the game is finished a gruesome and humorous hybrid is left on the page.

I can’t imagine this childhood pastime wasn’t on the mind of animator Leah Gold when she created the music video for Phèdre’s “Karmic Mechanic,” a number off of the band’s sophomore LP Golden Age. Phèdre has no shortage of esoteric imagery in their arsenal of videos. 2012’s “In Decay” boasted Dionysian hedonism with its food-orgy scenes, and “Sunday Someday” concluded with a family being poisoned at their dinner table. It’s therefore refreshing that the band is taking a time-out from overwrought theatrics to bring fans a short, sweet video that is more whimsical than disturbing.

“Karmic Mechanic“ begins with a wash of pale peach that is invaded by collage-like objects in the form of decapitated statue heads, painterly triangles, and a minuscule pony. The shapes flutter away to their respective places in a landscape of colorful trees and dip-dyed clouds, and in stumbles a beast of no particular species. With the limbs of a man, a spherical torso, and a head that resembles a horse-born lion, the video’s central character dances around his two-dimensional world on hinged legs, playing hackysack with an amorphous face.

A whopping 57 seconds of watch time, the visual aspects of the short are consistent with the song’s audible qualities. The track itself is a subdued pulse of electronic drums and carnival-like synths, which are made all the more strange by a kid’s vocal track. The resulting combination of childlike graphics and mythological lyrics yields a video that is equally strange as it is adorable.

Gold, who is a good friend of Phèdre’s founding members Daniel Lee and April Aliermo (formerly of Toronto’s Hooded Fang), occasionally dances with the band and has certainly picked up the duo’s sense of humor throughout their collaborations. Aliermo and Lee often belabor the point that they are simply the base components of the band, and that it is the ongoing contributions by their buddies that enrich the project. This model is proven successful by the creation of an eerily endearing music video.

Check out “Karmic Mechanic” below, and be sure to give Golden Age (out now on DAPS Records) a thorough listen.

ALBUM REVIEW: Parquet Courts “Sunbathing Animal”

Following their highly acclaimed 2012 album Light Up Gold, Brooklyn-based punks Parquet Courts delve into something more disembodied and fragmented in Sunbathing Animal, out June 3 via What’s Your Rupture? and Mom + Pop Music. Their sound is essentially the same – still plenty of the lively guitars and driving drums that drew the mass of listeners that religiously follow them now – but there’s something more exact about it, more complete. The 13-track endeavor was inspired by the band’s time on the road and that feeling of displacement and transit is reflected in the lyrics and sound.

The opening track, “Bodies,” is a great introduction to the album as it plays on themes of separation and introspection. As lead vocalist Andrew Savage sings of “bodies made of slugs and guts,” the accompanying guitar follows in spirals and the repetition of phrases and rhythms creates a nearly out-of-body experience where the mental becomes separated from the physical. This effect is repeated in “What Color Is Blood” and “Instant Disassembly” where a dissociation of body and spirit makes the listening experience that more meaningful.

Sunbathing Animal is an album that can be listened to – and should be listened to – from first track to last in order to get its full impact. Shorter, one-minute tracks like “Vienna II” and “Up All Night” act as transitional interludes that really capture the wandering sense of being on tour with the band, feeling their moments of freedom and captivity, and the not-much-longer “Always Back In Town” hinges on ebullient transience. That central theme is visited and revisited in different ways, and at every pace: “Dear Ramona” unwinds slowly for moments of contemplative limbo, “She’s Rollin” stretches into a dissonant harmonica jam by its end, “Raw Milk” captures stumbling, early morning disorientation, and the sneering “Ducking & Dodging” as well as the intense energy and searing drive of the title track are tailored for rowdy live iterations, built to anchor yet many more tour dates in DIY spaces and moldy basements of house shows. As a whole, the album is a strong sophomore follow-up to their early success, their sound more precise and their exploration of different themes relevant especially in times like these, when it often seems as if everything is always in transition.

Watch an animal sunbathing in the video below (+ tour dates):

June 2, 2014 Houston, TX – Fitzgerald’s w/ Radioactivity
June 3, 2014 Dallas, TX – Club Dada w/ Swearin’, Radioactivity
June 4, 2014 Memphis, TN – The Hi-Tone w/ Protomartyr, True Sons of Thunder
June 6, 2014 Columbus, OH – Double Happiness
June 7, 2014 Detroit, MI – PJ’s Lager House w/ Tyvek, Protomartyr
June 8, 2014 Toronto, ON – Horsehoe Tavern w/ Tyvek, Protomartyr
June 9, 2014 Montreal, QC – Il Motore w/ Tyvek, Protomartyr
June 10, 2014 Boston, MA – TT the Bears w/ Protomartyr
June 11, 2014 Brooklyn, NY – Sugarhill Supper Club w/ Protomartyr, Future Punx, Xerox
August 2, 2014 Chicago, IL – Lollapalooza
August 3, 2014 Happy Valley, OR – Pickathon

VIDEO REVIEW: Weatherbox “Pagan Baby”

For a song about lamentation, a video paying homage to times past is the perfect eulogy for something that is lost. Gearing up adfter a hiatus of nearly five years, San Diego punk rockers Weatherbox recently released Flies in All Directions, and with it comes a video for lead single “Pagan Baby.” If you missed 2007’s American Art or 2009’s Cosmic Drama, “Pagan Baby” works well as a refresher, kicking in immediately with catchy riffing and an upbeat drum section. From there, it’s all angsty, fuzzy agoraphobia beneath sweet overtones of radio-friendly pop punk that ironically beg singing along.

The video for the track, directed by Max Moore, is a throwback to The Replacements’ “Bastards of Young” clip. The Replacements’ video made a huge impression in the mid-80’s by featuring an unbroken shot of a speaker with some vinyls stacked against it. The only listener is an unseen person that sits on a couch just out of frame smoking a cigarette. As a statement piece, it came to symbolize a rebellion against the coming age of MTV and the onset of the elaborate, glitzy music video, all by letting the music speak on its own before the anonymous guy in the video kicks the speaker in.

Similarly, the Weatherbox new video uses a static shot, but this time it begins with footage of the band performing, panning out to rest on a desk and a computer screen on which the action plays out. There’s another anonymous person on a couch, this time drinking a beer instead of a smoking a cigarette. On a basic level, the visual mirrors the reclusive comforts that frontman Brian Warren sings about in “Pagan Baby” (it’s such a nice day / let’s stay inside) by presenting a viewer content to soak in the internet instead of the sun’s rays. But implicit in this very modernized appropriation is the fact that whoever’s watching the actual video (that’s YOU, dear reader) is also watching a computer screen while life goes on beyond it.

In this way, the video’s statement speaks more on behalf of how we experience music thirty years after The Replacements used “Bastards of Young” to shows that music was becoming something that would no longer exist solely in an aural realm. We no longer kick in speakers; instead, we troll comments sections. There’s no emotion or reaction from the listener as the computer screen goes black, and why should there be? Discovering a band is less immersive and far more casual than its ever been, our pixelated rockstars filling blank moments in our lives.

Oddly enough though, Warren seems to be okay with that sea change, arguing as he does in the song’s verses and choruses that maybe there’s value in curling up inside and and “keeping a crooked life,” that sometimes that act is a necessity. Warren’s own mental health is a crucial example of this; he’s suffered near-debilitating delusions for years now, something he’s finally able to spin positively on Flies in All Directions. Though the lyrics are less than sunny, the hooks on “Pagan Baby” are ones you’ll find stuck in your head whether you’re staying home or are out and about.

Weatherbox begins their North American tour in July, see dates below.

7/11 – Atlanta, GA – Drunken Unicorn
7/12 – Charlotte, NC – Area 15
7/14 – Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery
7/15 – Asbury Park, NJ – Asbury Lanes
7/16 – Philadelphia, PA – The Fire
7/17 – Brooklyn, NY – St. Vitus
7/18 – Albany, NY – The Ice House
7/19 – Copiague, NY – The Wood Shop
7/20 – Boston, MA – Great Scott
7/22 – Buffalo, NY – Waiting Room
7/23 – Toronto, ON – The Cave at Lee’s Palace
7/24 – Cleveland, OH – Mahall’s
7/26 – Chicago, IL – Township
7/27 – St. Louis, MO – The Demo
7/29 – Lawrence, KS – Art Closet Studio
7/30 – Denver, CO – 7th Circle Music
7/31 – Salt Lake City, UT – Shred Shed
8/3 – Pomona, CA – Growing Up Dumb Festival

LIVE REVIEW: Willie Watson Record Release @ Bootleg Theater

Three years ago I went to a concert in San Pedro, California. I had bought my ticket to see a British folk band, which shall remain nameless to keep focus of this article on the brilliant voice of Willie Watson, but I left the concert intensely curious about the band that had played alongside them. At that time Watson was playing with Old Crow Medicine Show and the vitality he brought to the stage was striking. He played banjo, guitar and sang; needless to say I was mesmerized by his artistry. Unfortunately a few years ago I had very forgetful tendencies and by the end of the set I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name. Then, a few months ago, I saw an ad for Willie Watson’s Record Release with a picture of him right in it. I jumped up and exclaimed with excitement; considering the fact that I was in the middle of a library my reaction probably wasn’t appreciated but was quite unpreventable.

I was ecstatic and honored to see Willie in action again, this time as a solo act, so on May 28th I strapped on my boots and headed to Hollywood with a big smile on my face. The show was at the Bootleg Theater, a venue I’d never attended before, and the dark wood floors with low lighting seemed to fit perfectly. The crowd was diverse in style and nature; one group had donned cowboy hats and boots while another rocked Vans and graphic t-shirts. Some of the people attending lived near Willie in Los Angeles and were there to support him. Others had been following him since his early days in music and sat waiting with stars in their eyes.

Willie was born in Watson Glen, New York and was introduced to great music at a young age, with Roy Orbison standing out from the crowd as Willie’s first vocal influence. Later on he became fascinated with Neil Young’s high singing register, which can be heard in Willie’s voice today. Willie spent time travelling around New York developing his sound with Ben Gould in their band The Funnest Game. The band dissolved when Willie met Ketch Secor and Critter Fuqua and they began to play around the “lively old-time music scene” in Ithaca, New York. The group busked around Canada and moved their way down to North Carolina where they officially formed Old Crow Medicine Show and were discovered by folk-country legend Doc Watson. After a long and fruitful career with OCMS, Willie split, saying that “it was time to move on and find a new situation.” I think that Willie’s time flying solo has been fruitful, with his first solo album seeing release on May 6th of this year.

Folk Singer Vol. 1 was produced by Acony Records in Nashville, Tennessee and is a mixture of classic folk and blues tunes with Willies’ personal touch added; the mix is brilliant. My favorites include “Keep It Clean,” a blues classic written by St. Louis singer Charley Jordan, and “Mother Earth” a blues song from 1951 originally recorded by Memphis Slim. While Willie was intimidated by the “singer-songwriter expectation” (meaning when he tells people that he didn’t write the songs he’s performing they seem less impressed), I think that Willie sticking to the roots of folk and blues is truly incredible. And as his old friend and producer David Rawlings has said, “Willie is the only one of his generation that can make me forget these songs were ever sung before.”

As he walked on stage the crowd erupted with hoots of delight, quickly replaced by Willie’s gritty voice and quick guitar riffs. Throughout the show Willie transitioned between banjo, guitar, and even harmonica. His performance had a sassiness to it; before one of his songs he asked the audience, “Would you folks like to hear a song about heartbreak or about a prostitute?” Of course the overwhelming response was wholeheartedly for the prostitute. When Willie performs, his voice matches his twangy back and forth gestures and recalls some combination of Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan (although he is much too humble to accept that). He had wanted this album to be “more of a listening experience” that will “take people through all walks of life,” and he’s certainly accomplished this goal during his performances by bringing in themes of heartbreak, scandalous sexual references, sing-alongs and even a bit of Willie Watson wisdom.

Many of the artists who Willie draws inspiration from have passed on, leaving only their amazing records and songs behind. To Willie these people are legends from the beginning of the folk and blues movement, and have left behind a thriving community in the artists they’ve inspired. I truly believe that Willie Watson (jerky dancing motion and all) is the next great voice revitalizing the world of folk music. I can’t wait to see what comes from him next.

VIDEO REVIEW: Sean Nicholas Savage’s “The Rat”

If ever in search of a genuine weirdo, look no further than Montreal’s Sean Nicholas Savage. In conjunction with the release of his 11^th studio album Bermuda Waterfall via Arbutus Records, Savage paired up with director Angus Borsos and dropped an eccentric little music video for his song “The Rat.”

In my brief history of listening to Savage, I’ve learned this: to hear him is to love him; to watch him is to ignite an obsession.

The black and white video opens with Sean in a corpse-like pose, weak light flickering on his bare chest and the roar of invisible surf scoring the image. Cut to a split screen of the wide-eyed man himself staring past the camera’s lens, his moniker in bold to the left of him. One would expect a washed-out and dreary ballad from a visual such as this, and yet thumping piano greets the ear instead. I’m hearing more Hall and Oates in this track than the somber dream pop I was anticipating.

A muffled voice croons that ubiquitous line of nearly every eighties pop song: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Our eyes finally settle on a direct shot of an alleyway resting between cement walls. Two partial orbs of light illuminate each structure with clinical brightness. The whole scene is as comforting as a coatless winter stroll through The Eastern Bloc. Savage, wearing only a drab pair of drawstring pants, stumbles between the concrete slabs with sloppy flamboyance; his movements teeter between gestures and dancing in the Morrissey tradition of physical vagueness. In fact my first viewing of “The Rat” immediately reminded me of Moz’s 1992 music video for “Tomorrow,” and I can’t imagine Savage has not been significantly influenced by The Smiths front man. He exudes the same boyish magnetism and ambiguous sexuality. His physique is likewise twinkish and emaciated, lending him an appearance falling somewhere between cover boy and malnourished prisoner.

The upbeat melody of the song is at conflict with not only the visual setting of the video, but also Savage’s lyrical content, able to simultaneously evoke sweet longing and bitter sarcasm. His performance in “The Rat” is at once bestial and soft, grotesque and playful. At one point he scales the two walls like a feral little creature and snarls directly at the camera like a belligerent chimp. I guess at this point I’ve narrowly escaped a pun including his last name.

“The Rat” is nothing sensational or groundbreaking in the realm of videography, but its perfect simplicity makes narrative virtually needless. The majority of it is shot in one take and comes off as entirely unrehearsed. Savage appears to be without any apprehension or self-consciousness; there is no forethought, no Ego, just Id. He is aware of the camera but in the same way someone is aware of his own reflection when they dance in front of a mirror. This kind of candid clumsiness is endearing and refreshing from an artist in his twenties; he’s not acting, he’s not trying, he’s just being.

And what a damn fine way to be.

TRACK REVIEW: Prinze George “Make me”

If you’ve been getting bored by listening to the same playlist on repeat, consider refreshing it with Prinze George’s newest: “Make Me,” an extremely satisfying and likable offering from the Brooklyn-based quartet who brought you “Victor” back in January. Within the first seconds of the dreamy intro, you’ll be captivated by Naomi Almquist’s airy vocals wafting over a dreamy synth intro, knowing it’s the start of something good.

Beginning with soft whispering repetition, the song sets off with subtle flirtation, but as it progresses, the mood (and Almquist’s delivery) shifts into something much more assertive, the longing in her voice at full tilt over the breezy and sweet production. The simplicity of its structure belies its lyrical complexity; at first blush the song’s narrative is rooted in romantic desire, but a careful listen reveals that it’s not so much about crushing hard as it is about being exhausted by said crush, and in a sick, stubborn way, finding pleasure in having it go unrequited.

“Make Me” is perhaps the foursome’s most straightforward and accessible track, but that’s not to say it’s dull. Their previous singles, “Victor” and “This Time,” while rooted in a pop sensibility, are more uptempo, aggressive, and dramatic, with dynamic, interchanging intensity. “Make Me” sees Prinze George making a foray into an almost bubblegum territory, but this new direction seems to be a good one. The sublime vocals and ethereal electro-pop harmony make it a light-hearted, summery tune. There are no big surprises, or crazy beat drops – just a relaxing, effervescent melody buoyed by playful vocals and sweeping synth textures that emphasize Almquist’s patient provocations. What she’s yearning for is up to the listener’s imagination, but the track is enough to make us ditch those tired playlists for good.

Visit the band’s Facebook page for a free download of the song. And if you’re in Brooklyn, check out their upcoming show at Brooklyn Bowl on 6/1, which is free with RSVP.

LIVE REVIEW: Yoni Wolf & Serengeti in Santa Cruz

Best known as the lead singer for the emotionally evocative, genre-defying project WHY?, Yoni Wolf’s musical journey is as long and storied as his lyrically emotive catalogue. Beginning with Apogee, a live improvisational group formed with college acquaintances Doseone, Mr. Dibbs, and his brother, Josiah Wolf, Yoni cemented relationships with collaborative partners that would last for years as those partnerships evolved. With Doseone, he founded Greenthink, which became cLOUDDEAD when the duo enlisted producer Odd Nosdom. The three of them would partner in founding Los Angeles-based record label Anticon, which, as its website so eloquently states, “…stands as much for radical hip-hop as it does for pioneering electronic music, left-field rock and outsider pop.”

Most recently though, Yoni has been busy hosting a weekly podcast called The Wandering Wolf, in which he interviews musician friends and alt-lit writers and sometimes, even his own mother. Last month he put out a mixtape called Old Dope (Rap Tape) that revisits material spanning his entire career. As a long-time Anticon devotee, and a particularly avid a WHY? fanatic, I immediately jumped on the opportunity to be a part of the “street team” he enlisted via Twitter to help promote the solo tour he planned in support of the mixtape, specifically for his stop at a well-known Santa Cruz venue The Crepe Place. The tour would feature both Yoni and rapper Serengeti, another incredible artist on Anticon’s roster.

Leading up to the show, I decorated my quaint, little Santa Cruz with promo posters, recalling tender moments with my tenth-grade crush who introduced me to WHY? via “These Few Presidents” from 2008 album Alopecia. But it was Yoni who won me over when I realized his background consisted of spoken word, drumming, and freestyle rap. Lyrical lines like “even though I haven’t seen you in years / yours is a funeral I’d fly to from anywhere” struck me as both heartbreaking and heartwarming, and his voice, which had a very specific gritty yet soothing timbre, felt wholly original. Paired with rhythmically challenging beats that registered right in the pit of my stomach, Yoni’s genius musical compositions really had the power to bring on some serious feels. Over the years, Yoni has amassed a rather rabid following, and I strongly believe that he truly moves those who connect with his music because he allows himself to be incredibly vulnerable and honest. Many of his songs address his most intimate experiences dealing with Crohn’s disease, somehow making his trials with it seem universal – those dark thoughts that we all have, but are not quite sure how to articulate.

Now, I’ve seen WHY? a handful of times (and Serengeti once at the Echoplex in Los Angeles), so I was aware of their perfectly enthusiastic on-stage dynamics. But I really had no idea what to expect from a Yoni Wolf solo show. On May 17th, I headed to The Crepe Place, a small, intimate, and warm venue, feeling quite special since my dedicated efforts to drum up interest in the Santa Cruz set had landed me a spot on the guest list. Yoni and Serengeti casually chatted with fans by the merch table, the energy in the space mainly chill, but run through with a current of excitement.

Serengeti took to the low wooden stage, separated from the audience only by speaker monitors, and casually pressed play on his old-school iPod, proceeding to rap over his own instrumental tracks, many of which were produced by Odd Nosdam. He was a perfect combination of childish and classy as he moved to those familiar rhythms like he couldn’t control his bodily impulses, all the while sipping on a nice glass of red wine. I was fully consumed (in the best way) by his lyrical genius and practically preternatural sense of rhythm seemingly informed by improvised dance or even free jazz. The crowd’s head bobs and body sways made it clear that they were as enthralled by Serengeti as I was. His set featured some popular tracks like “Bang Em” from The Kenny Dennis LP, as well as “The Whip” from Family & Friends. Serengeti displayed a keen understanding of how to use his underlying instrumentals to create an undeniable, infectious groove, bouncing his vocal style on that foundation by manipulating his pronunciation of words and exaggerating certain verbal accents.

After Serengeti’s performance, Yoni chose to play The Dirty Projectors’ 2012 record “Swing Lo Magellan,” a move that somehow created the most subtle and perfect transition between their two sets. As it turned out, Yoni’s performance was, in many ways, its own kind of live mixtape. One instrumental track played continuously as he gave a small bit of context before each song, placing each solidly in a timeline of his vibrant musical history. He included songs from his days with cLOUDDEAD as well as many WHY? tracks, with beats remixed by Yoni himself, as well as the likes of Boards of Canada, DNTEL, and of course, old friend Odd Nosdom. Although the set was simply Yoni alongside his computer, he has the presence and comfort on stage to create the most beautiful, thought-provoking and immersive environment.

His outrageously weird and wonderful dance moves were punctuated by intimate interactions with the audience. When someone asked where 2003 WHY? CDr Almost Live From Anna’s Cabin was recorded, Yoni responded with kindly humor, “It was recorded in Anna, my ex-girlfriend’s, cabin. . .that was an easy question.” I had to wonder if I was dreaming when I heard him interweave my name into one of his songs, as if to thank me for helping to promote the show. Being in the front row along with an eclectic group of fans, the energy was undeniably perfect. But it wasn’t just the high density of hardcore Anticon zealots like myself; undeniably, the vibe was mostly due to the mind-blowing, stomach dropping perfection resulting from both Serengeti and Yoni’s deliverance of their music. This is how you create community, build a fanbase, and give them something special to remember – by representing your truest, most authentic self.

FEMME UNFILTERED: Childbirth

Twice a month, AudioFemme profiles artists both emerging and established, who, in this industry, must rebel against misogynist cultural mores. Through their music they express the attendant hurdles and adversities (vis-a-vis the entertainment industry and beyond) propagated by those mores. For our fifth installment, Rebecca Kunin profiles Childbirth, a Seattle based punk supergroup that pokes fun at patriarchy with sarcastic, tongue and cheek and clever lyrics.

Meet Childbirth, the newest punk supergroup on the Seattle music scene. Julia Shapiro (vocals, guitar), Stacy Peck (drums) and Bree McKenna (vocals, bass) of Chastity Belt, Pony Time and Tacocat respectively decided to join forces and create Childbirth, a punk band that combines bellowing vocals, infectious guitar hooks and heavy drumming with intelligent, satirical and often hilarious lyrics.

On January 7th, Childbirth released their first album, It’s a Girl!. Its 10 punchy tracks (“Childbirth,” “I Only Fucked You as a Joke,” Sister Wives,” “Sweet Pea,” “Crossbitch,” “How Do Girls Even Do It?,” “Marination Station,” “Cowling at the Moon,” “Will You Be My Mom?,” and “Menopause”) are catchy, tongue and cheek, and enjoyable to all lovers of punk rock.

Whether Shapiro, McKenna and Peck are singing about sex, menopause, or insane ex-astronauts, sarcasm is the common theme stringing the album together. Shapiro, McKenna and Peck have mastered their own specific brand of just not giving a fuck. Instead of criticizing social patriarchy in their music, they make fun of it. In “Sister Wives,” Shapiro bellows, I am first wife, I will never be reassigned. In “How Do Girls Even Do It?” McKenna shouts, I don’t get it, I don’t understand, which one of you’s the man? In “Menopause” Shapiro sings, I’m going through menopause, I’m just a lady with saggy tits, is this it?

If you are a twenty something female, then you are probably aware of having been categorized at some point or another. Childbirth’s music video for “How Do Girls Even do it? perfectly articulates this. In the music video Childbirth is being interviewed on the ins and outs (no pun intended) of woman on woman intercourse. In the video McKenna assumes the role of the “cold bitch” (queer when it suits her), Shapiro plays the “cool slut” (straight for now), and Peck plays the “cool mom” (lesbo). Shapiro, McKenna and Peck may be joking, but they are actually saying fuck you to everyone who has put them in these categories, while at the same time illuminating how ridiculous and constricting these stereotypes actually are.

“Marination Station” might be my favorite track on the album. Remember Lisa Nowak? She’s that astronaut who went crazy and drove from Houston to Orlando wearing an adult diaper a couple years back. Well, “Marination Station” is probably the only song ever written about the infamous ex-astronaut. She’s a disgrace to all women in space. This line is repeated throughout “Marination Station.” This line, or something like it, was exhausted during the media coverage of this bizarre event. As there are not that many female astronauts out there, if one of them goes batshit crazy and poops her pants across state lines then she is obviously disgracing all female astronauts, right? Obviously this mentality is outrageous, and Shapiro, McKenna and Peck thought so as well.

Shapiro, McKenna and Peck have mastered satire perfectly on It’s a Girl! From beginning to end, It’s a Girl! subtly pokes fun at social patriarchy, and everything that comes along with it.

<a href="http://childbirth.bandcamp.com/album/its-a-girl">It’s a Girl! by CHILDBIRTH</a>

ALBUM REVIEW: Guy Blakeslee “Ophelia Slowly”

Whether performing with a trio or a quartet or semi-solo, whether in full psychedelic mode or reinterpreting the blues, Guy Blakeslee has a fantastic knack for making music that sounds haunted and doomed. June 10th marks the release of Ophelia Slowly, which, though not Blakeslee’s first solo release, is the first to come out under his real name instead of some permutation of the stage name Entrance. It hasn’t been long since Blakeslee released a record–The Entrance Band’s Face The Sun came out last November–and both that album and Ophelia Slowly chronicle a journey out of darkness and tumult, and into the proverbial light. Blakeslee has a history of substance abuse and was struggling to get clean when he wrote many of the songs on both these albums, so it’s natural that they would share a preoccupation with the material, but Blakeslee manages not to repeat himself at all with the release of Ophelia Slowly. Face The Sun was a rock album, heady and guitar-driven, with watery melody lines and psychedelic wah-wahing that trafficked in symbol and metaphor more than it did straightforward storytelling.

But on Ophelia Slowly, Blakeslee’s voice and lyrics become the focal point of the music. In the interest of holding the spotlight on the story line, Blakeslee keeps the music very simple, and many of the songs–“Smile On” and “Ophelia Brown,” notably–maintain a straight, sing-song-y structure that recalls elements of his early work, back when Entrance was a solo project and Blakeslee liked to reconfigure the blues and give it a psychedelic twist. However, despite the simple rhythms and emphasis on narrative, there’s little on Ophelia Slowly that’s musically reminiscent of the blues–the album’s foundation consists primarily of looped synth lines and an unassuming drum machine track.

Blakeslee has long been fascinated by states of trance. This album–which is, essentially, his version of an introspective, songwriter-y project–concocts swirling, circular guitar parts and a tightly rhyming vocal line that escalates, like a spiral staircase, as it moves from phrase to phrase. For Blakeslee, the music tells a story best once it’s in this hypnotic state. This concept is familiar turf–in the twenty years he’s been making music, Blakeslee has perfected the trick of creating a whirlpool inside a song–but Ophelia Slowly manages to maintain this churning, circular state for almost the full length of the album. That’s not a complaint. Actually, it’s impressive that the record’s repetition never wears out its welcome. “Told Myself” is a great example: with quiet, whining anguish, Blakeslee plays with the phrase “You were true and a liar too,” shifting meaning and replacing a word occasionally as he relentlessly repeats the lyric. “You were clean and a junkie too,” the song finally concludes, in the same stretched-out, high pitched melody, over a strummed acoustic guitar. They’ve got potential for melodrama, but in Blakeslee’s hands, the songs are beautifully ragged. As a collection, Ophelia Slowly is foreboding, not too optimistic, and full of compelling grit and fatigue.

You can check out “Kneel & Pray,” off Ophelia Slowly, below. The full album will be out June 10th.

ALBUM REVIEW: Sharon Van Etten “Are We There”

“I can’t wait ’til we’re afraid of nothing,” sings Sharon Van Etten, in her silvery and harmony-braided way, on the opening track of her new album Are We There. “I can’t wait ’til we hide from nothing.” The song– “Afraid Of Nothing”– has a sweeping clean-slate quality to it: it’s a fresh start, a New Year’s resolution. Maybe it’s the lyrics, or maybe it’s the flourishing, diva-esque piano chords, but there’s weight to this beginning. With its very first chords, Are We There establishes a low center of gravity. These songs are sturdy, they’re in it for the long haul.

That’s the power of skillfully deployed vocal acrobatics and complete mastery of your subject matter. Big, theatrical romantic breakdown has long been at the core of Van Etten’s musical landscape, and her sharpest tool is a voice that can be bent but never broken. Her albums–there are four of them now, beginning with 2009’s Because I Was In Love–are stories of how she uses the latter to navigate the former, a journey that the title of this latest record suggests is still ongoing.

And on Are We There that path is as satisfying and surprising as ever. Van Etten’s major themes haven’t changed much, but her aesthetic has expanded in every direction. On some tracks, like this album’s opener, she traverses an Adele-esque range and corresponding sense of drama–her sadness so straightforward it’s almost cloying–but elsewhere, her voice is stretched to its strange outer limits as pain gives way to blood-letting.

Just look at “Your Love Is Killing Me,” only three songs into this thing. It is possibly my favorite cut on the album, and it’s a great example of the far end of Van Etten’s sweet-spooky spectrum. The song begins with a vaguely militant beat that reappears in the chorus as triplets of crisply pissed off snare rapping. Then there’s her voice, so stridulent at its apex that she barely sounds human. “Break my legs so I won’t walk to you. Cut my tongue so I can’t talk to you,” she sings. This goes on: “Burn my skin so I can’t feel you. Stab my eyes so I can’t see… you like it when I let you walk over me.” Behind the exorcism, behind the declarations of brokenness, there’s powerful orchestration–swirling guitar lines, cycling piano chords–backing up these words.

Van Etten’s speaking voice is downright cute, and sometimes, listening to her talk, it’s easy to imagine that she sings love songs of the quietly forlorn, tea-drinking-while-moodily-gazing-out-windows-onto-overcast-skies variety. And though there’s plenty of sadness on Are We There, it never sounds neutered: even the songs that never rise above a whisper come with the reminder that they know how to snarl.

Are We There ends on another highlight: the deceptively simple, deceptively sweet “Every Time The Sun Comes Up.” Van Etten arranges the lyrics into a sing-song-ish pattern, like a riddle, and the mood straddles optimism and gloom. There are flashes of self-contained thoughts, like the coyly meta “People say I’m a one hit wonder, but what happens when I have two?” Then the song settles into a kind of moody anti-love song, with “I washed your dishes then I shit in your bathroom.” Listening to the song feels like being inside Van Etten’s head, trying to follow a string of thoughts and fluctuations that aren’t explained or organized into a performance. It’s the most interior song on the album, and in a way, it’s also the most obscured. The journey from the album’s opening track “Afraid Of Nothing,” which is a performance not only in its theatricality but also in the sense that Van Etten has a specific audience–the complicated, ever-present love interest that has ravaged and fascinated her music since she began playing publicly.

But by this album’s end, we feel that Van Etten isn’t on stage anymore, but is right beside us, spilling her guts in a less organized, and perhaps more mundane way. That doesn’t make her guts uninteresting–the evocative snippets that we get on “Every Time The Sun Comes Up” are some of the most intriguing on an album full of compelling lyrical lines. Mundanity, in Sharon Van Etten’s case, is anything but.

Are We There dropped on May 27th via Jagjaguwar. Go here to buy it via iTunes. Watch the great and profoundly depressing video for “Every Time The Sun Comes Up” below:

TRACK OF THE WEEK: White Arrows “Leave It Alone”

Take some (Gary) glitter and mix it with a touch of West Coast spiritualism and you’ve got White Arrows’ latest track, “Leave It Alone.” You can tell the psych-pop quintet is from Los Angeles from the sheer amount of dreamy synths and blissful reverb. A chimerical gem that shimmers as a standalone track, “Leave It Alone” has the potential to make major radio waves as the weather turns warmer.

Spanning decades and morphing influences from two very disparate cultural movements, White Arrows blends sunny 60s psych with 70s sparkle that makes for some pleasant, sunning-yourself music. It’s sway-inducing and a touch mind-bending. And the only thing missing is a six-pack and a kiddie pool on the roof.

It’s also a twinkly track that’s pure fun in all its fuzzy, glimmering glory. Drippy, trippy psych is nothing new for this band, but this new track is surprising in its glam influence, which adds an entirely different dimension to an already kaleidoscopic track.
Upbeat, energetic and distinctly reminiscent of an MGMT-esque anthem, “Leave It Alone” is a refreshing, conscious-altering exercise in grooving summer jams.

VIDEO REVIEW: Cold Beat “Mirror”

Now that Memorial Day has come and gone, I can happily say that the summer has unofficially begun, and if you are like me, then you are probably gearing up your Summer ‘14 Spotify playlist. Heads up: it would be incomplete without the likes of Cold Beat, who released a video for their delightful new track “Mirror” yesterday.

Although front woman, vocalist and bassist Hannah Lew has been on the scene for a while now, San Francisco-based Cold Beat is a newborn band, with only two previous singles under their belt: “Worms” and “Year 5772.” Still, what we have heard thus far is a clear indication of the band’s sound – combining retro fuzz guitar with misty vocals and sugar-sweet melodies.

“Mirror” plays as neat and tidy, retro surf pop. Right off the bat, it opens up with an inviting two-part guitar section. While one guitar takes on the fuzzy strumming section, the other picks away at an instantly catchy melody that immediately opens up the song. Throughout “Mirror” the interplay between the two guitar parts can be heard, coming to a climax in two brief back-to-back solos. The first, a distorted guitar laying hard on the whammy pedal, adds some needed intensity to the track, while the second, a melodically picked section, breathes more air into the song and further relaxes the track.

Lew’s vocals enter into the mix early on. Although her misty, breathy voice is more suited for soprano, where she normally resides, “Mirror” requires her to occasionally fall down into her lower register, where she is clearly less comfortable. The imperfections in her lower register actually add to the charm of the track, providing a more personal tone by offsetting the pop perfection.

The video for “Mirror” was directed by Lew herself, and unsurprisingly, it falls in line with the beachy, sunny theme that Cold Beat has already adopted. The video begins with Lew playing the bass in front of a giant clam shell with waves crashing in the background. This image, which is projected on an old TV screen, zooms out, and we see that the new image is inside another TV, which is next to the drummer. Then we zoom out to find out that she is also in a TV world that the guitarist is watching and playing along to. Throughout the video, the members of the band interact with each other in their own worlds, using the televisions as mirrors into each others’ universes, each imbued with a kitschy nostalgia. From the ‘90s era television set to the cheesy special effects (from aforementioned giant clams and box TVs zooming around to rooms decorated with paper stars), the whole video manages to come off as charmingly vintage.

Much like “Worms,” “Mirror” has us totally anticipating Cold Beat’s debut album, Over Me, which will be released on July 8th via Lew’s label, Crime on the Moon. As if she weren’t busy enough, Lew is also set to release a compilation album San Francisco Is Doomed, featuring contributions from artists such as Thee Oh Sees, Mikal Cronin, Erase Errata and Scraper. San Francisco Is Doomed is out June 21st.

Cold Beat – Mirror from Renny McCauley on Vimeo.

LIVE REVIEW: Lindsey Stirling @ Nokia Theater

Last Thursday night a crowd built up in Downtown Los Angeles, gathering to see violinist Lindsey Stirling. Touring in support of her album Shatter Me, the artist’s associations to EDM and dubstep have gained her a major following, evidenced by the variety of people in attendance. From seven to seventy, dressed in outfits ranging from business suits to belly dancing get-ups, dates, friend groups, families and single folks on the lookout for new prospects – you name it and it was there. Stirlings’ assorted mix of classical violin training, Celtic folk sounds and energy of electronica is a source of fascination for many types of people. And if playing a fast beat on violin isn’t impressive enough, she dances across the stage like an ice skater while she performs.

In 2007 Stirling introduced her talent to the world through her YouTube channel, Lindseystomp. Three years later Stirling competed on the fifth season America’s Got Talent and made it all the way to the quarterfinals. Though she was voted off the show, Stirling continued to make videos for her channel, with a bigger following than ever. After releasing her debut studio album in 2012 she toured extensively in the U.S. and gained yet more recognition when she was featured in the Church of Latter Day Saints’ “I’m a Mormon” campaign. In it, Stirling talked about how her faith had helped her get through her adolescence with anorexia. But her biggest break yet came when Stirling was signed by Troy Carter – Lady Gaga’s manager – in 2013.

Carter’s influence is acutely felt in Stirlings’ live performance; the entire show was full of quirky, creative pauses. Between songs she carried out mid-speech costume changes, had the audience members introduce themselves to the strangers beside them and showed a slideshow of her childhood self. She even spent the second half of the show dancing around the stage barefoot.

It was the second year anniversary of Stirlings’ first performance with her band, and it was obvious that there was an electric energy on stage and in the crowd. Stirling never had a still moment. She moved around like a ballerina turned rave-fairy and to add interest she had two impressive (and gorgeous) hip-hop dancers shadowing her. The peak of the performance came during her hit song “Shatter Me” when Lzzy Hale joined the band on stage for a vocal performance that matched Stirlings’ showmanship to the letter.

Stirling had originally wanted to become a therapist, and though her fans are eternally grateful she did not pursue that career path, she stayed true to her nurturing nature: in the middle of the show she gave a pep talk to those who felt alone and encouraged them to reach out if they felt desperate. This act of kindness added even more depth and heart to an already powerful and moving performance that puts her in a class of her own.

LIVE REVIEW: London Grammar @ The Wiltern, LA

It was only about a week ago that I finally listened to that London Grammar album I’ve been holding onto for a few months now. Unfortunately, the British trio got bumped to the backburner as the Coachella lineup came out in January and my playlists have since been dominated by Coachella artists. Regrettably so, because London Grammar is the moody trip-hop my life has been missing as of late, and had I played If You Wait sooner, my love for them could have run deeper when I saw them at their show at The Wiltern in L.A. (that’s not to say that my week long obsession has not resulted in an undying affection).
Let’s start with The Wiltern, located unusually in the middle of Korea Town. Amidst the countless strip malls with abundances of Pho restaurants, the Wiltern sticks out like a sore thumb. The venue is a beautiful art deco style theatre in the usual sense, with every inch of wall space covered in some artistic accent (they just don’t make venues like this anymore). Its elegance was befitting of a London Grammar performance, with its sleek, thoughtful consideration of detail and beauty. My seat was in the Mezzanine section on the farthest part of the balcony, which was more than okay with me because I have spent my fair share of concerts waiting in line for hours beforehand, hoping desperately that I get that spot on the rail, a necessity for a woman only clocking in at 5’2’’. Also, it sounded like a good idea to have a seat away from the pit, so I would be able to just absorb every moment of the show, without worrying about whether I’d be able to see or not. My vantage point was pristine, and I could tell any seat in the house was a good one.

So let’s jump right in to the performance. Dominic “Dot” Major and Dan Rothman were the first to step out onto the dark stage. Dan began playing those riffs that have left the band in a position to be relentlessly compared to The XX (not that that’s a bad comparison to be made), with his haunting, reverberating whisper of guitars behind Dot’s keyboard and electronic work. It sounded as if they are sampling their own music, but each sample is indistinguishable as a song as they seamlessly piece together each musical bit. And then, of course, Hannah Reid finally joined them on stage. She began with what turned out to be a lengthy vocal solo, the kind that raises the hairs on your arms and hushes the crowd into awe. This was her chance to shake off her nerves, and it was apparent that she was a bit reserved (and as she later admitted, rusty, for this was their first performance in three weeks after almost a year of touring). There were only a few moments in the intro where her vocals frayed, but as a whole it was a good indication that the show was going to be remarkable.

My favorite song by them has changed every hour for the past week, but walking into this performance I can without a doubt say that “Wasting My Young Years” has grown on me the most. I figured this would be the most poignant moment of the night for me, because those lyrics sure do ring true for any young adult, never mind Hannah’s strain when singing that “maybe”—gets me every damn time. Sadly, this was probably my least favorite song of the night. Perhaps my expectations were just too high, but she sang the chorus slightly differently and I thought the live rendition would crescendo into some sort of epic ending, especially since Dan kept jumping onto a drum kit. It wasn’t bad by any stretch, I just feel that it is one of their strongest songs, and exemplifies their sound as a band (never mind the fact that one of the two tees they sold at the merch booth bears its namesake) and they could have capitalized on transforming through live performance. Also, it was the third song on the set list, which I would have much rather preferred it towards the end, perhaps even in the encore.

This didn’t muddy the rest of the night, however, and the band made up for it in other surprising moments. One was during the final encore, “Metal and Dust” which is their most experimental track on the album. It is the song that doesn’t sound like the rest, not relying as heavily on the piano and Hannah’s vocals. Unlike “Wasting My Young Years”, with “Metal and Dust” they chose to transform it through live rendition. She sang the strange falsetto portions toward the end that on the album version sound like samples coming out of a machine.

The songs in the second half of the show definitely were the strongest, as Hannah seemed to loosen up both in her personality and her vocals. It was apparent that she is not fully comfortable on stage yet, and she even admitted so during the show. Her fear of becoming paranoid from contact high was brought up twice as she advised the people in the front row to cool it on their joints, respectable but also a bit overkill. There are certain things to be expected at concerts, and weed ranks pretty high among those things (stupid pun). She was obviously very wary of what would affect her performance, which is fine. But it also made it obvious that she has a little bit of stage insecurity. Nevertheless, by the end of the show, she seemed at home.

The two best performances of the night were easily “Strong” and “Nightcall.” “Strong” is one of those tracks that strikes a chord with just about everyone, and was bound to be a hit live. “Nightcall,” for me, stood out the most. The Kavinsky cover was better than I could have anticipated. During the lulling bridge, Dan’s piano playing seared through the theatre, and you could hear Dot’s fingers move through the chord progressions. When it erupted, the low end of the piano was jarring and Dot’s tremolo picking sang behind Hannah’s near shouting of the next chorus. It didn’t actually vary much from the album version, it was just amplified powerfully.

All in all, I feel as if I’ve fallen down a London Grammar rabbit hole. I cannot stop listening to them, and getting to see them a week after familiarizing myself with their work was a treat beyond my wildest expectations. Plus, it’s always a luxury to see a band perform on a tour of their first album. To see them grow will be exciting, and to see how their stage production will grow will be very interesting. I will be anticipating their return to the states after their leg of European tours, because this show only deepened my affection for their music. Hopefully, they will return in time for festival season next year!

Listen to London Grammar’s Sights EP here via Soundcloud.

LIVE REVIEW: Trans Am @ The Empty Bottle, Chicago

One of the most prolific bands in post-rock, Bethesda-based Trans Am, are still going strong with the release of their latest album, Volume X, which was the primary focus of their Sunday night show at Chicago’s The Empty Bottle. Opening for them were local favorites Kava and CAVE, who have a lot more in common than just very similar names. Both pedaling an appealing brand of psychedelic rock, Kava began the show with a more minimalistic take on the genre, while CAVE played a set of classic, repetition-based head-bobbers against a glowing, geometric curtain. Then it was Trans Am’s turn. Still anchored by the motorik-driven, krautrock aesthetic that’s been behind their signature style of sci-fi prog ever since their debut almost a quarter of a century ago, they just can’t let go of the past.

As their name suggest, the Thrill Jockey trio played a set driven mainly by the idea of an imagined, old-school 80s mixtape. Thrashy metal, “Kraftwerkian industrial complex” and “Devo does ballads” were all stylistic themes, making for a disjunct Walkman-era hodge-podge of a set. And while Trans Am are arguably the originators of cerebral, genre-defying electronic music, at this particular moment the band just seemed like they were experimenting with too many clashing aesthetics. The sheer talent of this experienced trio was probably the only thing that really kept the show on track, as everything else reminisced on cultural touchstones ranging from Depeche Mode to the Dallas theme song.

Though it felt distracted and discombobulated at points, it was at the very least an entertaining revisit to your parent’s cassette collection circa 1985. However, this also meant that it was quite clichéd in certain parts, due to an onslaught of computerized synths layered atop noodly guitar riffs and robocorder vocals. A touch corny, it was an entire mélange of throwback musical styles that felt messy and misplaced at times. It was like Trans Am took the chameleon approach a bit too seriously, because while it was admittedly fun, I was personally irked by the setlist’s short attention span and lack of overarching focus.
Simultaneously formulaic in its stylistic inspirations, said corn-factor made parts of the set feel like Garrett Hedlund spinning to the Tron soundtrack. And it all wasn’t really aided by the fact that an 80s-synth production was infused into almost every single song they played. Misplaced funk bits that just seemed like an exaggerated encouragement to groove didn’t really do much for the rest of the audience either, who kind of just jammed to themselves. Not a bad show by any means, just one that definitely deserves a more definitive musical direction.

Listen to “Futurworld” by Trans Am here via Soundcloud.

LIVE REVIEW: Cass McCombs @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

New York City and nomadic guitar-man and songwriter Cass McCombs may seem mutually exclusive, but in fact, he used to live here, sometime between stints in Concord, California (his hometown), Baltimore and San Francisco. Throughout a seven-album-long career, McCombs has never settled. To listen to his songs, you might imagine him passing through somewhere rural and wide open, maybe in the West: a travelling performer with a pickup truck, a guitar, and not much else. You might conjure up images of McCombs as one of the last of the Dylan-esque romantic nomads, who spill out the contents of their hearts in their songwriting but, in life, choose the company of the open road to that of people.

Last October, McCombs put out his beautiful–if extremely long–double album Big Wheel and Others. Most of the songs off that release carried with them McCombs’ signature cyclical guitar strumming, touched with world-weary loneliness but also, more memorably, a spacey hypnosis that always draws attention to the small movements that take place in mostly-still spaces. His songs sound the way it feels to watch a sluggish breeze flicker through dry grass along a highway where no cars come. It’s like watching a deer that doesn’t know it’s being watched. The songs tune you into their rhythms, and it comes as a surprise when the music stops, and though you haven’t felt like you’ve been on a journey, you’re far from where you started.

It’s weird that the image of Cass McCombs so strongly evokes so many different images, because on stage at the Music Hall of Williamsburg last Thursday evening, he barely said a word. McCombs–along with Jon Shaw on the bass and Dan “Buddy” on guitar, who flanked McCombs on the left and right and could have been his brothers, with matching wavy hair, rumpled button-downs, and longs of closed-eyed reverential concentration as they nodded along to the immortal groove–was silent but by no means unfriendly. At one point, he paused to smile into the microphone.

Rhythm, looped guitar lines, and narrative-heavy lyrics were the main ingredients of McCombs’ performance on Thursday, which consisted mainly of songs off the new album. There were some exceptions– “Lionkiller Got Married,” off 2009’s Catacombs album, was a crowd favorite for what seemed to be an audience of mostly long-standing fans, who seemed especially enthusiastic for older material, though they gamely whooped for songs off of Big Wheel, too.

McCombs’ light installation–a row of twinkling panels that spanned across the stage, silhouetting the musicians–adds so much character to his performances that it seems almost like a fifth band member. The Yellow Book Strangers, a pair of light designers, built the installation for a tour in 2011. Shadowed in the yellow glow, McCombs bobbed back and forth between his loop pedals and the microphone, showing the rhythms due diligence. He looked suspended between being in spotlight and being obscured from view. This is a natural space for McCombs–it’s been his sweet spot as a performer for years, and at this show, he seemed totally in his element. The lights twinkled behind him, resembling the Manhattan skyline and a starry country sky in equal measure.

Here’s “Brighter!” off the Big Wheel album. Cass McCombs performed this song at the show on Thursday, and it was a sweet, and uncharacteristically simple, highlight of the performance.

ALBUM REVIEW: Alex Banks “Illuminated”

By the end of 2011, Brighton-based Alex Banks had already distinguished himself as a DJ and producer with distinctively complex and spacey live sets as well as a smattering of gorgeous remixes (Bonobo, Husky Rescue). His debut full-length, out June 2nd, has been two years in the making, and it shows: Illuminated is a meticulously crafted record, with beats that escalate and mellow, moods that warm and cool, and subtle textural intricacies that demand an immersive listen.

At twenty seconds shy of an hour, it’s a pretty hefty collection, with a full spectrum of instrumentals. Some of the loveliest moments on Illuminated come when Banks juxtaposes a pulsing beat against a string section, or highlights an instrumental melody with featured vocalist Elizabeth Bernholz’s pristine soprano. These revelations usually come from the combination of opposite effects. Conversely, when the album is at its most interior–in the middle section of Illuminated, somewhere around “Initiate,” “Lights,” and “Phosphorus”– its playfulness dials way down, and the music is too clean and rigid, too controlled. The album’s early tracks have great surprise twists, like the spot in “All You Could Do” wherin Banks layers his Bach-ish acoustic guitar arpeggios over Bernholz’s whispery vocal line as the rhythm builds to a sparkly crescendo. It’s awesome. Which makes it all the more disappointing when other parts of the album don’t live up to it.

In what’s perhaps a skill learned from his DJ career, Banks knows the importance of letting music absorb you. His process of recording the album consumed him, just as playing it will consume a listener. When Illuminated feels restrictive, it’s because its inwardness becomes too single-minded to know when to stop grooming the music and allow for coincidence and experimentation.

Illuminated will drop on June 2nd, and will be preceded by the All You Could Do EP, which will be available digitally and on 12″ vinyl next month. Check out “All You Could Do,” my favorite track off Illuminated, below!

LIVE REVIEW: Chad VanGaalen @ The Empty Bottle, Chicago

With his Lynchian aesthetic and fondness for romanticized macabre, Albertan singer-songwriter Chad VanGaalen performed a simultaneously tender and surreal set to a buzzy crowd at Chicago’s Empty Bottle last Thursday.

On tour with fellow Canadians COUSINS and Bry Webb of Constantines fame, VanGaalen’s performance brought a crushing sense of heartfelt sentimentality filled with his signature warble and fuzz-ridden lo-fi recordings, which continue to drive the sound of his most recent release, Shrink Dust. Drawing upon stylistic elements reminiscent of 2008’s lurid Soft Airplane and 2011’s spasmodic Diaper Island, VanGaalen’s latest effort is still peppered with hypnagogic lyrics, wind-in-the-willows whispers and enough synthesized reverb to swallow the entire room.

Lyrics full of allusions to disemboweling deaths and ghastly implications plucked straight out of an Un Chien Andalou-induced fever dream, VanGaalen is brilliant at fusing different melodic styles ranging from gentle, whirring balladry to rambly steel guitar folk. And despite a marked lack references to oozing vitreous humor, VanGaalen’s off-kilter banter in between songs, earnest smile and sweet, rambling stories made up for any disappointment involving a flashier stage presence and more of his renowned homemade instruments.

A true “mixed media” artist in every sense, VanGaalen blends soft acoustic strumming with jammy electronic interludes, creating what many have dubbed a “grab-bag” of melodies plucked, diced and sliced from his many garage recordings. And his live performance held much of the same intimacy and intensity as one of these DIY jam session. Simultaneously grotesque and gorgeous, his wavering vocals projected perfectly across a simmering crowd of what seemed to mostly be composed of long-time fans.

I myself have fond memories of making “Molten Light” mixtapes for high school beaus, and was just one of many audience members singing along to the surprisingly thorough repertoire he performed. Of course, there were songs off Shrink Dust, but VanGaalen made enough room to incorporate old favorites like “Rabid Bits of Time,” “Willow Tree” and “City of Electric Lights” into his set, a rare treat for artists usually more concerned with promoting their latest release. And though I realize that speaks more to my own personal affinity to Soft Airplane, it truly was a genuine, heartfelt performance by a singer-songwriter who has the strange ability to invoke an incredible sense of nostalgia occupied by crust punks and tweed-donning professor types alike.

An excellent show for the devotees of his back catalogue, it pulled off the unforeseeable feat of being both beautiful and bizarre and everything in between. A wistful, touching performance that may have showgoers, old and new, incorporating “Molten Light” and “Monster” into their future mixtapes.