Tag: Natasha Beste

PLAYING DETROIT: Best of + Most Anticipated

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wolf eyes
wolf eyes

It’s New Years Eve-Eve, and I’m flooded with the sounds of the past year. 2015 saw the rise of Detroit music in an unforgettable way. Our musicians took to the stage and to the studio with an unmistakable fire under their asses, in turn producing one of the most emotive soundtracks for the year as a whole. Detroit had something to say and people listened. I could go on and on about how I feel about the textural landscape of what this city produced this year, and how for the first time in years I felt moved and compelled to share my findings with the same enthusiasm one might reserve for opening Christmas gifts. I could talk about how Wolf Eyes‘ I am a Problem: Mind in Pieces broke my heart in ways I thought impossible, or how Moonwalks‘ Lunar Phases pushed me back to being in smokey concert venues, chasing after psychedelic rock bands when I was 16, making me feel younger than I did when I was actually young. So instead, I asked a few Detroit artists, most of whom released music this year, what local release stood out to them in 2015, and what they are most anticipating in the coming year. If what we heard is any indication of what’s to come, my suggestion is to brace yourselves: Detroit just got started.

Mike Higgins of JRJR

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Photo by Todd Morgan
Photo by Todd Morgan

FAVORITE OF 2015: My favorite release is a single track. Absofacto’s “Dissolve” hit me hard out of wintery nowhere in early February of 2015 (and I’d been working in studio with Jon Visger on and off for a while at that point) – but that’s how he works. Lurks, rather, within shadows. Jon Visger wrote, produced, and released this song himself. Nostalgic alarms reminiscent of mid-90s Boards of Canada fire the song into motion and are quickly joined by the fast-approaching outer edge of the track’s structural spine: the drums. They weigh about a thousand pounds each and somehow I feel weightless upon their anticipated arrival. (Sweaty like Black Moth Super Rainbow, yet crisp like Com Truise.) You’re soon swallowed up by the groove in its entirety, where bass is vicious and Visger’s vocals emerge. Lyrics speak out from a character’s entangled, love-sore point of view: a last-ditch effort farewell letter/self-evaluation. Love’s magnetism paired equally with its potential volatility.

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MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2016: Recently, I listened to a bunch of new demos at Assemble Sound studio in Detroit with bassist Jeff Cuny of the band Valley Hush. I was pretty taken aback by how much things have blossomed sonically and vocally for them since hearing them in 2014. They’re a newer band, and for me it’s exciting to watch a group’s sound evolve and sometimes quite rapidly. It sounded like they have been experimenting, which is great, so I’m excited for what’s to come.

Matthew Milia of Frontier Ruckus 

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photo by Stefano Ferreri
photo by Stefano Ferreri

FAVORITE OF 2015: My local release would be All Are Saved by my good friend Fred Thomas. Deeply personal and universal at the same time, in Fred’s finely honed and idiosyncratic style.

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MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2016: It would have to be my bandmate and roommate Anna Burch’s new batch of solo songs that I’ve been thick in the midst of watching her create over the past year or so. Her melodies and lyrical voice are both really captivating. She hasn’t officially said it will come out this year, but I’m hoping.

Natasha Beste of Odd Hours

Photo by Kevin Eckert
Photo by Kevin Eckert

FAVORITE OF 2015: Dwelling Lightheartedly In The Futility Of Everything by Matthew Daher was an early 2015 release, but stuck with me for the whole year. It’s not a pop or dance album and the songs are challenging – they seem to be five different animals that live together in the same cave. But like magic, they opened up and travelled through me like a dance. “Cyclicity” seemed like it was written just for me, and I was lucky enough to collab with Matt and produce a video for the song. Just a beautiful exchange of energy on that collaboration.

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MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2016: My most anticipated local release is whatever Ritual Howls put out because holy crap, their 2014 release, Turkish Leather, makes my eyes roll back in my head with my tongue hanging out like cartoon dog drooling over a steak or bone or whatever dumb food item cartoon dogs like to eat. I’ll be spying on them online until I see something released!

Sean Lynch of 800beloved

Photo by Santa Anna
Photo by Santa Anna

FAVORITE OF 2015: I would by lying if I said a local release stuck out enough to be regarded as a favorite in 2015. Most of what I heard locally was a recollection of once unsuccessful “indie” bands until the 90’s came back, hip/trip-hop and grunge were openly repurposed, and Ableton was accepted as everyone’s backing track. If anything, Tunde Olaniran had a track I dug off of Transgressor. In my opinion, the only good thing that happened in Detroit and nationally in 2015 is that more female artists demanded and took the attention of listeners. At this point in time and in the bigger picture, this is more important than any best of the year list.

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MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2016: The local release I am most anticipating is our own final LP as 800beloved because I don’t know how it’s going to end. Rather, I’m dying to hear how it will end.

 

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PLAYING DETROIT: Odd Hours

The first half of my conversation with Natasha Beste of moody electro-pop duo Odd Hours is instantly dedicated to playing six degrees of separation between the two of us until we are able to piece our social puzzle together, realizing that we run in the same circles and are friends with the same people and both conclude that Detroit is a lot like high school.

“In Detroit, it’s really easy to make things happen if you are really motivated and dedicated. If you are snotty or mean or not serious about what you’re doing, it will get around fast,” Beste says. “I’m lucky to have met and become friends with people that make doing this fun, it never feels like work.”

This non-work-work Beste is referring to is Odd Hours latest EP noreprinphrine + dopamine, an assertive and pouty collection of songs that are as glittery as they are confrontational. Beste’s attention to duality, both in her personal life and in her Odd Hours world (she is also a teacher and video artist) resonates as a playful game of tug-of-war sonically. Beste describes the toggling of themes as a “constant up and down.” From asking for what you want and ending up bored by the instant gratification to feeling left out or misunderstood yet worthy enough to exert power, Odd Hours challenges themselves by provoking a polarizing experience. As it turns out, this very balancing act of various selves and influences resulted in what Beste considers to be the truest version of what they’ve been trying to accomplish since they formed. “I think with artists there are things that come out of you naturally. And for me things were coming out of me that weren’t matching what I was listening to, or what we were making,” Beste explains. “We’ve been morphing and changing our sound and we finally feel comfortable in our skin. We want to keep going with how we sound now.”

Odd Hours have been making noise around the city for five years. Beste and her collaborator and Hours guitarist, Timothy Jagielo, assembled after exhausting previous projects, wanting to expand beyond their old work and Detroit city limits. “I was in a lot of different bands before I met Tim but after a while I really wanted to do something that would allow me to be loud and raunchy,” Beste says “We were both in a place where we wanted to start something new.” With additions bassist, Clint Stuart, and drummer Randy Hanley Jr, each track on noreprinphrine + dopamine is a banger in its own right, successfully and collectively fulfilling Beste’s aforementioned desires of sounding loud and raunchy while remaining a compelling and polished production. When asked about the possibility of a full length release, Beste is uncertain, but unwavering in her convictions towards quality vs. quantity. “It’s the way that my brain works. My whole life of music I’ve really stuck with EPs. I’m not saying we would never release an LP. Everything that needed to be said was said within these songs.” she explains. “It could be the next thing we do, but it has to feel right.”

The accompanying video for their first single “SWTS” is a true testament to Odd Hours theatrics; a great introduction to their provocative landscape, their lust filled, odd world. Full of if-David Lynch-cast-Lindsey Lohan-in-a-music-video vibes (Beste laughs excitedly at this comparison) aligns with the estranged bossiness of the song where Beste howls: “I thought someone told me / Like Christmas / I would get to make a wish list,” a vulnerable plea paralleled with warbled rock vocals, a sensibility carried throughout the EP.

By the end of our chat we realize we share a friend in noreprinphrine + dopamine producer Jon Zott and that we were both on set for Tunde Olaniran’s video earlier this year and it is with this strange connectivity that we are able to commiserate over the special brand of small world-ness Detroit offers. I finish by apologizing for referring to her music as bratty, though meant as a compliment as it’s a trait I regard as honest and unapologetic, to which she assures me is a perfectly apt description. “It’s funny because my boyfriend Kevin (and partner in Gold House Media) as well as my guitarist Tim and Tunde all call me a brat because I get what I want. But I have a vision,” Beste explains. “I am always three steps ahead.”

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