Helsinki-based Jaakko Eino Kalevi flaunts a sound as exotic as his name. Recently scooped up by Weird World, Kalevi has released his four-song EP entitled Dreamzone Remixes, much to the delight of myself and a supposed many others. The EP is split unequally when it comes to sonic consistency, the first quarter sounding nothing like the subsequent three, but this is an observation, not a criticism.
“Memories,” the EP’s introductory track, had me thinking Kalevi’s niche was electronic iterations of world music. The song opens with a throbbing tuba-esque melody that I would expect to find in the crevices of Tom Waits’ 1985 album Rain Dogs. In flood the whimpering tones of the keyboard, most likely on the organ setting, and gentle vocal harmonies reminiscent of Brazilian Tropicalia pioneers Os Mutantes. “Memories” eventually surrenders its lively horn to ticking drums, maracas, and receding voices. There is an element of folk music to “Memories” absent on the remainder of the release.
Despite the worldly references in “Memories,” the songs following suggest that Kalevi found nourishment in the film scores of the mid 80s. Each song is familiar to the point of becoming wordlessly narrative; each song summons vivid cinematic imagery. Track two, aptly titled “No End (Tom Noble’s Never-Ending Story Remix) ” introduces the evocative nature of the final three quarters of the EP.
Its soft, papery drums and faraway female vocals remind me of an ambient Flashdance…maybe the romantic rehearsal scene of some mid 80s dance dramedy. The steady snapping of disco, the eeriness of corporate muzak, and the grainy filter of dream pop all play a part in this track. I was pleased to hear a nod to French House as well, one that particularly brought to mind “Something About Us” by Daft Punk. This is without a doubt my favorite eight minutes of the EP, and a perfect song to end the night, a little drunk, dancing slack-limbed in a bath of blue light.
Track three, “ When You Walk Through Them All “ is no escape from the 80s, or my film references. Initially I’m hearing a somber Hall and Oates; the hooks are infectious, the vocals languid. The song omits a thumping walking pace of cosmopolitan, night time scenes-only after this impression did the title of the song register. Despite the vocals, the song’s bubbling keyboard effects bring back the scores of early video games as well as Tangerine Dream’s compositions for Risky Business.
Dreamzone Remixes concludes with No End (Vezurro Remix). This version of the song is punchier, and more synthetic sounding. The drums are more aggressively electronic, and the synths are at their sharpest. Since I’d assigned a movie scene to the preceding songs, my mind couldn’t help itself. This one would better suit a sex scene, maybe of the science-fiction genre, something along the lines of Tron getting down with Kate Bush. Need I say more?
I’d be willing to bet that the images conjured by this EP were perhaps only a reflection of my strange brain-scape, but the quality of this EP is less of a betting matter; it’s just really, really good.
Check out the video for Jaakko Eino Kalevi’s “No End” below, and make sure to catch Dreamzone Remixesfor some innovative versions of the track.
It’s mildly humorous that a production duo from Seattle would have a hit song by the name of “Sun Models.” Western Washington alumni Harrison Mills (aka Catacombkid) and partner Clayton Knight (BeachesBeaches) make up Odesza, the pair that’s accumulated almost five million SoundCloud streams in the two years they’ve existed. They’ve also been getting their fair share of radio play, and when I was visiting my native Washington State, I heard their latest single on the taste-making airwaves of KEXP.
“Sun Models,” which is fresh off of Odesza’s 2014 album of the same name, is a beachy and blissful track that I assume will be played throughout the summer months. It opens with the warm crackling of a dust caked record, as well as a few chicken-pecked keys peppering in a dull, tinny drum effect. The vocals, provided by Michigan soul singer Madelyn Grant, register as a languid ripple through still water. They are nearly recognizable as words, but morph into liquefied croons thanks to the shrill frequency of the vocoder. I can’t help but notice the proximity to the vocal manipulations of Grimes mastermind Claire Boucher.
The song is danceable without a doubt, but not in an aggressive way. It’s a relaxed track that drifts somewhere between melancholic and bright. Smears of twinkling keys glide over a crescendo of strobe-worthy synths of the European House ilk, while eerie calls float in and out.
In response to their ever-growing exposure, Odesza has kicked off a massive U.S. tour that will go into May. The pair have added a couple of Canadian dates for our friends up north.
Check out “Sun Models” and dates below:
Wed. Feb. 12 – Pawtucket, RI @ The Met *
Thu. Feb. 13 – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts *
Nick Waterhouse‘s R&B-inflected debut Time’s All Gone came out in 2012, and may seem like a non sequitur coming from a twenty-something white guy from California. The album borrowed substantially from the bluesier end of sixties rock, meshed interestingly with a soulful Motown slant. But so much of modern music mixes up decades and blends stylistic influences—especially those from the sixties—that it no longer seems fair to dock points for anachronism. Waterhouse’s particular musical blend, while not unique, is certainly endearing—Time’s All Gone radiates with the kind of garage rock that lets you notice each instrument individually, without them being much treated or blurred into each other.
Waterhouse doesn’t change that aesthetic in “It No. 3,” a Ty Segall cover just released off his upcoming sophomore album Holly, out March 4th. The minimal production on this track doesn’t matter a bit next to the sheer vocal personality. Maintaining the jumpy soul of Waterhouse’s first album, “It No. 3” indicates Waterhouse is gaining a greater comfort level in the music he makes, having more fun and paying less attention to the many—and formidable—influences that contribute to his work. His ownership of this song is especially impressive given that “It No. 3” is a cover, and though the rendition is a fairly faithful one in many respects, the personality behind it is all Waterhouse, no Segall imitation. Shrinking Segall’s original down from fifteen minutes to three, Waterhouse creates a concise, likeable sound that offers a lot for what it asks.
Go here to pre-order Nick Waterhouse’s new album, Holly, out March 4th. Listen to “It No. 3” below:
If I had gone to the Purity Ring show back in January ’13 at Webster Hall like I was supposed to (I had to work), then I would have seen the Brooklyn based experimental electronic duo, Young Magic, open up. Unfortunately I missed out on what was apparently a great show.
Although Young Magic is based in New York, their roots extend halfway around the world. Young Magic is comprised of Indonesian vocalist, Melati Malay and Australian producer, Isaac Emmanuel. Malay and Emmanuel joined forces back in 2010, and have been releasing music since 2011. In February, 2012, Young Magic released their first full length album, Melt. It’s been two years, so what have these guys been doing?
They’ve been doing a whole lot of touring, apparently. In 2012 and 2013, Young Magic traveled throughout North America, Europe, and Australia, picking up a great deal of new sounds along the way. The songwriting that occurred during their two year stint touring the world culminated in their sophomore album, Breathing Statues, out 5/6 on Carpark Records.
“Fall In,” the first single off of Breathing Statues, showcases Malay and Emmanuel’s experimentation with new sounds. With the inclusion of a sitar any track can sound trippy, but in “Fall In,” the duo subtly showcases the instrument with embellishments, flourishes and accents, managing to bring it out just enough to set the mood, but not too much that it overwhelms the track.
“Fall In” couples psychedelia with the ethereal vocals of Melati Malay, who’s breathy, relaxed and effortless styling melts with the keyboard section, rendering the two parts almost indistinguishable. As if that weren’t enough to produce a spacey vibe, Emmanuel’s repetitive and upbeat bass line pushes the song forward in a cyclical manner, allowing the listener to depart from reality, if only for a moment.
Surprisingly, there actually aren’t too many bells and whistles in this track. Occasional effects were added to layer, spread out and expand Malay’s vocals, but even that was minimal. Subtlety is key on “Fall In,” and both Emmanuel and Malay manage this masterfully.
With eclectic sounds, mesmerizing vocals, and impeccable production, Young Magic are definitely not just another run-of-the-mill hip Brooklyn electronic group, but are carving out a unique space for themselves in the electronic music scene.
Look out for upcoming spring and summer tour dates, and in the meantime check out “Fall In” below.
It can be a daunting thing to challenge stereotypes day in and day out, work for change as a social activist, and rep a town that most of the country writes off as an impoverished wasteland. But Flint, Michigan-based “Afrofuturist” Tunde Olaniran does all of these things as casually as the rest of us might walk to the nearest bodega for rolling papers and a deli sandwich. Born to a Nigerian father and American mother, spending part of his childhood in Germany and London, Olaniran often felt his otherness in acute ways but takes it all in stride while helping the marginalized tell their stories alongside his own.
He’s released two remarkable singles via soundcloud. The first, “Brown Boy” cleverly introduces Olaniran on the most basic terms – that of his skin color – while criticizing the trite narrative tropes that surround race in America. “I’m every single thing you think of me / I’m a sinner, killer, drug dealer, refugee / So keep your jaw locked and I’ll keep the peace / They act like they don’t wanna but man they know me.”
When you get to know Olaniran though, he’s far from a swaggering gangster. He’s driven by sharing the carefree joy he feels when it comes to performing his material, but it’s all propelled by a deeper sense of purpose. Case in point: the beat behind his latest, “The Highway,” hinges on a wonky parrot sample that burrows deep against the ear drum. Once it hooks you, Olaniran lets loose with an intelligent send-up of capitalist progress, gentrification, and cultural appropriation. His messages are never heavy-handed, just extremely astute and delivered with bright, sarcastic jabs packaged in party-ready rhythms. Operating within a genre beset by misogyny, violence, and homophobia, it’s refreshing to be able to simply dance to something you don’t have to compartmentalize to enjoy. Olaniran’s passionate vocals soar between fluid rap verses, underpinned with unique production work that he does (mostly) by himself, encompassing his DIY-gone-glam aesthetic. The single will appear on his forthcoming EP Yung Archetype, out tomorrow (2/25).
We talked with Olaniran over the phone, discussing his many projects as a musician, entertainer, activist, collaborator, and otherwise.
AF: Hi Tunde! Can you describe your sound in a few words for our readers?
TO: My name is Tunde Olaniran, I am originally from Flint, Michigan, where I live now. My sound is kind of that cut-and-paste that you see more and more of now with people having access to so many different sounds. There’s an experimental hip-hop, alternative club/dance feel with some of it. That’s kind of the range of the music.
AF: You’ve described your sound at times as “Afro-futurist.” What does that mean to you?
TO: It’s kind of a mixture of a few things. It bleeds into the performance as well, I think they kind of go hand-in-hand. The sound has influences from the diaspora – my father was a Nigerian immigrant, and my mother was American, so I have a blend of those things. But also, the futurist label is about being really forward thinking and also kind of optimistic in some ways in your capacity to change through the lens of your own identity, not the lens of the dominant cultural kind of thing.
AF:What specifically are you trying to change?
TO: For me, the thing that is most important is people’s ability to express their identities and to elevate alternate narratives. It’s all about the story of someone who is marginalized, for whatever identity – whether they’re a young person, an artist, whether they’re queer, a person of color, whether they’re DIY or funded by the big shiny foundations, whatever. When people say that they’re an ally, being an ally is really about getting out of the way, so that’s what I feel like I work towards in the different aspects of my professional life and my life as an entertainer.
AF:Well in terms of identity, I feel like “Brown Boy” is sort of a fitting intro to what you’re about, in that it’s a critique of stereotypes that surround marginalized cultures. What was your specific motivation behind writing it?
TO: This is gonna sound really ridiculous, but I don’t spend a lot of time coming up with lyrics. I’ve been in writing sessions with people who are, I would say, career songwriters. They live in Nashville, or they’re in L.A. and they write songs for their career. And my approach is so different from that. I don’t usually labor over the lyrics, they kind of just happen as they’re gonna happen. A lot of times, I’m going back and looking at them and saying “What is this? What does this mean or what could it mean?” I don’t wanna make myself out to have this really grand scheme, but I do feel like looking back at the lyrics [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”][to “Brown Boy”] after writing them they do feel like a declaration in a way. I think I was singing it more to myself than necessarily trying to establish any kind of stance to external forces or norms or whatever. I think it was like an anthem just for myself living on the margins. And with the video, a lot of people in that video are activists and artists that live in Detroit. After the song was written, I wanted the visuals to really represent that diverse spectrum of people that I’ve gotten a chance to know that I’ve been really influenced by. Those are the people that I hope are gonna be dancing with the song. For me, that’s the most important thing – am I gonna enjoy performing it? Is my good friend gonna wanna dance to it? That’s the focus as much as any other political statement.
AF:So you’re essentially making music that a community of activists can enjoy. Are these people that you’ve come into contact with via your work as an educator? You’re involved with Planned Parenthood, specializing in gender identity, sexual equality, and health awareness.
TO: I actually got introduced to an artist named Invincible who is an MC from Detroit… their work is so intertwined with their political action in social justice movements so just even being at a show with them, I met a lot of really interesting folks in Detroit. I’d been doing social justice work but I feel like those actually were pretty separate. And now I see them converging more. I met someone at a show and it turned out they work at Ruth Ellis, which is a center in Detroit specifically for trans and homeless youth of color. He was like, “Let’s actually do a program, and let’s do some education” and kind of let those meld and for me that feels really good. Planned Parenthood is really good to work for because you can bring your whole self there, so I felt like they were separate but now they’re actually coming together more than they did at the beginning.
AF:Well I think it can be powerful to use artistic expression to forward social movements, and it’s important work. With Yung Archetype, you reference Carl Jung’s theories about universal patterns and images. Which archetypes did you draw on and which are you trying to tear down?
TO: Again, that was another moment where it wasn’t super intentional. The goal wasn’t necessarily to work with one of Jung’s specific twelve archetypes but to really look at the idea of attacking classical or dominant perceptions and imagery. So I took that stance even with the photography and with myself. Starting out as an artist, sending your shit to people, when you’re black on the cover some blogs are like, “We don’t do hip-hop” – even though they haven’t heard the music. But we can’t really send it to rap blogs; clearly it’s not gonna work there, cause I don’t really see myself as a rapper in that way. I’ve always had to deal with those immediate perceptions just walking down the street or being in my body. I’m trying to embrace it but also kind of twist that idea with the imagery for the EP. The lace on the jacket is something that my grandmother sent me, from Nigeria. You get sent traditional lace, yards and yards and yards of stuff and you’re supposed to make a very traditional tunic and pants from it that you wear for ceremonies like weddings, whatever. I was like, well let’s make a Members Only jacket out of it, again taking the classic image of an immigrant’s son or a foreigner and get into touch with both ends of that. I still haven’t shown my grandmother, I don’t know how happy she would be.
AF:I think grandmothers have to sign a contract where they’re just automatically proud of whatever their grandkids make. I think you’re probably safe. I’m sure blending disparate ideas comes in handy when you’re working with other artists. You’ve collaborated with lots of musicians on remixes and various one-offs, including Dale Earnhart Jr. Jr. What goes into those collaborations? How is it different from working on your own material?
TO: I’m really into collaborations so I try to work with people a lot. I have a process for making songs where I produce the track and that really drives my writing and then I write really quickly and I just record it . Even when I had a band we would like write songs in like an hour. Not everyone works that way. Some people do their best work when they have a few days or weeks or whatever to marinate. The best stuff that has happened recently is when I’ve been able to sit down with folks. We live in an age where we do a lot over Dropbox, and you can work across continents, but I really love a chance to sit down. I wrote “The Internet”, a track on the EP, with James Link, who’s sick – he’s really, really amazing. I call him a hipster hermit – he’s really popular, but he doesn’t actually like being around people. I forced him to sit down with me and in ten minutes we had the best fucking hook. It was so great. I just really love being able to be in the same room if possible.
AF:Is there anybody in particular that you want to collaborate with that you haven’t had a chance to yet?
TO: I love Switch, I think Switch is the best. I met him once touring in France with Diplo. Diplo came in, asked us for weed, and we were like we don’t have any left. So then Switch came and sat down and I was super shocked and star struck, so I’m just standing there and we’re in Europe so he was like “Do you guys speak English? What is happening!?” We were just like “Yeah… kind of”. That could’ve been my chance to mess with this dude! But I love his take on pop and the way he mixes and slices things, so that would be the dream collaboration. There’s another band called Jamaican Queens out of Detroit. We’re friends, but we haven’t had a chance to really sit down. We only see each other at shows. I’d love to write with them, because their production is really interesting.
AF:We reviewed “Wellfleet Outro” on AudioFemme! They’re great. Is there anything else in particular that you’re listening to?
TO: Maipei. I saw her at SXSW in 2010, and I was obsessed with her Cocoa Butter Diaries EP. She disappeared for a while, just stopped posting, and then “Don’t Wait” came out and it was amazing. She’s like a Kelis to me, I’m really excited about whatever she’s gonna do after this. The Little Dragons single is really good. I’m into female artists a lot. I’m really waiting for Robyn’s stuff to drop.
AF:Do you wanna talk a little bit about Flint and how it’s shaped your music?
TO: Flint influenced me in that there is a really distinct culture here. Everyone knows everyone else. Word of mouth is kind of the best way to do any kind of communication and marketing. The scene is small and there are two sides of it, like even in Detroit. They’re still very disconnected from the idea of having music as a career, so you’re playing covers or you’re in the hood clubs rapping but the thing I respect is that Flint is just really supportive. I was in a rock band when I was pretty young and in any environment, people are like, into it, you know? There’s never really a demarcation as far as scenes. People aren’t sitting with their arms crossed just looking at you, it’s very very welcoming and open and that gave me some license to try to experiment with what I wanted to do. I knew it would be okay to do that.
AF:Did that feel different from the time you spent in Germany and London as a kid?
TO: In London, I lived with my dad’s family, and they were Nigerian and I didn’t interact with a lot of white British people. I even felt different with them, because I didn’t learn Yoruba like they did. A lot of them had been sent to boarding schools in Nigeria as children, I didn’t have that. Then in Germany I’d have little kids touching my skin ’cause they had never seen a black or brown person. Coming back to Flint, [living with] my mom who was not raised in black culture… when I was young and one of the kids in the neighborhood called me ‘dog’ – like, “yo, dawg”, whatever – I was like “Mom, that kid called me a dog! I dunno what happened!” and she went to the person’s mom saying, “You called my son an animal?” and his mom was like “Are you serious?” So even coming back to Flint, being very out of touch with black culture in the Midwest, just always feeling like that no matter where I am has had an influence on what I do. I think now I’ve finally figured out where I’m most comfortable, but living your life on the margins in one way or another – whether or not you’re oppressed, if it’s still knowing you’re on the margins – has influenced how I go about anything, whether it’s creative or not.
AF:You’ve talked about Flint being an example of the “grief that American ‘progress’ inflicts on poor people and people of color”. What do you feel is the solution to this, if there’s any? Where do you see the future of industrial cities like Flint?
TO: My mom is staunchly Socialist/Communist. I grew up with her kind of in my ear, [saying] only large scale economic change can make a difference, and she has a lot of validity to her views. But I’ve also just gotten to meet, especially in Detroit, people who have been influenced by folks like G.H. Lewes, who writes about emergence theory and the idea that a lot of different actions and activities create a web of change. I think it’s gonna come to a point where we have different small-scale solutions happening, and we reach a stage in technology that is gonna force us to look differently about how we distribute resources. I mean, we can automate and we can advance, but who are the consumers if no one’s working and able to sustain themselves? You’re seeing that happening around this planet right now. Obviously some of it’s really bloody, like in Kiev, but some of it’s really amazing. In Detroit, people are creating their own mesh wireless networks by neighborhood. They’re not using ComCast or Time Warner – they built their own internet network. I think it’s gonna be about people making solutions where they can and where they are the most impassioned, ingrained and connected.
TO: The AMC is the largest North American Convention of independent media makers that meets in Detroit every year. They are really, really focused and it’s cool because it’s very young – I think the average age is around 25. It’s basically a way for independent media makers, especially queer women, people of color, who work in technology and media to share best practices, heal themselves from dealing with fucking oppression all year. You wanna be able to be around people that understand what you’ve been going through, and talk about those instances so you get together to do that. The mesh wireless networks I was talking about came from work at the AMC, for example. I’m one of the track coordinators so we’re trying to look at how sound, in all of its incarnations, can change and affect states, can affect relationships, can change policy. Part of what we’re doing is accepting and soliciting proposals from people to talk about amazing stuff that’s happening all over the country. On the fun side we’re throwing a joint party in DC and New York happening on the same day at the same time. I’ll be in DC with DJ Underdog, Mother Sheister, DJ rAt… We’re gonna have a simulcast where the parties will be broadcast in each space and online to try to raise money to pay for the people that wanna do sessions so they can come to the AMC. That happens April 5th.
AF:That sounds amazing, we’ll have to check out the New York party. As far as your live shows go, they’ve got a reputation for being wild – you bring in dancers, wear elaborate costumes, and the like. Can you explain what goes into putting that together and what the goal is in doing that?
TO: I’m just trying to flail around and be sweaty and not fall over but I wanna enjoy myself and dance! I come from the band mentality where people pay their money, you gotta give ‘em show. So I really just try to incorporate choreography, movement, fun pop, really hard hitting beats. Every show we do someone comes up to me and is like “I love metal, and I’m really into metal but my friend told me come and I actually had a good time” or “I didn’t think I was gonna dance and I ended up dancing” so that’s the point of the show. With the tour dates on the East Coast this spring as well we’re making costumes, and we’ll try to have something a little unexpected in each set. I love playing. In Detroit it got to the point where people are doing the moves. They know the choreography so they’re doing the dances with you. It’s just so fun, to kind of have that momentum.
Olaniran opening a sold-out show with Dale Earnhart Jr. Jr. last April. Photo by Emily Korn for CMJ.
AF:How do you find time to gear up for the tour and promote the music with everything else you do? Even as much as your activism has come together with music making, you’ve got your hands in tons of projects; you’ve written some sci-fi stories, you’ve done art direction on music videos for other bands… how do you balance all that?
TO: I don’t have a life. Luckily I’m able to make friends with people I’m doing that stuff with! I have good authentic friendships through the work I do but all of my time and energy and money, everything, goes into that work outside of my day job at Planned Parenthood, and even that takes a lot out of me. So I’m tired a lot and I’m trying to take care of myself. It’s tiring, but at the same time, after a show or a really good workshop I just feel really good. I could drop dead tomorrow, so why not just do what I love and have a good time and be a little sleepy?[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
On Thursday the crew charged with clearing out the old Academy Records Annex location on N. 6th tossed a bunch of “unwanted” records into a dumpster, prompting Brooklyn’s vinyl enthusiasts to descend on the rejects. I jumped in, quickly found myself covered in hot pink paint, and dug until I found a vein of scratched up 45s. I also snagged a Miles Davis “Boplicity” 78 that is worth more than the cost of my cab ride home, helping me break even for the day. My driver, Anthony, told me he’d once picked up Mel Brooks when I mentioned my new Spaceballs laser disc, also unearthed from the mess.
What I’d really been after, though, were those 45s. Rather than dragging home whole LPs of what could both literally and figuratively be garbage, the 45s offered opportunities for quick listening and thus the discovery of unknown gems. I found plenty of well-known ones as well, from Fleetwood Mac to Manfred Mann to Hall & Oates, but I thought I’d detail some of the strangest and most noteworthy pieces of “trash” I brought home:
The Two Dollar Question – Auntie Matilda’s Double Yummy Blow Your Mind Out Brownies, Intrepid, 1969: This song is about exactly what you think it is. In mint condition the vinyl is worth one eighth its weight in “baking supplies”.
The Buckinghams – Susan, Columbia, 1967: Other than utilizing every possible English-language word that rhymes with Susan, the track starts off as pretty run-of-the mill British Invasion sunshine. These guys are from Chicago, though. And around 1:30, their producer added a bizarro dissonant orchestral break against the band’s wishes. After about thirty seconds of abrasive clanging, The Buckinghams chime back in with a melodic “La-la-la” and finish the song as if the whole thing never happened.
Eddie Jobson – Yesterday Boulevard, Island, 1976: You know the guy that’s always playing that crazy electric violin at Union Square? Imagine if that guy were in Roxy Music and played for Frank Zappa and he put out a solo 7″ that looks like a Chill Mega Chill release.
Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan – Tennessee Bird Walk, Wayside, 1970: This novelty song from the Floridian Country duo I mistakenly referred to as Misty & Whatshisface tries its hardest to make a guitar riff sound like a turkey. Misty seductively whispers “Chirp Chirp” while Jack sings about birds wearing underwear.
Jack Ross – Margarita, Dot Records, 1962: The next time there’s a drinking montage on Girls, we’d better see Hannah and crew knocking back shots to this b-side for Ross’s goofy “Cindarella” syllable mash-up.
Mickey Murray – Shout Bamalama, SSS International, 1967: It seems like “Shout Bamalama” might be a good campaigning song for the President. Upon listening though, you realize it’s about Alabama and eating fried chicken. Still a snappy soul jam, this one was best played at 33RPM.
The Peppers – Pepper Box, Event, 1973: Originally written as a commercial jingle but expanded with the hope that the single would become the next “Popcorn”, the sleeve of this record features five disembodied heads (presumably the “peppers”) floating in a box of, well, peppers. It’s really, really catchy.
Bernie Nee – Lend Me Your Comb, Columbia, 1958: Have you ever had to borrow your teen lover’s grooming gear so your parents wouldn’t notice your sex hair? This is your jam. It was first recorded by Carl Perkins and made famous by The Beatles, who were believed to have never even needed combs because their hairs were always perfect.
Cheech & Chong as The Bloaters – Bloat On, Epic, 1977: This is epic tribute to the munchies opens with a ghastly belch, continues with some yacht rock about hamburgers, adds on a pretty racist chow mein verse, and ends with a list of strangely unappetizing ice cream flavors (including but not limited to “licorice” and “boysenberry”).
The Happenings – I Believe In Nothing, B.T. Puppy Records, 1967: It’s much less bleak than it sounds. The smiling puppy on the label is juxtaposed with the sunnily sung but morose lyrics “I believe in nothing / Perhaps tomorrow I’ll believe in something / Because I’m searching for a certain feeling / To make the world around me more appealing.” The Happenings claim that making some lovelife improvements would do the trick, but may I also suggest some of Aunt Matilda’s Double Yummy Blow Your Mind Out Brownies?
Mark your calendars: on 2/28, Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman William Corgan (as he’s billed himself for this event) is improvising an 8 to 9 hour ambient musical interpretation of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha at Madame ZuZu’s, a tea-shop he opened outside of Chicago last year. Your soul is the whole world, which is a vampire.[/box][/fusion_builder_column] [fusion_builder_column type=”1_2″_last][box type=”shadow”]
Fiona Apple will appear in a French Sci-Fi spoof called H-Man as Bio-Frau, an environmental activist held captive in a German power plant. It’s highbrow because it’s French.[/box][/one_half_last]
Bill Simpson, Mayor of the City of Aberdeen, has unveiled a controversial statue of Kurt Cobain in the grunge star’s hometown (a place he hated, BTW) and it’s so embarrassingly rendered that even the statue is weeping.[/box][/fusion_builder_column_inner] [/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_2″_last][box type=”shadow”]
After announcing the indefinite hiatus of Thee Oh Sees a few months ago, frontman John Dwyer is scheduled to re-unite his old band Coachwhips for some SXSW appearances. Can we get in line tomorrow?[/box][/one_half_last]
Identity can be a tricky thing. Sampda Sharma, who sings ultra catchy tunes as Samsaya, knows that better than most. On her debut album, Bombay Calling, out later this year on BMG, Samsaya revisits her heritage and reconciles her many identities while forging a completely new brand of pop.
As an Indian girl growing up in Norway, Samsaya struggled to find a place where she she fit. “My parents were like a generation behind because they had 70’s India in their mind when they came to Norway. So they were raising me with my friends’ grandparents’ morals. It was really weird,” she says of her multicultural childhood when we spoke over the phone. Caught between the conservative ideals her parents instilled in her and and the youthful ways of her Norwegian friends, she quickly tired of being told what to do and who to be.
“It was hard having all those cultures when I was a teenager because there were so many rules. There were rules at school, rules at home, and it didn’t match. And being a girl there was a different set of rules, especially in Indian culture” she says. “That added into a really weird scenario because I’ve always been a bit boyish. I almost decided to be because I was like nobody’s gonna tell me I can’t do stuff. That’s not gonna happen.” So she got comfortable with doing the exact opposite of what was expected of her. “It’s been like that my whole life. When somebody tries to make me do something I just don’t get into it. I just have to find things myself.”
Everything changed when Samsaya heard Dinah Washington’s “Mad About the Boy” in a Levi’s commercial. “I remember being really young and going ‘Ah! I want to sing like that!’ She had this trumpet voice and it was so sensual,” she reminisces. “For a kid who had never experienced anything similar to that emotion, I think it was my first real sensual moment. It was really when music just touched me.” That music provided a way for Samsaya to deal with the frustrations she felt as a child. “I had all these emotions, almost fits in a way. I needed to put that into something. I think that’s how music became a very important part of myself.”
That Dinah Washington’s song resonated with Samsaya in a way traditional and religious music had not is telling of her rebellious nature. “My parents knew that I was always singing but I guess they wanted me to do more classical stuff and be more proper with the music. I always knew that it was a passionate thing for me, and I couldn’t do it ‘proper’. I just wanted to do it the way it felt right.” Though she admits that spiritual music can have similar characteristics, hearing Washington’s song felt different. “I could see that it was forbidden. Maybe that’s why it was exciting. Her voice and the attitude, the sensualism. It felt dangerous.”
It’s fitting, then, that Samsaya’s first single is about bucking expectations and traditions. On “Stereotype”, she joyously proclaims “I’ll just dance to whatever I like / I don’t need it to be black or white / I’m not down with your stereotype” and invites the whole world to come dancing with her despite any perceived differences. It’s partly autobiographical, Samsaya explains. “Growing up looking not Norwegian, being Indian, not feeling Indian, kind of gives you awareness about that situation. You are very aware of the feeling that you don’t necessarily look like what you are supposed to be in other people’s eyes.” By putting these feelings to a pop song that is essentially about loving music, she’s made the emotions universal. “I just wanted to actually make it simple so people could just feel it in a movement, a dance move. I think it’s a feeling we all can feel. That’s where I think pop music is great – it can really simplify something enough to be inviting, not something you fear.“
The messages here feel extremely prescient in light of the controversy that surrounded artists like Miley Cyrus last year when she twerked in her infamous “We Can’t Stop” video and chose to use women of color as props, supposedly in an effort to re-brand her own sexuality. Miley’s nods to hip-hop felt like a cheap ploy, but Samsaya achieves a kind of carefree authenticity, and it’s not happening solely because of her experiences of feeling otherness. The beat for “Stereotype” recalls the buoyancy of OutKast’s “Hey-Ya”, a song that obliterated boundaries with it’s cross-genre popularity when it was released. Similarly, “Stereotype” points out that music can be a bridge between cultures, and that sometimes all it takes to unite us is a good dance beat.
When filming the video, Samsaya returned to India, and found that she wasn’t as removed from her heritage as she had assumed. “When I was alone in India with four people from my team and I was the only one who could speak Hindi, people were really impressed. I was so flattered by that. It helped build my self esteem.” In many ways, Bombay Calling is a record of finding identity, a document of a journey back to her roots. She titled the record as such because, in her words, “Bombay was calling me!” She vividly remembers family members half a world away calling in the middle of the night because of the time difference. “Picking up the phone, still thinking you are dreaming… India was a dream to me growing up. All the places and faces that I had seen in my parents’ photos or heard them talk about. I’ve felt the attraction just grow with the years. While writing the album I felt it even stronger, and I guess I just really realized it then, that these songs are all a journey to and from India, not only physically but mentally and spiritually as well.”
She was selective though, about including traditional Indian sounds and elements on the record. “I know some musicians here in Norway that have Indian backgrounds. I didn’t want to put them in just because I’m Indian, I wanted to make it come from me if that’s gonna come out in any way.” She included bansuri on album closer “My Mind” for its peaceful sound, one that she recalls from her childhood. “It’s like a bamboo flute that sounds so beautiful and it’s a very traditional instrument in India. I had an uncle who played it and I heard it a lot growing up. So it’s also like traveling back to that feeling of being a kid again.” When she was in the UK, she found a musician who could play what she heard in her mind on the flute. “I thought he was Indian because his name is Timor, but he was actually British. He’d lived twenty years in India and he’d learned how to play really well. And he also spoke amazing Hindi. It was so great to realize that the world really is a melting pot now, because I had this British guy speaking Hindi to me. We really kind of mixed it and mashed it up in a fun way.”
In the end, her carefully curated restraint with these well-placed flourishes keep the record from veering into pastiche or caricature. The thudding percussion on the title track is accented with slickly produced synths that give it a modern, almost video-game feel. The dancehall vibes of “Love Maze” give way to a sinuous hook; it’s easy to picture it blasting late-night in a smokey club. “First Time” is another highlight, channeling an almost eighties pop groove, the kind you’d hear in Blondie’s new-wave infused disco or Madonna’s classic dance gems. It’s followed by ecstatic love song “U & Me”, bursting with a hyper, infatuated energy. Vocally, Samsaya has achieved the very sound she envied as a kid, her voice soaring and bubbling, reminiscent of pop stars like Gwen Stefani, Solange, and Robyn, letting it loose over infectious beats. When asked to put the sound into words, Samsaya chooses one that’s highly appropriate: magma. “It’s a Greek word for ‘mixture’. And it’s actually the center of the world, inside the earth, like lava. So it’s like Magma pop. It’s a mixture, it’s a lot of emotion and it’s really warm, sometimes scorching hot.”
Bombay Calling is a fun record, to be sure. There are moments of uplifting bliss, like “Good With the Bad” in which Samsaya sings “Tomorrow is not today,” describing her hardships alongside her successes. It provides a clear portrait of her positivity and openness, something she represents visually by drawing a heart over her eye when she performs. “The heart ritual itself really helps me to see things with openness. I think it’s important to question and wonder instead of presuming or guessing, diffusing any feelings of fear through music. If I feel fear or anger I find music to be the perfect cure.”
Samsaya is looking forward, of course, to playing her songs for the world. “The emotions on the album, I really wanna share. I can travel the world and play it for everyone. I love to play live and I can’t wait to do that.” In the studio, she cranked up the tracks, often singing live over producer Fred Ball’s beats, writing as she went. “I wanted it really as live as it can be, just have that energy in the room, to be able to take trips like that in the studio. It was just fun, it was the way I think music should be.” She’ll make her live US debut at SXSW in Austin this March, followed by tour dates in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City.
For now, she’s in Stockholm, having moved there from Oslo a few years ago. She says that “home” is “anywhere I can create music. I found out that it’s not like a place, it’s more what I surround myself with at that place, really. I feel ‘home’ very many places in the world. I’m lucky like that. I don’t have necessarily one spot that I feel is home except maybe when I’m sitting and creating something.” She does find an inspiring energy in NYC, saying of a recent trip here “I love the mixture of people. You wanna just tap into it and you wanna just start making something out of it immediately. I think it’s the greatest thing and it should be all around the world, it should be that multicultural. It’s very, very positive, it brings out the best in us. Our uniqueness is really what makes us strong. And makes it exciting and makes life worth living.”
Samsaya is nothing if not unique. For her, making music is about processing experiences and emotions, being open and breaking rules. Her outlook is as refreshing spiritually as it is sonically, ensuring that this very gifted gal will soon be taking the world by storm.
Here’s a band that can make The Strokes seem, once and for all, obsolete—which is saying something considering The Strokes were lauded as “vital” and “indispensable” back in their day. Consider Skaters the new “vital” rock band; in fact, there’s a lot of comparisons to be made between the two bands: The Strokes rode a wave of hype into the music scene; Skaters are now doing the same. The Strokes debuted with a critically hailed album featuring 11 solid tracks; Skaters are now doing the same. You get the point.
And the similarities don’t stop there. All the elements that made Is This It such a strong rock album are prevalent on Skaters’ debut full-length, Manhattan, due out Feb. 25th on Warner Bros. Records. Manhattan opens up with the dark-sounding “One Of Us,” a super straightforward rock song that builds around the repeating line “Fun and games.” But there’s no fuss or messing around on this album: you come to find that each minute of each of the Skaters’ 11 tracks is worthwhile. They are not wasting any time here. The album’s third track and lead single “Deadbolt” is a prowling, thumping number that breaks open during the chorus, when lead singer Michael Ian Cummings howls “Won’t you give me one more try?” in as close to a Julian Casablancas impression as anyone could get.
Much of the midsection of the record features much more optimistic sounding, effortlessly catchy tunes like ‘To Be Young” and “Symptomatic,” which feature fast-paced, driving rhythms by guitarist Josh Hubbard and drummer Noah Rubin that make you want to get up and dance. “Schemers” is particularly pop-tinged and one of the album’s major stand-outs, with the same kind of anthemic magic that The Strokes managed on Is This It’s “Last Nite.”
But here’s where the two bands differ, and what keeps things truly interesting on Manhattan: Skaters confidently and deftly incorporate a variety of influences to bring some unexpected songs to the table, beginning with “Band Breaker.” Anchored by bassist Dan Burke, the song is colored with a reggae sound that brings The Specials to mind—a sort of unpolished, gritty aesthetic that simultaneously has a modern sheen to it. “Fear of the Knife,” one of the album’s most dynamic songs, continues in a similar, reggae-influenced tone and features a listless Cummings singing morbid lyrics about an operation and doctors who “get paid when you’re six feet underground.” “Nice Hat,” on the other hand, punches up the punk, drawing from the hard-and-fast style of hardcore bands like Black Flag and Fear. And with snippets of the city’s sounds—overheard drivel, drunken conversations with taxi drivers, announcements in the subway—sprinkled in between songs, the record plays like a genuine homage to quotidian New York City.
The album closes with as much primal energy as its opening—the fuzzed out electric guitar still shredding, the drums still thrashing, and the bass still throbbing. Skaters are, through and through, a rock band, but with a lot more to offer than power chords and great melodies. Manhattan is familiar yet novel, packed with material that’s strong enough to carry Skaters from the basement to the Bowery Ballroom and beyond. Catch ‘em while you can.
Though his songwriting dwells in intimately confessional territory, Canadian singer/songwriter Barzin Hosseini himselfis a pretty enigmatic figure. Publicly, he appears as Barzin or Barzin H, with little biographical detail apart from what’s in in his songs. His presence as a songwriter, though, displays a poetics-heavy musical sensibility, with spotlight awarded to lyrical rhythms and manipulations. Instrumental lines—melancholic and cyclical—take their cues from the themes the words set in motion. “In this place, I’m loyal to memory,” Barzin sings in the fourth, and most urgent, track on his new album, To Live Alone In That Long Summer, “Stealing Beauty.” “You look inside houses to see how others live/ and you make the same mistakes, the knowledge comes too late.” Guitars dust pretty arpeggios over the track, always in support of the vocals.
If Barzin’s last release, 2009’s Notes To An Absent Lover, was a breakup album, To Live Alone deals with the reorganization of life after that breakup. The song collection plods through the process of re-learning how to live alone, and to that end, Barzin first envisioned an instrumentally minimalist album. That idea adapted, as his project took shape, to include input from a slew of musician friends. Bolstered by backup vocals from Tony Dekker, Daniela Gesundheit, and Tamara Lindeman, To Live Alone—while circling lyrical themes of isolation and loneliness—is Barzin’s most inclusive record.
Since its inception as Hosseini’s solo act in 1995, the project has regularly expanded to incorporate an array of musicians. Despite all those additions, alterations, and guest appearances, the group’s musical foundation hasn’t changed much. Although additional musicians make for a more filled-out record, you can hear the minimalist impulses behind Hosseini’s voice no matter how many people he’s playing alongside, and the melancholic lyrics and matching sad music that are the new record’s signature have been key to Barzin’s work from the beginning. It’s no surprise that, by now, Hosseini has mastered the turf. He’s able to more or less eschew over-sentimentality on this record, which is a feat considering how introspective and nostalgic the songs unfailingly are. That’s because, as much as To Live Alone becomes engrossed in remembrance, the album details an obsession with deliberate forward motion. Like stacking building blocks, the tracks take us through the work of building (or re-building) a life, and the anxiety of not being able to figure out how other people have successfully done so.
The record shows growth for Barzin in a few different categories—instrumentally, there’s a bit more dynamic range than on previous releases—but not as much as you might imagine, given that the outfit’s been around for almost twenty years, and that their last album came out way back in 2009. The guitar lines, though clean, are extremely repetitive—sometimes frustratingly so—and the songs’ build-ups come very subtly, with faint pay-off. The forward momentum of To Live Alone‘s moving-on idea is its most interesting component, and the biggest source of progression over the duration of the album.
To Live Alone In That Long Summer is out February 25th via Monotreme Records. Pre-order it here. Or, for a taste of the new album, listen to the first track “All The While” below via Soundcloud:
The feeling of getting lost in a show (not literally, because that sucks, especially when you’re 13 and at a punk show for the first time) is something that doesn’t happen often. However, when it does, it’s indescribable. You lose track of time and what life is like outside of that enclosed venue. That’s what it felt like at Jonathan Wilson’s show at Music Hall of Williamsburg on 2/14 (the sexiest day of the year).
The opener, which my boyfriend and I missed half of, was The Blank Tapes hailing from Los Angeles and capturing that hazy, washed out vibe SoCal is known for nowadays. From what I heard, most of their songs sounded quite similar, but were broken up with lead singer and guitarist Matt Adams’ searing guitar solos, every note hit with precision.
Then, Jonathan Wilson came on, unassumingly, in what I can only describe as a guitar wizard/alchemist’s garb. They got right down to it, opening with “Fanfare” off his sophomore release, aptly named, Fanfare. The song’s instrumental opening was about five-minutes, building up suspense and setting the standard for songs to come. Wilsons’ backing band was tight and took cues from him instantaneously.
The song that got me hooked on Jonathan Wilson over a year ago was “Desert Raven” off of his first record, Gentle Spirit. It was the one I had been waiting for the whole set, although when he finally played it–an 8-minute song originally–he condensed it to five, leaving us feeling rushed. However, the real showstopper, which came in the middle of the set, was “Can We Really Party Today?” a song that was, admittedly, not my favorite off of Gentle Spirit, but evokes a completely different atmosphere when played live.
Well over two hours later, Jonathan Wilson and Co. closed out with “La Isla Bonita”, a Madge cover. After all that time spent with him, he barely spoke a word, instead letting the music speak for him. I think that’s the way he wants it, and that’s OK with me.
Listen to the title track off Fanfare, here via Soundcloud:
On Valentine’s Day, I rushed from work to catch the early show at the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg. Yes, I went alone. On Valentine’s Day. Anyways… Although I don’t usually enjoy this venue, I was excited to see these two Burger bands for the first time. I arrived just as Mozes and The Firstborn took the stage. A four-piece from Holland, they were refreshingly enthusiastic. Mozes was one of those bands that actually wanted to be there and showcase their new album (that was released this past month, by the way). If you frequent shows in Brooklyn like I do, you know what it’s like to watch a band that is completely unamused and somewhere else. Mozes and The First born were the perfect, lighthearted, garage-pop band to kick off the show.
In between sets, the crowd tripled in size. A wave of twenty-somethings shoved their way to the front as Los Angeles-based Together Pangea jumped right into their set. They briefed the audience stating they would be playing eleven songs, and began with “Sick Shit”. With lyrics such as “My dick is soft, these things mean nothing to me,” one would think Together Pangea can’t be taken seriously. Don’t be fooled, they know exactly what they’re doing. As the set progressed, the crowd and band seemed to tease one another. The band called out girls for sitting, and they later retaliated with a pair of pink lace panties. The underwear was then draped on the bassist’s head, and his mic stand. As the stage dives became more frequent, and the crowd more rowdy, the set abruptly ended. The crowd, myself included, was not accepting this, so they returned for an encore. Closed out with two songs: an untitled track which seemed to be a crowd favorite, and Nirvana’s “Breed.” All in all, this was the perfect mental escape from the reality of Valentines Day; Great bands, and a great atmosphere.
Read our review of their newest album, Badillac, here, or if you’re feeling frisky, listen to “Badillac”, here via Soundcloud:
This month’s Band Of The Month is the Berlin quartet Fenster, whose new album we can’t quite get enough of. It comes out March 4th on Morr Music, and is garnering raves already. Be sure to catch these guys on one of their many tour stops (listed below) including a handful of SXSW shows. Here are our thoughts about the elusive German lo-fi group’s forthcoming album, The Pink Caves: International quartet Fensters sophomore collection, The Pink Cavescreates its own reality: self-contained, rich, surreal. Vocals and instrumentation feel entirely synched in their intent, and draw together a lush and layered aesthetic that’s as unspecifically visual as the soundtrack to a David Lynch film. That uniformity makes sense, considering the nuts and bolts of the way the album was put together: the group (Jonathan Jarzyna, JJ Weihl, Rémi Letournelle and Lucas Chantre) laid down the tracks on this album simultaneously, in an East Germany cabin with its wiring rigged to distribute different elements of the recording process over four rooms. So while the album retains all the polish of a studio recording—more polish than many studio recordings, actually—you do get the feeling of togetherness listening to The Pink Cavesas you might expect to find in an especially well-orchestrated live show. I wouldn’t call it spontaneity—on the contrary, every move the group makes in this album is palpably deliberate. However, the music maintains remarkable cohesion throughout.The Pink Caves‘ seamlessness makes it a little difficult to find a point of entry into the album. The world the group imagines is so self-sufficient, it’s hard to locate Fenster in any one era or style. The lyrics, while subtle, feel directed towards high philosophy, and a brief investigation will tell you that The Pink Caves seeks to grapple with an imaginary heaven that is at once both pointless and triumphant for the fact that it exists only in your mind. This idea weaves in and out of the music, but is often buried pretty deep: so closely do the instrumentals parallel this concept of spaciness and alienation that it’s often hard to grasp what the group’s aiming for. Without focus, the music becomes aimless and melts into a swirling, crushed-velvet panorama that’s mesmerizing, but leads to nowhere.The male-female call and response duets go a long way towards humanizing the album. In these sections, The Pink Caves takes on a sweetness that mellows out the stark, albeit beautiful, passages . Although I was too distracted by the gorgeously complex fabrications taking place in opening track “Better Days” and the suavely faraway vocals of “In The Walls” to crave more narrative, when the duet in “Mirrors” showed up, it occurred to me that having a more clearly delineated vocal line structure may be exactly what The Pink Caves is missing. There’s no danger of any listener mistaking Fenster’s musical landscape for ordinary, and there could never be, even if all of the album’s vocals were as accessible as they are on “Mirrors.” Using vocals as a foothold would strengthen the album’s philosophical bent, too: The Pink Caves’ message lies layers deep, like a shadow always turning around a corner before it’s fully in view. Though this contributes to the album’s dystopia, that aesthetic wouldn’t be lost if its foundation were more explicit. In fact, the experience of listening to the album would benefit from having a narrative guide through its dreamworld.Listen to “Mirrors,” off The Pink Caves, below via Bandcamp: We had the opportunity to chat with Fenster regarding life, love, inspiration and music, of course. Here’s what they had to tell us: AF: Bones is such a different sounding album than ThePink Caves. While the latter is difficult to assign to any genre, Bones seems to be more folk-pop influenced. What inspired digressing towards the abstract?
Bones was our first record, made in a state of pure naive bliss. We had never played a show before and it came from a world that was really all in our heads. I guess it was a record that really reflected that time, the influences we had gathered as individuals and the special chemistry between us and our producer. It was very much a winter record and very much a Berlin record for us. It was made in a basement and recorded with one old Russian ribbon microphone. We wanted to capture the simplicity and dark playfulness of morbid dreams, coupled with the sounds of the city and the sounds of objects we found that inspired us, like shovels and slamming doors. After that record came out and we started touring a lot, our world sort of exploded. Everything we thought we knew was kind of turned upside down, and we encountered so many extremes. We were exposed to so many new places and people and music and we just took it all in I guess, whether it was conscious or subconscious I think the world changed and shaped us both as people and as musicians. When we decided to take a break from touring and compose and record a new album, we found that the influences and instruments we had been inspired by simply changed and instead of trying to recapture that minimal innocence, we embraced this new world we felt emerging, following the different aesthetics we were drawn to, which were maybe more psychedelic and wobbly than before.
AF: You have New York and Berlin listed as places the band members hail from. What has been the most rewarding aspect of having those different perspectives? Do you find your sound changing in relation to the geography you inhabit?
JJ is a born and raised New Yorker, Jonathan is half Polish and from Berlin, Rémi and Lucas are from France and our producer Tadklimp is Greek. I guess the music has benefited from not really belonging to one place although Berlin is a sort of Never Never land at the moment where a lot of different people from different places seem to collide, so Fenster definitely owes its existence to what Berlin is right now. It’s hard to tell if that has really shaped our sound but I guess it always adds some kind of dimension when different cultural references and backgrounds meet.
AF: Your website is almost as dizzying as your music. What is the story behind some of that imagery? The bone-headed dinosaur, the man bent backwards, the religious icons…
The website was made by our friend and collaborator Florian Sänger who embodies a particular kind of understated genius that one rarely encounters. The inspiration for the imagery came out of long afternoons spent in junk shops trolling through crumbling children’s books, medical encyclopedias from the last century and religious propaganda pamphlets. We wanted the website to be an entrance into the world of the album which for us meant a creepy dream logic where Jesus is on street signs and men float through the air. After we handed over the piles of collected materials to Florian, along with some images from our own dreams, he basically channeled it all into that website. Word.
AF: What contemporary bands are you most interested in collaborating or playing with?
Ahhhh there is so much good music being made at the moment, but there are two artists that are particularly inspiring to us… Connan Mockasin and Sandro Perri.
AF: Your music exists in a space that is difficult to label; because of that it is difficult to imagine your songwriting process. How do you typically commence the creation of a song? Its kind of different every time…some ideas have been festering for years, some just appear out of the clear blue sky. But our process is that once we have collected enough little bits and pieces of ideas, we go somewhere and make little pre-recordings or sketches of each song with all of the arrangements mapped out. We write and re-write lyrics dozens of times, singing and reading them out loud to see if they stick. Its important for us not to judge the creation as its happening, that comes later in the recording process when things become more concrete.
AF: I attempted researching what Fenster meant. Aside from a last name it appears to refer to a tectonic window. Also, maybe some sort of tape? Where did you get the name? Yeah, Fenster means window in German. A window fell on JJ’s head when we were recording Bones, but other than that we just like that its kind of an empty word, an object you look through instead of at.
AF: I read in Morr Music that you are fans of post-apocalyptic novels. Any favorites?
The Drowned World by JG Ballard is a classic and as for post human novels, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
AF: Given the change from your first album to your sophomore, where do you see your direction going in the future? Sonically speaking.
Sonically speaking, the next record will probably be completely different than the last two. We don’t like repeating ourselves, and at the same time we can’t force things…we like to sort of let them happen naturally and somehow be true to where we are in our lives at the time.
AF: What have you been listening to most recently?
Basically everything…Milton Nascimento’s 80s stuff, Fleetwood Mac (mostly Tusk), 70s Turkish disco, The Art of Noise, the new Japanther record, Caramel by Connan Mockasin, Impossible Spaces by Sandro Perri, sleazy french composer Francis Lai, Carol King!, Aphex Twin always, Kendrick Lamar, just discovered the album Trans by Neil Young, German krautrock legends Holger Czukaj and Irmin Schmidt…
AF: Do you find that what your listening to greatly effects your songwriting, or do you try to separate the two?
Everything that goes in has to come out somehow…The world and books and movies and music and stuff all play a part, but some things are more influential than others. Sometimes you hear, see or read something that unscrews something in your brain and you feel inspired instantly and other things leave you totally cold but maybe these things also contribute somehow. It’s mysterious and unpredictable and we like it like that.
AF: The Pink Caves is an interesting album because at on instant it is romantic, another mournful, and then the song changes and you want to dance. It also has so many digital and instrumental intricacies that it’d be a shame to miss them. Given the dynamism of the record what environment would you say is the best way to listen to it? Headphones? Live?
Wherever you listen to it, definitely listen to it loud! Maybe because we watch so many movies it feels like some weird soundtrack to a film, so listening to it while driving in a car or riding your bike or your horse around town could be cool. It’s definitely worth trying to listen to it as a whole album. That’s at least what we were going for because we personally really love records that take you on a trip.
AF: You mention finding interest in graveyards, and religious iconography. Surely being from Berlin and New York you must have some favorite cemeteries and cathedrals. Care to share for your fans with the same taste for the macabre?
There is a truly crazy and macabre cathedral in Portugal made of bones and skulls and decorated with a golden skeleton called Capela de Ossos and a church outside of Prague in Kutna Hora that is decorated with intricate sculptures made of human skeletons that were apparently designed by mad and blind monks. Paris is always a fun place for graveyards and Vienna has more dead inhabitants than living ones.
AF: Where does your fascination with the strange, morbid and mystical come from?
Its sort of engrained in everything…you just have to look for it. We like the autumn, its the time of year when everything dies. Dried flowers are just more beautiful, more timeless. We’ve always been really fascinated by cults, by movements of people that believe something so strongly they would die for it. The mystical is actually just another way of looking at the ordinary. Some people see a mirror and find it endlessly fascinating and mysterious and some people just look at themselves.
AF: I was watching your music video for “Oh Canyon.” It’s certainly proof of your sense of humor. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Wes Anderson’s imagery, but what did you guys have in mind while making it?
Our good pal and long time collaborator Bryn Chainey who has made three videos for us came up with the concept which was to make a sort of fake documentary about the “Amateur Cosmozoology Society” exploring questions like, “space, what is that?” and the history of animals being catapulted into the cosmos to try to figure out what’s out there. The found footage he incorporated of monkeys holding hands and cats freaking out in zero-gravity spaceships is absurd and fascinating. Science!
AF: You’ve been consistently lauded for your ability to render songs both sweet and eerie. Is there a band mate who contributes to one aspect of the sound more than the other? Basically, who is the creepy one in the band?
Maybe the band has a mind of its own that’s greater than the sum of its parts…we’re all huge Cronenberg fans and we like sci-fi a lot. Keep it sexy, keep it spooky and keep it real in 2014. Peace and love.
AF: WE SURE AS HELL WILL!! Thanks for speaking with us and congrats on being named AF’s band of the month. Much love to you, from NYC to Berlin.
The Pink Caves is out March 4th. Go here to read more on the band and listen to more of the new album! Below, watch the teaser for The Pink Caves.
After two years of sold out shows and festivals from here to Tokyo, Norwegian indie pop band Team Me are finally returning with some new music. The six-piece group just debuted their new single, “F is for Faker,” a lively track that brings Of Monsters and Men and Imagine Dragons to mind.
The song’s chorus features lead singer/songwriter Marius Drogsås Hagen passionately shouting the line, “You’re one of a kind,” over raucous instrumentals that fuse video game soundtracks with arena rock. Energetic hand claps, dramatic violins, and a backdrop of sparkling electronic effects pepper the rest of the song.
Team Me are currently working on their sophomore album, which is due out sometime this year, and they’ll be returning to the US for a few shows and a stop at SXSW. In the meantime, listen to “F is for Faker” below:
As if we needed another reason to be excited about SXSW, Brighton-based rockers The Wytches have announced that they’ll be in Austin this March for their live US debut. “Wire Frame Mattress” from Gravedweller (available for free download on the band’s website) is a perfect example of their dark, lo-fi take on Nuggets-era surf rock riffs drenched in reverb and punched up with a little British snarl courtesy of vocalist Kristian Bell. The band is fleshed out by bassist Daniel Rumsey, who’s working on a sci-fi novel called The Curious Adventures of Charlie Revel, and drummer Gianni Honey, a semi-professional poker player. Destined to fill the gaping hole (grave?) left by the break-up of Thee Oh Sees, we’re willing to bet these young lads have learned a lot from touring with Death Grips, Metz, Japandroids, and Chelsea Wolfe in the UK. The band just signed to Partisan Records and will release a new record in May, so be on the lookout.
Here’s our take on the best and worst in music this week.
HIGHBROW
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[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_2″][box type=”shadow”] Fifty years of this whole “without The Beatles, music would have long ago ceased to exist” mentality is getting stale. CBS’s trite attempt to foster Beatles-Mania 2.0 proved once again that the folks behind the Grammys don’t even bother to listen outside the box.[/box][/fusion_builder_column] [fusion_builder_column type=”1_2″_last][box type=”shadow”]
Radiohead have released an enthralling, otherworldly new app, PolyFauna. In it, “your screenis the window into an evolving world” based on the sound and imagery of “Bloom” from 2011’s King of Limbs.[/box][/one_half_last]
Drake threw a hissy fit when Rolling Stone bumped his cover story to run a TRIBUTE to the RECENTLY DECEASED Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He has since apologized, realizing that sadness over the tragic death of a talented actor is maybe just a little bit more justified than being butt hurt over the music mag’s slight.[/box][/fusion_builder_column_inner] [/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_2″_last][box type=”shadow”]
We’re beginning to think “shows at Rough Trade” were an elaborate hoax designed by the owners of Baby’s All Right. Cheers to Oh My Rockness for keeping everything straight for us.[/box][/one_half_last]
“Your life was new, but you waited for too long,” sing Tom Iansek and Jo Syme on their song “Invest.” The melancholy and subdued single from the Melbourne-based indie pop duo, known as Big Scary, comes off of their most recent full-length record, Not Art, due out March 25th on Barsuk Records. They’ve now released a striking new video to accompany the tune.
The clip is minimalistic and shadowy, with the two performing the song (Syme on drums, Iansek on keyboard) back to back on a rotating set, taking turns moving into and out of the spotlight. The imagery draws attention to the stark contrast between light and dark, while the steady, smooth movement of the set reflects the song’s velvety sound.
Not Art was recorded and produced by Iansek himself and mixed by Grammy Award-winner Tom Elmhirsrt, who has previously worked with Arcade Fire, Hot Chip, and the Black Keys to name a few. Big Scary embark on a North American tour this April, with a stop at Brooklyn’s Rough Trade on 4/28. In the meantime, check out their video below:
We can watch them burn ‘till their dead, dead, dead.
The Box Tiger is an indie rock band from Toronto, Canada. Formed in 2009, They released initial material, a self titled EP in 2010. After teasing us with a few singles, they finally dropped their full length album in late 2013. Set Fire is ten tracks deep (a little over 30 minutes long) and consists of poppy hooks enriched with harsh instrumentation. Lyrics consist of deeply personal accounts of youthful romance and heartbreak. Although there have been a number of shifts in the lineup, the band is currently made up of Sonia Sturino (guitar, vocals), Jordan Stowell (guitar), Marcus Cipparrone (drums) and Cam Jones (bass).
After seeing them play live at The Rock Shop on Thursday, 2/13, I take back my previous description. There is nothing poppy about The Box Tiger. The live performance consisted of explosive, yet rhythmically tight instrumentation (the fact that this performance was the first with bassist Cam Jones makes it all the more impressive). Each track was turned up louder than on the recorded version, with front woman Sonia Sturino screaming above the noise circulating the stage. Sturino was surprisingly adept at maintaining the same stylistic vocals that she displays on Set Fire while shouting above the music simultaneously.
Sturino, Stowell, Cipparrone and Jones are a dedicated group of people. They proudly announced to the audience that they drove all the way from Portland, Maine to perform for us, officially putting me (who was proud of trekking all the way to Park Slope from Bedstuy) to shame. Google maps has informed me that the journey from Portland to New York takes approximately five hours and six minutes in ideal conditions. You can only imagine how long it must have taken during yesterday’s weather conditions.
Sonia looked as chic as ever, hopping on stage rocking the Canadian tuxedo. She briefly introduced the band, and then plunged into the set. The Box Tiger ran through a number of tracks off of Set Fire, including “Taller Than Trees,” “Bleeding Heart,” “Set Fire To Your Friends,” “Maker,” “Hospital Choir” and “Knives.”
There was a dichotomy between Sonia when she sang and when she spoke. When she sang, she shouted, twitched, stomped, and shook with passion in an abrasive and aggressive manner. When speaking, she was humble, down to earth and almost shy. After thanking the audience again for trekking through the weather, she admitted that she was surprised that anyone showed up. Then she went on to plug their CD, although (in her words) they aren’t cool and have vinyl and tapes, because they are a poor little band who does everything on their own. Call me a sucker, but I am easily won over by even a smidgen of self-reflection.
The Box Tiger is forging their path in the arena of stylized, hook driven indie rock. With passion, personality, musicianship and drive (the fact that they drove all the way here from Maine in an ice storm says it all) I’m sure that this is only the beginning for the The Box Tiger. Check out Set Fire here.
Generally speaking, we don’t give much consideration to New York Fashion Week over here at AudioFemme. It’s not that we don’t love a good frock, but our budgets are more vintage (read: thrift store) than designer. Even so, those designers often draw inspiration from rock stars and rebels, and it is not uncommon to see indie bands playing at fashion week events. We only made it to one such party, and that was kind of by accident; our friends over at SubScene Style have been throwing amazing parties every week as part of their Transmission Thursday series at swanky multi-level space Hotel Chantelle. Last week, that included a performance by NYC-based classic rock project Grand Electric and a fashion show featuring Religion Clothing UK, a label with an equally rockin’ aesthetic.
All that craziness reminded us that you can’t walk down the runway in silence. So we thought we’d do something a little different for Loud & Tasteless this week and curate the best songs from this season’s catwalk playlists, while showicasing the clothes that these jams influenced. Also, keep your eyes and ears peeled for future collaborations with Subscene Style and TransmissionNY!
Here’s a peak into the sounds of Grand Electric, whose musical inspirations herald from the Stones, to Otis and James Brown. “It’s an honest form of music”, quoted lead singer Tripp Callan at the event last week. Indeed–sometimes getting back to one’s roots is as novel as inventing a new genre. Listen to “Faking It” here, via Soundcloud:
At the second night of a three-part Don Giovanni showcase last Friday, we caught up with three of the New Brunswick-based punk label’s brightest and best. We also decided to pioneer a new interviewing technique based on a popular children’s fortune telling game, using a folded paper “cootie-catcher” (or “saltcellar” or “chatterbox” or “whirlybird” or whatever you may have called it).
Lauren Denitzio, lead singer of Worriers, isn’t at all squeamish about dealing with weighty concepts when it comes to songwriting. Her band’s debut full-length, Cruel Optimist, draws from rich literal references, personal experiences, and the politics of being a feminist. Denitzio’s words sometimes come across as a challenge to examine privilege, and she’s spent plenty of time here delving into her own and opening up about the conclusions she’s come to, without any heavy-handedness. When taken together, the album’s overall feeling is one of exhilaration, energy, and inspiring call to action. And her band, comprised of former bandmates from The Measure [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”][sa] Tim Burke and Mikey Erg, as well as best friend Rachel Rubino on bass, is more than willing to back that up.
LAUREN PICKS CAT, 8, 4, 5 and gets the question:What’s more important, the personal or the political?
LD: Woah. That is a good question. Maybe I’ll say the personal because of the saying “the personal is political”. Over the years, the way I’ve written songs comes from a very personal place, trying to find a way to use personal things that I write about to talk about other, political things. That’s what I try to have fun with, is writing about personal things that are cathartic for me to write about and sing about but they’re also talking about larger issues. And being able to bring that into the band without it being like “We are a POLITICAL BAND, and we’re going to sing about these things that are important to us but don’t necessarily relate directly to our personal lives.” So yeah, I’d say the personal. Because I think it can be more dynamic.
LAUREN PICKS GHOST, 6, 2, 7 and gets the question:What’s your favorite song from “Cruel Optimist”?
LD: I’ll say “Best Case Scenario” is my favorite one. I think a lot of the songs maybe have more to them than face value, but I think “Best Case” is really fun to play, really fun to sing, and it’s also just a straight-up love song about my sweetheart, so I always really enjoy that one.
LAUREN PICKS GUITAR, 3, 9, 2 and gets the question:“Passion” is a reference to Jeanette Winterson, and there are lots of literary references on the record. What’s a book you think everyone should read and if it happens to relate to your songs, how so?
LD: Well I feel like the obvious answer to this would be Cruel Optimism by Lauren Berlant. It’s kind of where the title for the record came from and I think that it’s a more theoretical, maybe a bit more academic book than say, Passion by Jeanette Winterson. But I think it’s an accessible read. She talks about a lot of things that make a lot of sense to me in terms of how we define success and how people can be very attached to this mainstream, neo-liberal, everyone for themselves, very capitalist mentality of the quote-unquote good life – whatever that means to you. And how detaching from that can bring about new possibilities. Regardless of the examples that she uses in the book, it has been really useful for me in both my artwork and music in thinking about how we construct our own worlds and our own lives based on goals that don’t have to do with what we’ve been told growing up or what the news wants to tell you is successful or the right life path. She also talks about how those things can be where living takes place, like in the pursuit of the good life. But I think it’s a really interesting book. I really love it, and love her writing and it’s a book I would hand to anyone. AF:Do you think she knows that you named a record after her book? LD: In fact I do know that, because her publisher, Duke University Press, found a link to the record online and links to it underneath her book on their website. It says, listen to the Worriers’ punk song “Cruel Optimist”. And I’ve written to her and told her it was an inspiration and she approves. She likes the music, she thinks it’s rad. It gave me a reason to talk to someone I admire. The record is Lauren Berlant approved.
LAUREN PICKS BEER, 2, 6, 3, and gets the question:How did you get involved with the folks at Don Giovanni?
LD: Well, the first band I was ever in, The Measure [sa], was based in New Brunswick, where Joe and the label are also based. Most of the original Don Giovanni bands were from New Brunswick, so just through knowing people from New Brunswick, through my friendship with Joe. He’s just always been very supportive, and I think the focus of the label is really on the creative output of his friends, even though that’s kind of widening location-wise. AF:So it’s sort of like a family? LD: Definitely.
LAUREN PICKS GHOST, 3, 8, 4 and gets the question:Are you worried right now? If so, what about?
LD: I’m worried about when we have to go on! [laughs] But I’m not worried all the time. I mean I think it definitely reflects a certain sensibility that I have sometimes. And that we as a band had when it started. It’s a mix of just trying to humorous and actually being apprehensive.
LAUREN PICKS CAT, 7, 5, 6 and gets the question:How have the bands you’ve been in in the past shaped the current band you’re in?
LD: Well, I think it has definitely influenced the way I interact with other people I’m playing music with, especially because I’m really the only songwriter in this band. It’s influenced how I respond to not having someone else consistently writing songs. If I want there to be a range and don’t want everything to sound the same it’s kind of up to me to do that. But I also have all these freedoms, and I feel like I paid my dues in other bands and really worked hard and put out a lot of records and really went for it. Knowing that you can really play as many shows as you want and do it all the time, even as I am getting older or whatever, it’s a reminder that there’s really nothing stopping me from just making it happen.
LAUREN PICKS GUITAR, 3, 4, 9 and gets the question:If you were asked to take part in the Winter Olympics, which sport would you choose?
LD: Oh my god [laughing]. Well first off I wouldn’t participate in the Winter Olympics. The olympics are a very nationalist, problematic thing that I wouldn’t want to actually participate in. But, in terms of athletic prowess, you know, if you were asking me to participate in an athletic competition of such caliber – AF:The Don Giovanni Winter Games. LD: Yes! If I had all the athletic ability in the world, maybe snowboarding. Only because as a kid there was this Tony Hawk video game I would play, I think. I feel like that would be like the “punk” sport. Or ski jumping maybe. I could never do either of these things. I would just be too scared. But in this universe where I am playing winter games, I am also not scared, so there we go.
And lastly:What’s the scariest thing about declaring yourself a feminist? LD: Well I think in general, it is a scary concept to put your foot down about your own politics, especially if you’re using the word “feminist” around people who don’t identify that way or aren’t as familiar with it. They may be a little scared of it or have preconceived notions about it. So I think it’s scary to try to hold your own when people want to attack you for that or don’t agree with you. It’s that way about any political belief, kind of. For me personally, I am not scared any more. I’ve had confrontations between friends, and on the internet, and wherever, where I’ve had to defend feminism or the things that I think because I consider myself a feminist. The scariest thing is just having to put out the emotional effort to have difficult discussions with people who you otherwise get along with, or to think that people are gonna judge you for that or any other thing that you do or say politically. Any time you make a big statement that you can fully put your weight behind, you wonder if someone is gonna give you a hard time, or push back on it. I just don’t care any more, and on the flip side it’s great to be able to be be like “Whatever man, this is how I feel” and I’m not gonna change because somebody doesn’t think it’s a popular thing.
That fearlessness comes across in the content of her music as well as her performance of it. On stage, Denitzio’s lighthearted interactions with her bandmates belie the most serious subject matter. The band rounded out selections from Cruel Optimism by revisiting work from 2011’s Past Lives EP and playing two songs from a 7″ single recently released on Berlin’s Yo-Yo Records titled Sinead O’Rebellion. Denitzio’s unadorned vocal delivery is matter-of-fact, assured and refreshing, while Erg, Burke, and Rubino play with a classically indefatigable punk spirit, giving the sense that no one on stage is worried in the least.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Descendant opens with a pulsing beat and glimmers of what’s to come in the next 27 minutes: a washed out, floating female voice, distorted guitar freak-outs, and catchy, upbeat pop rhythms. These six tracks are the work of relative newcomers, Blackstone Rangers, a trio from Texas consisting of Ruth Smith on synths and vocals, Daniel Bornhosrt on drums, and Derek Kutzer on guitar and vocals. Descendant is their second EP, released via Saint Marie Records, and it’s a doozy of a release, oozing indie, shoegaze-y pop a la Beach House, with a bit more punk sensibility.
The opener, “Descendant Of,” is a blistering, rock-leaning number that stands out among the other friendlier tracks. The listener is quickly submerged in the music, as the band takes its time unravelling its possibilities from the depths of their warped instruments. “Judas Tree” is the first to show the their pop inclinations, picking up the pace and setting a catchy foundation with the repeating line, “Did you hear me the other night?,” as vague yet affecting as their actual sound. It’s with songs like this one that the band manages to exude a badass energy and presence while maintaining their haziness.
But without a doubt, the two standouts on the EP, are “Frozen Echo”, and “You Never” — hypnotic numbers that have Smith warbling enchantingly over steady drum beats and fuzzy guitar distortion. She wields her chiffon-y vocals artfully, like a painter, diminishing the need for lyrics to keep the song interesting, and opting instead to let the music beckon us into her world.
Descendent is a great showcase of the band’s talent for woozy pop and wall-of-sound textures: in less than half an hour, you’ll find songs you can bang your head to, and others you can twirl around in a daze with. We can’t wait to see what is in store for this talented young project.
The EP is due out at the end of the month. In the meantime catch them on one of their many tour stops including 5/1 at Cake Shop with Blessed Isles & FIELDED and 5/2 at Radio Bushwick with Dead Leaf Echo. Until then, check out the Audiofemme premier of the ever-haunting, “You Never”, right here:
With the release of their debut album Cathedral City, classical/chamber pop ensemble Victoire established themselves as musicians on the edge of genre and description. The New York-based all female sextet brings clarinet and synths to their basic piano trio formula, creating a full-body musical soundtrack that’s as prickly and precarious as it is rich. Two years after Cathedral City, Victoire has premiered a new track and video off a new album that will drop later this year.
In “A Thousand Tongues,” band member Lorna Dune has reworked a track of the same name composed by frontwoman and keyboardist Missy Mazzoli. Expanding on Mazzoli’s dreamy chamber pop fantasy, Dune’s remix stretches out the original track, affording its spooky spaciousness even more room to develop and echo. The track takes as its foundation, a swirling blend of synths, then adds the song’s original instrumental lines, one by one, back into the music. It isn’t until three minutes into the song that Deidre Muro’s (Savoir Adore) voice comes in, further establishing the sense that, in this piece, all instruments carry equal weight, and the voice is as strange and bendable as any of the other instruments contributing to the track’s development. The mood shifts, nearly imperceptibly, back and forth from nightmarish to heavenly over the seven minutes of the song’s course, but there’s a spectacularly sunshine-y moment when the vocal track comes in, marred only by some broken-down crackling in the strings. It’s a clear evocation of an imperfect and beautifully broken scene, so fully developed that every thread of the music vibrates with life.
To accompany the remix, Dune spliced black-and-white sections of the grainy 1967 film “Solo,” by Mauricio Kegal, into a narrative parallel to the music’s progression. The visual theatrics create a stark and memorable landscape for this track. A wildly white-haired conductor directs a symphony alone in a hall of mirrors, surveys a smoke-filled landscape, and parades up flights of stairs, pausing to gaze at statues of angels. It’s a nightmarish fantasy with the lavishness of a wish fulfillment dream, and the isolation of the visual translates seamlessly to the spaciousness and forlorn luxury of “A Thousand Tongues.”
At the second night of a three-part Don Giovanni showcase last Friday, we caught up with three of the New Brunswick-based punk label’s brightest and best. We also decided to pioneer a new interviewing technique based on a popular children’s fortune telling game, using a folded paper “cootie-catcher” (or “saltcellar” or “chatterbox” or “whirlybird” or whatever you may have called it).
Laura Stevenson’s been a part of the Don Giovanni family for a few years now, having released a solo project under the name Laura Stevenson & the Cans on the label in 2010. Stevenson released Wheel last year to much acclaim, keeping her live band but dropping ‘the Cans’ from the moniker for more clarity. “Now it’s just my name, and it’s really really weird. I don’t know how to introduce us” she says, laughing warmly. She and her four bandmates recently moved into a house together formerly rented by The Felice Brothers, a folk rock band with whom they’ve frequently shared a bill. Her history of making music stretches far back into her childhood (her grandfather was the composer who wrote “Little Drummer Boy” among other Christmas classics), with stints as a keyboardist in Bomb the Music Industry! and Radiator Hospital.
LAURA PICKS BANANA, 5, 2, 6 and gets the question:What’s the best song someone’s ever put on a mixtape for you?
LS: My friend Katie made me like the best mixtapes ever. She introduced me to a lot of bands. she introduced to the Mountain Goats, and she put that song “Going to Georgia” on it, which was really good. AF:Were you going to Georgia at the time? LS: Well, no. But I’m usually traveling so maybe she foresaw that happening. AF:Do you have mixtape go-tos? LS: I really like that song “Maria” by American Steel. I put that on mixtapes, that’s a good one.
LAURA PICKS TREE, 3, 8, 8 and gets the question:Name something that inspires you to create music.
LS: I guess just life, just things that I’m experiencing personally. I have a lot of feelings, which can be hard for me. I’ve never done hallucinogenic drugs because I’m terrified of what’s going to come up. My friend was like “You’ll think about every blade of grass,” I’m like “I already think about every blade of fucking grass.” I don’t want to think about everything. Maybe it would actually be freeing, because I do worry about lots of things. I feel like maybe all of that is fodder for a long career of songwriting. Or maybe my head will just explode.
LAURA PICKS SKULL, 2, 7, 5 and gets the question:I don’t if you read what people write about you, but you have a very unique voice. What’s the most annoying phrase a music writer has ever used to describe your voice or your music?
LS: I read everything. I’m not at a place where I don’t desperately care what people are saying. Let’s se, uhm… “cute”. That’s like across the board. It’s like oh, I’m like a baby. Or a small dog. And not like a grown woman with like real-ass problems.
LAURA PICKS KEYBOARD, 4, 4, 9 and gets the question:Tell me more about your childhood – growing up on sugar barges, having a grandfather who penned some very well-known songs…. I was just wondering if you hate Christmas music.
LS: I love Christmas music, for sure! My parents got divorced when I was very little so it was like having two childhoods. At my dad’s house he was super into music, always playing guitar. And he was in the shipping business so he would always take me on big rigs, on Domino ships. The sugar ships were the worst smelling things in the world. The thing is, the sugar gets spilled out of whatever the containers are, like on the deck. And the water comes up because it’s crossing the Atlantic. So briny salt water mixed with the sugar… it makes it smell like greek olives but like rotting Greek olives. But I really loved just being on those huge ships. Things at my dad’s house were a little loose. He would take me to see Jerry Garcia bands and all those iterations of Grateful Dead and then we’d go to go see Phish, and that was a whole thing. AF:And yet you’ve never done hallucinogens? LS: I probably have, just like, accidentally, in the air somewhere. But I would hang out with people that were definitely on acid, they’d be spinning around and dancing, and I was a little girls so I was like “This is cool! These people are awesome! They’re treating me like I’m their equal!” And then at my mom’s house, she was like “Play piano!” As a single mom she was working her ass off but she was constantly taking me to lessons because she saw that I had an ear for the music. And her parents are the musicians. So they were always coming over and my mom would say “Play them something!” And I was like “Noooooo, that’s fucking terrifying.” My grandfather plays Bach – closes his eyes and plays the most difficult thing in the world. And my grandmother was an incredible piano player, it was so crazy. So I would never want to play for them. And then I started writing stuff, and my grandfather helped put things on staff paper for me and that was really exciting. There was always kind of a pressure, but I was the only grandkid on that side that got into music, so I felt like I had to represent. It was kinda scary. AF:Did they ever get to hear your music? It’s pretty different from “Little Drummer Boy”. LS: No, they’re long gone. “Little Drummer Boy” is a fucking weird song, it’s based on a Hungarian carol. So it has these hints of Eastern Europe and very interesting melodies. It’s one of the weirder Christmas songs. And people hate it. But I like it cause it’s just like, oh yeah… it’s the song. My grandfather was a famous choral arranger, that was his big thing, so all my chorus teachers growing up would study him when they were studying how to be chorus teachers. I don’t know what kind of classes you take in college for that… choral science? AF:And they knew that you were related. LS: Yeah, and they were so into it. At least for the first week of school, and then they’d be like “This little girl is annoying, never mind.” I thought we were friends! But it worked for a little bit. I was a star student.
LAURA PICKS TREE, 5, 7, 4 and gets the question:Do you think fans of Bomb the Music Industry! or Radiator Hospital were surprised by the direction you took with “Wheel”? Just in that it steps away from lo-fi recording and has a more polished sound.
LS: As far as people that knew my writing and were fans already, I feel like they were like coming along on the ride with us. So I haven’t gotten and flak from fans of other bands I’ve been in. AF:I wouldn’t expect flak, I think people were probably pleasantly surprised that you pulled it off while staying true to your prior work. LS: They’re super open, and that’s really cool. Bomb definitely draws a crowd of people that are open. Either they like it or they don’t, but they don’t say that they don’t like it if they don’t like it. They just quietly don’t like it. But they will request Bomb the Music Industry! songs at shows. My accordion player reminded me of this today – the last time we were in Dallas we had all these nice posters and we thought, either we’ll give one to someone if they buy something, or they can get a poster if they give a dollar fifty or whatever they wanna give, so we had a sign that said FREE POSTER WITH TIP. And this kid after the show goes “Here’s a tip: play more Bomb the Music Industry! covers” took a poster and walked away. So maybe there are some fans out there that might not be into it. AF:I mean, is that hard for you to do both things? I’m sure your head is in different spaces approaching each project. LS: Yeah, but this is where I do the writing. With anything else I’m just playing whatever somebody else writes. I’m enthusiastic about it, if I like the person’s writing. I’m not gonna play with a band that I don’t like. I’m not going to do guest vocals on a record that I don’t believe in. I did something for our friends The Saddest Landscape, the polar opposite of our band. They’re a screamo band from Boston, and they’re super super awesome, and people still thought it was weird. But if I believe in something, it doesn’t feel weird to me at all. AF:Music is music, it’s probably good to switch it up. LS: Yeah, it definitely changes your brain. I can be open to different ideas melodically.
That covered one of our other questions as well, so we skipped it. Next, LAURA PICKS SKULL, 3, 5, 3 and gets the question:If you met someone who had never heard your album, how would you recommend they listen to it?
LS: The order? AF:No, in what setting. I listened to it a lot while I was driving on a recent trip home. And it was perfect. LS: I was gonna say driving, because even though car stereos might not be the best you’re still getting stereo. Our van is very wide, so the speakers are like very far apart. So you can really hear the ideas that the engineer had when they were mixing it. So depending on how wide your dashboard is I think the car is a good spot. There are some slower songs, so definitely not if you’re tired, but usually it gets picked up with an energetic one right after, just in case people are starting to get bored.
LS: I don’t know! It was so weird! AF:Did anyone claim it? LS: No, nobody told us. We were in kind of in an industrial area. We were out East, in Copiague, Suffolk county, Long Island, seeing a band called Iron Chic. I’d never been to Copiague. I drove my van to the show because we don’t have a car, just use the van when we drive around, and right underneath that back tire was a giant dildo. It was crazy. And the dildo was a deep black color, the color of the asphalt. But it was kind of raining, so there was a little glimmer of wetness. Otherwise I wouldn’t have seen it. I just saw moonlight shining off of it. And I was like, that can’t possibly be a dildo, that’s ridiculous. But it was a dildo. It was so crazy. I thought somebody was probably playing a trick on us, but after this all happened and I put it on the net, people were saying, “Yeah, people find dildos all the time.” And apparently there’s this dildo-finder twitter and they retweeted me. They just retweet anybody that finds a dildo. There are so many people, they turn up everywhere, who knows why? I guess if you’re in a car and you’re going somewhere and you’re using it with someone, and you’re like “gotta destroy the evidence” and just toss it? I’m not sure. AF:Dildos are expensive though. LS: Yeah. They’re like $25, the cheapest ones. So yeah, I don’t know. AF:A mystery for the ages.
As silly as that story might seem, Stevenson’s music is all about untangling life’s absurd mysteries. Calling her “cute” is an absolute disservice; on stage she is nothing short of captivating. She exudes the kind of confidence that must come from a lifetime of performing, the range of her voice not only robust but extremely emotive. She never lets it get away from her, knowing when to belt out her unabashed lyrics and when to whisper more tender ones. At the Don Giovanni showcase, she played plenty of material from Wheel but didn’t neglect the older songs in her catalogue like “Nervous Rex” and “Master of Art”, the latter of which she dedicated to her sister, who was in the crowd. She shared funny anecdotes between songs, and though she introduced most of her tunes as “sad” there were plenty of smiling faces in the audience, often singing along.
At the second night of a three-part Don Giovanni showcase last Friday, we caught up with three of the New Brunswick-based punk label’s brightest and best. We also decided to pioneer a new interviewing technique based on a popular children’s fortune telling game, using a folded paper “cootie-catcher” (or “saltcellar” or “chatterbox” or “whirlybird” or whatever you may have called it).
It seemed especially fitting for Upset, whose debut album She’s Gone was released last year and lyrically speaking, addresses the kind of teenage angst that never really goes away. I talked with Ali Koehler, who formerly played drums for Vivian Girls and Best Coast before releasing a cassette of solo material and forming Upset, as well as Patty Schemel, best known as the drummer for Hole. The band’s regular line-up includes Jenn Prince on guitar (you might know her from La Sera or Negativ Daze) and a rotating cast of bassists (if you know anyone, tweet @weareUpset because they’ve been diligently looking).
ALI PICKS TACO, 4, 5, 3 and gets the question:Do you think it is necessary to shed the legacies of bands you’ve played with in the past before starting a new project?
ALI: No…. no, cause that’s part of who you are and it informs the music that you make now and you can’t make everyone just be like, “Hey, remember all that other stuff?” and erase their memories. So you’ve just kinda gotta keep movin’ along. PATTY: Yeah. AF: Do you think, especially with this project, that you’re building on other projects you’ve worked on before? ALI: Probably. I mean, just cause those are life experiences we have that we’ll never get rid of, so that always… PATTY: Shapes you. ALI: Yeah. PATTY: Ali’s a singer, and a guitar player, and a songwriter, and she’s been a drummer, so there’s that difference.
PATTY PICKS TELEPHONE, 8, 9, 7 and gets the question:You’ve toured with a lot of female-fronted bands. Is there a reason for that and does it differ from touring with dudes?
PATTY: Uhhhhm YEAH. It does. ALI: For sure. PATTY: This is gonna sound dumb but I like hanging out with ladies, I like women. Guys are fun and stuff but I just identify with what women talk about and sing about. ALI: They bring a different vibe to the tour. I know when Vivian Girls toured with… well, Vivian Girls toured with a lot of guys, cause we were on In The Red, and it was more of a boys club. And we played with Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, and King Khan & BBQ Show, and Black Lips and stuff, and that is a waayyyyyyyyy different vibe. AF:Well those are all bands that have a little bit more of a reputation for being rowdy….. ALI: Yeah, I mean, they don’t represent all guys. They’re particularly nutty. But. There’s a lot more of like, going to strip clubs, and… having a lot more fights with each other. Just not as chill. PATTY: They let some stuff go, where I wouldn’t let it go. Like a shower, or something. Maybe a good scrubbing. Or a place to sleep. I’ll go the extra two hours to get to a good Holiday Inn. ALI: Yeah, I’m into being comfortable. Okay, so King Khan BBQ Show… King Khan, this nails it. The hotel we were staying in, he got drunk and threw up all over his hotel room and then took photos posing in it the next morning, and we’re all eating breakfast like, ugh! AF:But there’s not so much of that with the ladies? They don’t really pose in their own vomit? ALI: No. Dudes do.
ALI PICKS CROWN, 8, 5, 6 and gets a question written for Patty.Is it weird watching a documentary about yourself? Or being in one in general?
PATTY: Yeah. I mean, I didn’t really say, I’m gonna do a documentary. I was preserving all the footage and was approached by my friend David, who is the director, who was like “We should do something”. So I did, and then it took a while, it was done in 2011, and going back and looking at all that footage was like going back through a crazy time machine. But it’s always good to take an experience, the good parts and the bad parts, and do something with it, make something, create something out of it, you know. ALI: Like a phoenix rising from the ashes! PATTY: YES! To do that with it, to create something and then also kind of share what I saw. I always like the archival footage when I watch a documentary. I wanna see that. AF:I really liked that the filmmakers talked to so many female drummers because there is definitely this unfortunate thing that happens even in a band that’s mostly women, it’s like the drummer’s always a dude. It’s so hard for people to name female drummers off the top of their head. PATTY: Yeah. To acknowledge the ones that came before. Gina Schock, Debbie Peterson from The Bangles. Nowadays there’s more lady drummers. AF:Did you see the Kathleen Hanna documentary? PATTY: No. Not yet. ALI: I had snot running out of my nose. I was inconsolable. My boyfriend said, it was as if someone you love has died. I was so moved to tears. PATTY: I’m gonna watch it this weekend. AF:You should, it’s really really great. I just think it’s funny that you have that in common, first making such prolific music during that era, but then also both having had documentaries made about you. PATTY: I lovvvvvvve Kathleen Hannah. Always have.
ALI PICKS: DINO, 2, 6, 2 and gets the question:Why’d you decide to call the band Upset? What upsets you most about the music industry?
ALI: I was looking up the definition of the word upset for… no reason, I don’t know why. And it was something about anxiety, a disquieted feeling, all this shit, and I am a very anxious person. I dunno, I thought it made sense. And it has multiple meanings. You could be upset, or have an upset. I just thought it didn’t sound like any one genre so we could kinda grow into it. AF:And so for the two-parter, what upsets you about the music industry? ALI: (makes whistling sound) I don’t know… the fact that it is run by people that don’t know shit about music? AF:That’s a good answer. That pretty much lays it out. PATTY: I know. That’s good.
PATTY PICKS CROWN, 6, 3, 4 and gets the question:What’s next for the band as far as doing more albums, touring, etc.?
ALI: We’re doing SXSW this year and we’re gonna work on writing new stuff. Jenn’s been writing new stuff. We kinda took a break over the holidays. PATTY: We’re sorting out our bass player situation. ALI: Oh, right. We still don’t have a bass player. PATTY: Rachel from that dog. played on the West Coast tour with us, which was amazing and great. Thanks Rachel! And then Katy Goodman [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”][of Vivian Girls, All Saints Day & La Sera] was doing a lot over the last summer. So sweet. So tonight Kyle’s playing with us and he’s the one that wrote all the bass parts. ALI: Kyle Gilbride from Swearin’ recorded the album and wrote the bass parts and played the bass parts on the album because we didn’t have a bass player then either. And it’s comin’ up on a year. We formed the band with a bass player who moved away…. PATTY: He got married. ALI: It’s become a Spinal Tap thing where we cannot find a permanent bassist.
ALI PICKS TACO, 6, 3, 8 and gets the question:Whose cool dog are you posing with in your promo pictures?
PATTY: Her name is Maddie. And she is an amazing rescue dog that my friend Molly, the photographer, owns now. She’s been in a lot of stuff. she’s been in some PETA ads and she’s just an all-around popular fashion dog. AF:She’s a star. PATTY: Yeah, she is. AF:Air Bud’s got nothin’ on her. ALI: She’s really tolerant, with the posing. PATTY: Which really speaks to how far she’s come. Now I’m gonna get into “dog stuff” because she was from the streets… ALI: Terrified, right? PATTY: Yeah. She was on Dog Whisperer. Because when Molly found her some kids were throwing rocks at her. And they did a lot of work together and I started working with her too…. AF:Yeah, cause you do work with rescue dogs as well…. PATTY: Yeah. So that’s that. ALI: Now she’s like the best. PATTY: And those are genuine smiles. When you have a dog like that on your lap, you’re not posing. It’s pure joy. ALI: Yeah, we all couldn’t have been happier. PATTY: That was our best pic.
PATTY PICKS DINOSAUR, 2, 7, 8 and gets the question:The girls on your album cover look like super heroes, is there a reason for that? ALI: Yeah, because it’s a rip-off of the Adrian Tomine Weezer Superhero poster. Not a rip-off… but…. PATTY: Inspired by. ALI: I love it. Jenn’s friend James does all the art for Audacity and stuff. I basically told James I wanted the vibe to be that poster with that color scheme meets Now And Then. And he’s the best, he had never seen Now And Then, so he actually watched it. PATTY: Is that that movie with like… Gabby…. AF:It’s like Christina Ricci and Gabby Hoffman…. PATTY: Who is RULING on Girls now… ALI: Yes! PATTY: This season is Gabby Hoffman. ALI: Have you seen Crystal Fairy? PATTY: No. AF: I haven’t watched Girls at all, but I like her character in Crystal Fairy. ALI: She’s basically the same character. PATTY: Oh, I love her. ALI: You need to see Crystal Fairy. It’s amazing. Anyway so Now And Then meets that poster. With those mid-century modern colors. Muted, whatever. And he did it and it was awesome.
AF:The last question we kind of already talked about, just about how you all got together. Ali, you and Jenn had kind of played together-ish?
ALI: Yeah, we kept trying to start a band but could never get it together. Around that time Patty and I started talking, and I asked if she was playing in bands and she told me she played with her brother and different things, and she asked if I was playing in a band and I was like, well I don’t have any friends…. PATTY: It was between me and Adrian Brody. No. Not Adrian Brody…. Brody the comedian. ALI:Brody Stevens. PATTY: That would be funny though. ALI: I kept trying to start bands, actually, with comedians. I don’t know if you know this comedian Jonah Ray…. he’s really into music and punk rock and stuff and he plays drums and then Kyle Kinane plays guitar and I was like maybe I can like get them to form a band for me, but… I have a wayyyyy better band. AF:You guys just played a comedy show, I think I read somewhere. PATTY: I love playing comedy shows. It’s fun. ALI: We’ve played comedy shows a few times. I go to more comedy shows than music shows. And the first time that Patty & I spoke was because she was the monologist for ASSCAT at UCB. PATTY: I’ve done it a few times. ALI: I feel like the L.A. comedy scene is better than their music scene.
The band brought a great sense of humor into their set later that evening. Koehler may have started her music career behind a kit, but she truly shines as a front-woman, cracking jokes between songs and delivering a snarling vocal performance. Schemel’s drumming has never been more powerful, marked by the sheer joy of having returned to the stage after a long absence. Jenn Prince’s guitar presence was laid-back, though I spotted her getting wild in the mosh pit during Shellshag’s exuberant set. Gilbride seemed pleased to play with these girls again, and even if it’s not as a permanent member if was a treat to see him bring their sound to life outside of the studio. They ripped through material from She’s Gone in a whirlwind. “Queen Frosteen” and “Game Over” got the most shouts from the audience, which was unfortunately a little thinner than it probably should’ve been. But with promising SXSW appearances on the horizon it’s only a matter of time before Upset become a household name. For many of its members, it’ll be the second time around.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Ticket Giveaways
Each week Audiofemme gives away a set of tickets to our featured shows in NYC! Scroll down to enter for the following shindigs.
