[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”]Artwork was created by sculptor Clinton Snider and visual artist Tony Katai with help from Playground Detroit.
Multi-instrumentalist Alex Kaye and vocalist Lianna Vanicelli are Valley Hush, Detroit’s celestial pop duo whose flirtatious macabre swells in their latest single “Iris.” For a song that encapuslates escapism without sounding recklessness, “Iris” is a seamlessly produced mélange of jutting synths, animated chiming, and cosmic vocals that what at times feels like a marriage between Bollywood and Portishead on amphetamines.
“Iris” is a tempestuous seduction of straight lines and blurred edges that challenge the traditional trajectory of a sexy pop song. If rolling your hips in slow motion had a soundtrack, this would be it. In its provocation, “Iris” never feels cheap or expected. The track exudes an aural illusion of time being rewound and fast forwarded simultaneously, and reveals glimpses of the complete real-time picture, reminding us that the beauty of the track is in its visual symphony. Paired with the imaginative orchestration, Vanicelli’s voice quivers with a spacial lucidity through the airy phrasing of the lyrics: “I know that it can be hard to wake up/sometimes the nights are moving slow/you think you’re dying alone /and I know how the highs get low.”
There is never a moment in “Iris” that feels nostalgic. This comes as a compliment. Valley Hush found a space between the present and future, crafting a sensual purgatory that is as sincere as it is politely hedonistic.
Flint Eastwood‘s “Glitches” finds its heroine in Jax Anderson, whose battle with her mother’s death gave us the album Small Victories last fall. Small Victories was a eulogy, a cry for closure, and ultimately a poetic pop anthem for anyone who has ever suffered immeasurable loss. Don’t mistake Anderson’s confessionary vulnerability for weakness; she rises up and throws emotional punches in “Glitches” like a boxer in training in preparation for the ultimate head to head: the past v. the future.
The video is simple in its content but executed with a cinematic richness that reads as an autobiographical dream, or more so peephole into the internal mechanism required to face her own mortality. The video follows Anderson as she begins training with a coach who is also training a young boy. This paralleled shared experience between the antagonist and the child is reflective of the connectivity between our inner child and our adult self, realizing that the fight within is inherently present. There are several visceral cuts to Anderson as the only passenger on a boat speeding across the water that evokes an urgency as the viewer can only assume that she is searching for the intangible.
The video gives the illusion of slow motion and embodies a discernable hesitation. This barely palatable distortion of speed feels like a personal attempt at the grieving platitude of taking one day at a time, but in “Glitches” proves to be a poignant play on sensationalized time. The climax reveals cuts of Anderson in the ring to her feverish hunt in a sun drenched church, where she confronts a television screening real home movies of her as a little girl featuring her mother as she mouths the words “Turn it Off!” to the camera man. It is the fusion of this authentic, remarkably personal moment tied to a Anderson’s semi-fictionalized characterization that tugs on our own experiences and poses the question: “how do we move on?”
Watch Jax Anderson throw some emotional punches below:
No, you’re not crazy. It was just a few short months ago that I was praising Lunar Phases, the debut LP from the space-psych rock four piece Moonwalks. Where Lunar Phases left off, their latest track “Steam Train” picks up with a feverish sense of self, pushing further into cosmic cohesion that feels both seasoned and sensational. After headlining the Hamtramck Music Festival this past weekend (hailed Detroit’s best music mashup year after year) and an upcoming gig this month supporting Diane Coffee (members of Foxygen) the band celebrates their two year “band-iversary” by announcing yet another LP on the way, In Light (The Scales In The Frame).
“Steam Train” taps into the very things I love about Moonwalk’s reinterpretation of 60’s sedated rock, entangled with early Black Rebel Motorcycle club meets a zombie-fied The Dream Syndicate vibes. Even in its untamed composition, the lyrics compliment and combat with aching purification. The track opens with a slow build to the lyrics: “Mind is a window/mind is a window/mind is a window/every night” as the symbol crashing, bass pulse breaks through that very window. Although lyrically minimal and sonically repetitive, Moonwalks finds a sweet spot in the arrangement that is dark, subversive, and feels like fun you shouldn’t be having. It isn’t that “Steam Train” responds with a maturity that Lunar Phases lacked, rather that they root deeper into their next generation.
Catch Moonwalks playing w/Diane Coffee March 26th at Marble Bar in Detroit.
Rarely do I say this about music. Perhaps I’m a bit jaded, but while all of us lovers were kissing on Valentine’s Day, Detroit-based Earth Engine dropped their self-titled debut EP, a beautifully confused collection nearly five years in the making. Earth Engine’s EP is a spastic, satiated cluster of baroque rock that has wrangled a plethora of genres and in the process created their own. Although it sounds schizophrenic the first time around, it becomes progressively more coherent. If King Crimson collaborated with MUSE on some hyper-theatrical Jeff Buckley directed stage production of how the universe was created (and how it will subsequently be destroyed), you might be able to understand where Earth Engine is coming from. For an EP that carries a tangible weightiness and at times delves into disparity, there is an ethereal airiness to its structure and intricate layering that takes the album into cathartic flight (and the listener along with it).
“Red River” is a slinky Dead Weather-ish caffeinated jazz jam that shifts gears into “A Fever of Static,” which opens with classic piano that morphs into a jutting, metallic, percussion heavy nod to anthemic rock. And just when you thought you were getting the hang of Earth Engine’s aesthetically challenging vibe comes the closing track (and my personal favorite) “Year One” where the tension from the previous tracks finally breaks through the atmospheric barrier into masterful resolve. You hear the protagonist overcome defeatism or whatever earthly shackles were holding him to the ground. “I rather die than wait,” he repeats with whispered heroism, adding “I’ve never been one to yield to reason,” which, in context, is a beautifully understated summary of the entirety of the EP.
My dozen or so listens have not answered my original question. In fact, it has been replaced with “What. The. Hell. Was. That?” Earth Engine caught me off guard and off balance. I am completely enthralled by this unexpectedly powerful EP that carries with it a determination that I feel that rock music has been missing for the past decade. Excitedly, I am left scratching my head while making room for new feelings, genre-defying reference points, and redefined sensations of unconventional beauty. Earth Engine is on to something (and I’ll be the first to tell you as soon as I figure it out).
[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”]video still for “Slow Motion” filmed by Molly Soda
There’s something unidentifiably exciting about Stef Chura. It would be an easy out to say her warbled, playful vocal contortions are the key to her aforementioned excitability, which are undoubtedly fearless and perfectly flawed. Last month, I referred to her vocal playground as one crafted by Karen O meets Johnathon Richman, but with the recent release of “Slow Motion” off of her up and coming album Messes, I can see how I quickly generalized her aesthetic. Chura creates space and fills it with confessionary uncertainty. What Chura is doing is entirely all her own.
“Slow Motion” encapsulates personal frustration and manages to make a lo-fi cry for clarity anthemic for anyone who has ever wanted to control the speed of their own reality. The lyrics “you bottle/me in your pocket and explode/give me something/and I don’t know what it’s for/and right when it starts/ to feel like home/it’s time to go” paints an universal exploration of impermanence in feeling comfortable with ourselves as individuals, as well as our comfortability as a piece of our respective social quilt. With Ryan Clancy on drums and producer Fred Thomas on bass, Chura’s vocals are practically framed by the jumpy, hazy rhythms allowing her to use her beautifully tortured voice to maim and repair parts of the song at her leisure.
The video, which is a desaturated Microsoft Paint snack party in Detroit’s UFO Factory bathroom (inarguably the most popular bar bathroom for selfies) poses Chura as an unenthused guest of honor surrounded by balloons, toilet snacks, and a listless oversized stuffed bear. Shot by internationally acclaimed digital artist and Detroit implant Molly Soda, “Slow Motion” is a vivid collaboration between wanting to feel part of a whole and wanting to fall apart, whisked together with whimsy and an old screensaver from the 90’s. The party gets tripped out and psychedelically rambunctious as the guests go crazy with silly string and happy face balloons that seem melancholic in context. The video is a play on party culture and for Detroiters, gives a voice to an iconic space while touching base with those deep-rooted sad girl vibes, that need someone like Chura to portray with sincerity and unapologetic malaise.
My favorite gush worthy trip-hop duo, Gosh Pith, returned this week with another treat from their upcoming EP, Gold Chain, due out February 26. Directed by Shane Ford and chock-full of my friends, acquaintances, and fellow kindred city spirits, “K9” is described as “a story about a young love triangle in the heart of the Detroit underground.” The video is dizzying, enchanting, and perfectly encapsulates the hazy romanticism of Detroit’s landscape.
Shot through the eyes of explorative youth who are tempted with growing up too fast, “K9” is met with a thoughtful innocence and sweetness that speaks to that nostalgic space of feeling small in a big world and the desire to be taken seriously. Each scene explores familiar rites of passage. From stealing a gold bottled beverage and gold chain candy bar from the convenience store, to becoming blood brothers and sisters on the steps of an abandoned house, to sneaking into an after hours club where they yield a gun for fun and turn down the offer to snort lines of gold glitter. As the viewer, you never fear for these kids and you don’t criticize their judgment because what “K9” does best is connect us to the restless teenager buried within our jaded adult skin.
More like a film than a video, Gosh Pith found a poetic way to capture ennui, peer pressure while still remaining “cool,” which seems to be the shared goal of our three, baby faced actors. The repeated hook, “We just don’t know nothin’ baby” is simple and telling of the human condition (and the teenage one, respectively) and reads more like a movie script line than a lyric, making “K9″ an unexpectedly evolved and evocative experience.
If you’ve seen the cover of this month’s TIME Magazine or have recently tuned into any national media outlet, you know that Detroit’s sister city, Flint, is in crisis. Due to corrupt government, dangerous mismanagement, and incompetence, thousands of Flint residences have been poisoned by lead through the water system.
Long story short, Flint was getting its water from Detroit until 2011 when Gov. Rick Snyder, due to economic disparity, decided that Flint would begin receiving water from the Flint river, despite the water’s highly corrosive makeup and the cities aging, weathered pipeline. The water itself is not poisoned with lead, but is so corrosive that it is stripping the lead pipes. Last fall, auto manufacturers refused the usage of Flint water as it was corroding the auto parts, yet it continued to pump into every household, poisoning an entire city. Despite the President issuing a state of emergency and the allocation of 80 million dollars in FEMA relief funds to assist Flint in its recovery, the damage is irreversible.
I know what you’re thinking. What does this have to do with music? Well, nothing, really. Other than the fact that I feel that I bear the shared responsibility of social consciousness as an artist and fellow human taking up space on this floating ball in space. I couldn’t help but search for some convoluted way to draw attention to this issue, while also finding personal solace through the only outlet that I knew. I’ve curated a playlist of “water songs” by Michigan artists with the hope of a healthy resolve for the millions of people around the world who do not have access to safe drinking water, which now include the thousands of children and families of Flint, Michigan. Let these tracks wash over you and extinguish any unwanted fires.
Eddie Logix and Blair French are BLKSHRK. Released last year, Jellyfish on Cassette is an ocean of temperamental pulsations. The project fuses programmed sampled, live takes and improvisation all of which swell. “Arm Floaties (Night Swim)” gives gives the aural allusion of treading deep water.
This alternate take of “Tidal” from 800beloved‘s dreamy sophomore record, Everything Purple, is a trembling and sedated beachside lullaby. Lynch’s breathy vocals paired with the distant and upbeat pop distortions forms the sensation of having a sun stained memory you wish you could return to.
A standout track off of their 2013 album Wormfood, “Water” is drowsy and pleasantly complacent, much like falling asleep in a filled-to-the-rim bathtub. It’s a smug track about the things we normally don’t have the guts to confess about the disinterest in meaningful love and sex. It’s the type of song that demands hydration; a sonic hangover.
Before they dropped the Nascar kitsch, JRJR released Patterns. “Dark Water” is reminiscent of The Shins with hints of Jon Brion, making it both sugary and brooding. The Beach Boys-esque harmonizing and piano crescendo mask the heaviness of the repeated imagery of drowning which makes this bubbly pop track ironic and bittersweet.
One of my favorite Detroit duos, Gosh Pith, channel a sleepy Animal Collective/Vampire Weekend vibe with a track off their 2015 EP, Window. “Waves” challenges the listener to let go, internalizing the symbolic properties of water via a gentle, lapping synth pop track.
The Gories: “Goin’ To The River”
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The Gories formed back in 1986 and were fearless in welding 60’s garage rock with hyper rhythm blues. “Goin’ To The River” from I Know You Fine, but How You Doin’ released in 1990, is defiant and demands rowdiness. This track by The Gories is a perfect example of their lasting and often overlooked influence.
What I consider to be the most under appreciated album in Iggy Pop’s catalogue and one of the most important contributions to post-punk, New Values is full of songs as jutting as this one. “Endless Sea” is particularly provocative. The synth breakdown along with seductive, temperate vocals are the perfect pairing for giving the drugged sensation of literal endlessness.
The Dead Weather: “Will There Be Enough Water”[/fusion_builder_column][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”]
The Dead Weather may be my favorite collaboration from the diverse repertoire of Detroit’s golden child, Jack White. White along with Alison Mosshart (of The Kills) make for a sexually hypnotic rock experience. “Will There Be Enough Water” is a smokey, blues infused anti-apology that is as thirsty as it is satiated.
The folkiest track on the playlist, “Waterfall” off of Fred Thomas’ Kuma is moody and textured like a messier, sleep deprived Elvis Perkins. The song begs “Come on everyone/it’s time to go see the waterfall” an uplifting chorus partnered with moaning string arrangements keeps “Waterfall” in the heartache category.
This track off of Don’t Wait by experimental pop duo Valley Hush could easily be a secret video game level trudging through sparkling, underwater sludge where Lana Del Rey meets St. Vincent. It’s more sensational than literal, but the ominous gurgling noise is animatedly visual.
If you would like to learn how you can help the residents of Flint, Michigan, click here.
Detroit-adopted Ann Arborite and premier Motown revivalist, Mayer Hawthorne, returned this week with another funk infused groove, “Cosmic Love” from his fourth solo studio LP (his first in three years) due out this spring. If you’re unfamiliar, you might think Hawthorne is just another white boy relying on soulful affectation. What you should know is that Hawthorne has built his reputation on authentically modernizing funk, soul and Detroit’s signature Motown sound in a way that has always felt fresh and fun but with a soothing melancholy that speaks to what Hawthorne does best: croon and groove.
This time around, however, I feel as though Hawthorne missed an opportunity. “Cosmic Love”, for me, is borderline comical. It could fit into a shaky Shaft-esque 1970’s amateur porn or a montage scene from an Anchorman movie with equal fluidity. It’s satirical in its literal interpretation using galactic twinkling synths, Hawthorne’s spacey echoed vocals, and the breathy female background chorus, all of which makes “Cosmic Love” feel more like a store-bought Halloween costume than a reinvention of your parent’s vintage wardrobe.
Am I a jerk for longing for heartbroken, lovelorn Hawthorne circa 2009’s A Strange Arrangement? Or story driven, assertively dreamy Hawthorne from 2013’s Where Does This Door Go? Considering Hawthorne is an artist who begs us to turn the clocks back, isn’t it natural for me to want to do the same? It should be said that I like “Cosmic Love.” I do. I can appreciate its playful, candied kitsch. The single opens with the lyrics “If I had a dollar/For every dream of you and me/I’d buy myself a rocket/And shoot into your galaxy” and by the end all I can think is that I wished he would have shot a little further.
[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”]Erin Birgy of Mega Bog Photo by Andrew Swanson
My first musical outing of 2016 was also the first of the year for The Seraphine Collective, “an inclusive, supportive, and active community of feminists designed to foster creative expression and camaraderie among underrepresented musicians and artists in Detroit.” Our venue? Lo and Behold record and book store, a tiny and toasty hideaway wedged in Hamtramck (or Detroit’s “Little Poland”) perfectly suited for the freezing temperatures outside and our shared, palatable mid-week ennui. Taking to the stage (well, floor, respectively) were three dear-to-Detroit local artists alongside a quietly celebrated up and coming national touring act, all of which provided a unique and unified inspirational soundscape for the year ahead.
The Belle Isles
Owner of Lo & Behold Richie Wohlfeil debuted his two-week-old brainchild The Belle Isles (named, of course, after Detroit’s beloved state park paradise). A slinky lo-fi three-piece (Richie on the mic and guitar along with Conor and Deb on drums) reminiscent of Mayer Hawthorne and MC5 with hints of John Frusciante vocals. The song “Detroit Funk” was a hodgepodge of funk and “do-do-do-do’s” straight from that song by The Cure with all of those “do-do-do-do’s.” “Hey, what should we do next? The Summer Song? I don’t remember the words but fuck it. I’ll make it up.” Richie swigs a beer and rails into a song that he did in fact forget the words to. Good thing we were in a book store, as there were a few he could borrow.
Shelley Salant is a one woman Velvet Underground/Wilco/Brian Jonestown Massacre, but most importantly, entirely herself. Barefoot with nothing but a borrowed electric guitar and a loop pedal SHELLS made seismic waves in our tiny venue. Vocal-less and relying entirely on her ability to collage multiple chord progressions without hesitation or transition was, for me, one of the most impressive moves I’ve seen in a long time. Her songs spoke without words: an abridged novel of noise. Every piece had an exposition, conflict, and a sweeping resolve.
On an ambitious 43 show tour Seattle-based Mega Bog stopped by our little haven. The most playful of the night, they infused Jenny Lewis’ whimsical style with Fleet Foxes’ (but only if they had been listening to Best Coast records). Erin Birgy fronts and mothers Mega Bog. She is effervescent in the way her voice hops around, reminding me of the way Regnia Spektor used whimsical manipulations of vocals on Soviet Kitsch, which is perfectly paired with the Mega Bog’s dissonant, dreamy instrumentals. Any band that actively uses a triangle, I’m in.
Stef Chura alongside boyfriend and Jamaican Queens drummer, Ryan Clancy filled the space with what felt like a collaboration between Karen O and The Modern Lovers Jonathan Richman if they scored a 90’s teenage runway film. Stef’s voice is dominant with a confident meekness that is shrill by means of catharsis. So much so that guitar and drums seem secondary. Her vocal playground is purposeful, warped, and effective. It’s a freeing expelling of emotion but stripped down and wonderfully messy like early Flaming Lips recordings.
It’s New Years Eve-Eve, and I’m flooded with the sounds of the past year. 2015 saw the rise of Detroit music in an unforgettable way. Our musicians took to the stage and to the studio with an unmistakable fire under their asses, in turn producing one of the most emotive soundtracks for the year as a whole. Detroit had something to say and people listened. I could go on and on about how I feel about the textural landscape of what this city produced this year, and how for the first time in years I felt moved and compelled to share my findings with the same enthusiasm one might reserve for opening Christmas gifts. I could talk about how Wolf Eyes‘ I am a Problem: Mind in Pieces broke my heart in ways I thought impossible, or how Moonwalks‘ Lunar Phases pushed me back to being in smokey concert venues, chasing after psychedelic rock bands when I was 16, making me feel younger than I did when I was actually young. So instead, I asked a few Detroit artists, most of whom released music this year, what local release stood out to them in 2015, and what they are most anticipating in the coming year. If what we heard is any indication of what’s to come, my suggestion is to brace yourselves: Detroit just got started.
FAVORITE OF 2015: My favorite release is a single track. Absofacto’s “Dissolve” hit me hard out of wintery nowhere in early February of 2015 (and I’d been working in studio with Jon Visger on and off for a while at that point) – but that’s how he works. Lurks, rather, within shadows. Jon Visger wrote, produced, and released this song himself. Nostalgic alarms reminiscent of mid-90s Boards of Canada fire the song into motion and are quickly joined by the fast-approaching outer edge of the track’s structural spine: the drums. They weigh about a thousand pounds each and somehow I feel weightless upon their anticipated arrival. (Sweaty like Black Moth Super Rainbow, yet crisp like Com Truise.) You’re soon swallowed up by the groove in its entirety, where bass is vicious and Visger’s vocals emerge. Lyrics speak out from a character’s entangled, love-sore point of view: a last-ditch effort farewell letter/self-evaluation. Love’s magnetism paired equally with its potential volatility.
MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2016: Recently, I listened to a bunch of new demos at Assemble Sound studio in Detroit with bassist Jeff Cuny of the band Valley Hush. I was pretty taken aback by how much things have blossomed sonically and vocally for them since hearing them in 2014. They’re a newer band, and for me it’s exciting to watch a group’s sound evolve and sometimes quite rapidly. It sounded like they have been experimenting, which is great, so I’m excited for what’s to come.
FAVORITE OF 2015: My local release would be All Are Saved by my good friend Fred Thomas. Deeply personal and universal at the same time, in Fred’s finely honed and idiosyncratic style.
MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2016: It would have to be my bandmate and roommate Anna Burch’s new batch of solo songs that I’ve been thick in the midst of watching her create over the past year or so. Her melodies and lyrical voice are both really captivating. She hasn’t officially said it will come out this year, but I’m hoping.
FAVORITE OF 2015: Dwelling Lightheartedly In The Futility Of Everything by Matthew Daher was an early 2015 release, but stuck with me for the whole year. It’s not a pop or dance album and the songs are challenging – they seem to be five different animals that live together in the same cave. But like magic, they opened up and travelled through me like a dance. “Cyclicity” seemed like it was written just for me, and I was lucky enough to collab with Matt and produce a video for the song. Just a beautiful exchange of energy on that collaboration.
MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2016: My most anticipated local release is whatever Ritual Howls put out because holy crap, their 2014 release, Turkish Leather, makes my eyes roll back in my head with my tongue hanging out like cartoon dog drooling over a steak or bone or whatever dumb food item cartoon dogs like to eat. I’ll be spying on them online until I see something released!
FAVORITE OF 2015:I would by lying if I said a local release stuck out enough to be regarded as a favorite in 2015. Most of what I heard locally was a recollection of once unsuccessful “indie” bands until the 90’s came back, hip/trip-hop and grunge were openly repurposed, and Ableton was accepted as everyone’s backing track. If anything, Tunde Olaniran had a track I dug off of Transgressor. In my opinion, the only good thing that happened in Detroit and nationally in 2015 is that more female artists demanded and took the attention of listeners. At this point in time and in the bigger picture, this is more important than any best of the year list.
MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2016: The local release I am most anticipating is our own final LP as 800beloved because I don’t know how it’s going to end. Rather, I’m dying to hear how it will end.
I first met Gosh Pith during their soundcheck last month at the Royal Oak Music Theatre while opening for JR JR. I remember walking across the stage and making a snap judgment on their appearance, assuming I knew what they were going to sound like (something I am guilty of time to time). I had almost made it to the stairs leading to the green room when Josh Smith released his voice into the empty theatre without music to back him. It was soulful. It was sincere. It was sensual. It was completely unexpected. “Did that sound alright?” Paralyzed with the realization that I was wrong (and happily so), the other half of the self-described “cosmic trap” duo, Josh Freed, interjected his sultry, carbonated, synth beats which moved me from my frozen stance of disbelief. Smith joined in, and I was suddenly, without wavering doubt, a Gosh Pith fan.
Last week Gosh Pith released “Gold Chain,” the first single on their independently released EP due out next year. The EP could rival The Weeknd, The Neighborhood, and likely any literal weekend or neighborhood. Freed and Smith seamlessly weave indie pop with alternative R&B with a tenderness and clarity that you’d only anticipate from seasoned multi-genre artists. “Gold Chain” is a balancing act, and Gosh Pith commits to handling the track’s softness and its expletive fervor with equal care.
“Gold Chain” shares a common thread with Gosh Pith’s overall catalogue: thoughtful and tapered production. Every element is purposeful and polished with enough room to breathe. When fusing electronic beats with guitar parts and poppy, melancholic vocals, it would be an easy out to over produce or to cram convoluted, excessive texturing into the track’s tight two minutes. The use of restraint is impressive, and allows the duo to shine in their respective lights bound by their synchronistic veil of tone, mood, and sincerity.
The most intriguing element of “Gold Chain” is also my only hangup, but because I’m so intrigued it’s more of a curiosity than criticism. The abrupt ending infuriated me at first. One second I was swaying my hips in my office chair feeling compelled to text my boyfriend something sexy and sappy (something I think Gosh Pith intended to promote) and then suddenly the song dead ends with a dreamy reverb guitar strum. I felt sort of abandoned. Upon a second and third listen I realized my anger was with wanting more. Not because they didn’t give enough, but because the story felt real enough to care. I eagerly await the second act, wondering if they’ll pick up from where they left off.
Shady Groves, a collective of singer songwriters/multi instrumentalists, is Detroit‘s newest indie pop formation. Having released their first single (ever!) earlier this week, “Plain Dreams” is an unassumingly sweeping adventure ballad. If it’s any indication to how the rest of the album, Bitzer, will sound (due to release early next year) Shady Groves could fill a long standing void in the Detroit pop patchwork. My first thought was “early Fleet Foxes b-side,” which is in no way a bad thing. I had forgotten that the ambient indie pop rock scene from seven-nine years ago fizzled out quietly and that, well, I sort of miss it. Yes, it’s easily digestible and is in no way a challenging listen. It evokes sensations of the climax scene in any Fox Searchlight indie romance film from when I was a teenager; the type of song 18-year-old me would want a boy to run across the airport to stop me from boarding a plane to. “Plain Dreams” oozes the lush harmonies and textural atmospheric tendancies of the aforementioned Fleet Foxes, and though not as elevated, sometimes reflective of Band of Horses’ Ben Bidwell’s vocals if they fused with Dan Auerbach’s solo work. The cadence in which the lyrics are presented is soft, but thoughtfully arranged in a way that gives the aural illusion of travel, which makes the track feel fully realized. It sounds strange to say that Shady Groves seems like a resurgence of a genre that has inherently had very little presence here in Detroit, but that is why something like “Plain Dreams” with its aptly titled plainness, feels new.
Frontier Ruckus‘ Matthew Milia has a lot to be thankful for. For starters, Ryan Adams sent him an email about anticipating ”smoking a jay” and listening to the new recordings and they scored former Wilco drummer, Ken Coomer, as producer and percussionist on their 2016 release recorded in Nashville earlier this year. Formed in 2003, Frontier Ruckus has built a reputation on pairing vividly raw and pleasantly long winded imagery with lush pop arrangements. Each song paints portraits of memories, dreams, and personally important geographical landmarks. Just a year after the release of their fourth album, Sitcom Afterlife, Milia and gang — David Jones (banjo, electric banjo), Zach Nichols (musical saw, trumpet, alto horn, meodica, keys) and Anna Burch (bass, vocals) — return home to close out a short tour. They play tonight at Marble Bar in Detroit on the tail of the announcement of the completion of their fifth LP. I caught up with Milia to discuss tour, Thanksgiving, and the tao of Frasier Crane.
1. What’s the best part about touring? Any good stories from this latest trip?
I turned 30 on this last trip, in Houston, and it felt kind of heavy. Some fans made me a homemade cake and presented it to me onstage between songs with candles lit, which the rest of the band was in on, and everyone sang me “Happy Birthday.” I’ve been touring for most of my adult life so it felt natural to be away for it—if anything I just felt an immense gratitude to be able to still be doing what I want to be doing at this stage of life.
2. When you’re on the road, what do you miss most about Detroit?
There’s something comforting about geographical orientation. What I love most about Detroit is that it just happens to be the place where I’ve best memorized how all the roads map out and connect — the intricacies locked away within the metropolis. There’s kind of a thrilling novelty to the pure dislocation of tour at first. But a few weeks in, you wish you knew your surroundings more innately without consulting Yelp.
3. It’s been just over a year since the release of Sitcom Afterlife. What’s been the biggest change in Frontier Ruckus from then to now?
Anna is playing bass guitar again! For the first time since her departure, right after Deadmalls and Nightfalls came out in 2010. It creates a nice heightened energy on stage. We’re five albums in now, and with each album it just seems to crystalize the overall feeling of the band, and diminishes distracting anxiety. People at shows have this greater context to see things in. The characters in the songs all interact. The band’s narrative grounding just feels sturdier and a bit more substantial, without being too self-aggrandizing about it.
4. You’ve described yourself as a verbose lyricist. What are some of your favorite words or imageries?
Early on I really like mixing biblical or religious imagery with sexuality. I think 13 years of pent up Catholic schooling will do that. These days, in a more balanced way, I think I’m still locked into the almost obsessive and systematic image-cataloguing of banal domestic suburban household objects and scenery that I fell into during Eternity of Dimming. I love detailing the unfolding of great familial drama in front of a static backdrop of living rooms and dads’ home offices.
5. You have a background in poetry. How is the writing process different for you when writing lyrics versus poetry?
Well I rhyme in song which I never ever allow myself to do in poems. So I rhyme like hell in song. The more complex or internal or multi-word the rhyme the better. And then there’s the chordal and melodic component which inevitably influences the language and meter of lyrics. I like to juxtapose in opposites. So if the chords sound happy I’ll tend to evoke an unsettling memory or something that challenges my emotional comfort, and vice versa. With poetry it’s all about language and much more conversational.
6. Could you describe Frontier Ruckus’ aesthetic via a memory that best encapsulates it?
One time I was riding in the back seat of the car with my mother and grandmother. For some reason I was wearing roller blades. The only other thing in the back seat was my grandmother’s oxygen tank. We were stopped at a light and my curiosity led me to twist the knobs until it rattled and hissed and I got so freaked out that I swung the car door open and jumped out, slipping on my roller blade wheels in the path of oncoming traffic. My mom swung her door open which signaled to the cars to screech to a halt. That mixture of a comforting situation turning erratically panicked is what I think the band is about.
7. You just finished recording your fifth LP in Nashville, slated to release next year. What does it sound like? If it were a thanksgiving food what would it likely be?
It was the first album we’ve done outside of Michigan and our first with a producer — Ken Coomer (Wilco’s original drummer), who also drummed on the whole record. It’s definitely got more of a polished baroque pop vibe, with string parts and mellotron, etc. But where Sitcom Afterlife was sort of a one-off break-up album dealing with the bitterness of a specific situation, I think this album returns to the more universal themes of our earlier records that tried to portray the sorrow and loss inherent to notions of family, home, and memory, but through a sense of beauty and complex appreciation.
It would be a slice of pumpkin pie mingling with a bit of creamed onions from a reused plate.
8. What inevitable awkward family interaction are you dreading/looking forward to this Thanksgiving?
Just the perennial explanation of what being in a band is like, and what sort of accomplishments the band achieved since the last briefing. I’m blessed with a super supportive family though. Still one always feel obliged to qualify things in relatable terms.
9. What does the ideal 2016 look like for the band?
Our aforementioned fifth album will be coming out at some point! Lots of touring and a few trips to Europe I’m sure. Collaborating with rad artists on music videos. I’ll be compiling another collection of poems I hope, along with some short fiction.
10. What character of Frasier are you and why?
Definitely Frasier. I’d be lying if I didn’t desperately relate to his misguided narcissism colliding with crippling insecurity.
I’m finally home. After a two week stint on the road with JR JR I’m attempting to readjust and realign, and in doing so found that I was home sick all along. While traveling I was lucky to explore parts of the country I never thought I would see, and feel things yet to be categorized and safely stored. Even so, the sensation of being home is disturbingly strange. While I stumble to transition from being driven to driving myself (that’s actually pretty heavy if you think about it), I decided to channel Detroit artists singing about our beautifully complicated city. (And for the record, I really wanted to put Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” on this list, but I think you’re better off just looking up “mom’s spaghetti” memes.)
1. The White Stripes “The Big Three Killed My Baby”
My dad has worked for Ford Motor Company for 39 years. My dad also raised me single handedly. Detroit royalty, The White Stripes’ shrill and thrashing anthem, acknowledging the complexities between the city and its industry, hits home with me. While on the road, my dad called me with the news of his early retirement. I imagine on his last day we will set fire to something in a field and scream along with Jack and Meg.
Released in 2011, just two years before Detroit filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, this track about Detroit’s most desperate hour is bittersweet today in the age of the city’s rebirth. Hawthorne’s reputation for being a sincere channel between the sounds of Motown and modern swagger shines here with heart and hope.
I’m not sure how they’re perceived around the country, other than seeing shitty faux vintage t-shirts at Urban Outfitters, but in Detroit MC5 are a major thread in our rock ‘n’ roll fabric. In wake of the race riots of 1967, their 1969 debut album Kick Out The Jams included this track, a Dylan-esque retaliation and retelling of this pinnacle piece of our city’s history.
Okay, okay. Patti Smith isn’t from Detroit. But she is my favorite person and she did live in Detroit and various Michigan suburbs from 1976 to the mid 90’s after meeting and marrying the late Fred Smith (beloved guitarist of the aforementioned MC5.) Her latest book, M-Train, details this very life which was first expressed in 1978 via this purging and poetic love letter that is as gritty as the city itself.
Rodriguez has an interesting story. If you saw the Oscar winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man then you know what I’m talking about. Having made music with luke warm reception in the states in the 1970’s (with mild success in Australia) Rodrieguez’s career shaped up to be short lived. Unknowingly to him, his music found its way to South Africa where his record sales outnumbered those of Elvis Presley. Rumors of his death circulated. In attempt to find the truth (spoiler alert: he’s alive) the documentary was made and released in 2012. This song is reflective of his roots and helps illustrate the mysterious life of this local legend with sweeping simplicity.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
It all started when I was a kid. My dad taught me that if I want to meet the band, I should wait by the tour bus after the show. I never abused this knowledge and I never became a groupie (even though the thought of becoming one was a strangely enchanting dream of mine; I was too sheepish to ever make it happen). My hours of waiting at backdoors and waving my hands at tour bus windows were completely innocent out of admiration for the artist. I drove around various parts of the midwest as a teenager, with my best friend, to follow Phantom Planet and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club with the only intention of snapping a photo or snagging a setlist. But never once did we make onto a bus. Fast forward to today. I am typing this in the back lounge of a matte black tour bus while the drummer and bassist sleep in their respective bunks, while the rest of the remaining members tackle a radio interview somewhere outside of Columbus, Ohio. I’m living out multiple fantasies via multiple realities and all I can think of is how this is not at all what I expected.
JR JR (Yes, once called Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr and no, we don’t want to talk about it) hails from Detroit but has gained impressive momentum across the country with their single “Gone” off their latest self-titled release on Warner Bros. The album is truly reflective of the band’s new trajectory into new territory, and an infectious collection of pop anthems that is relatable to anyone who has ever shed a previous self. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to answer the question, “What band are you with?” and when I respond, more people know who I’m talking about. Comprised of Josh Epstein, Daniel Zott, Bryan Pope and Michael Higgins (my ticket onto the bus and the key to my heart….awwwww), JR JR is not just a flash in the pan, forever-on-the-verge band. They’ve affected people. I’ve been lucky enough to see proof of this. And I think even the band would agree that this is the most coveted goal of being a band.
I first stepped aboard the bus when I kissed the drummer good bye, wishing them a safe and happy tour. This was at the end of September. Not five minutes after watching the bus disappear into my rear view, I remember pulling into a McDonalds parking lot to cry into my steering wheel. I was going to miss him. Everything I had ever known to be true about touring musicians (the girls, the parties, the general debauchary, the girls) fed into the fits of sadness that followed their departure. Despite knowing that these boys never once fit the description, I was haunted by films like Almost Famous. There was jealousy, too, that I did not anticipate. He would get to travel the country while I was forced to work my shitty 9 to 5 and live in my shitty apartment with my shitty cats (just kidding, I love them). This was shaping up to be the most challenging two months of my life. We talked every day, though I would often shut down and not answer texts or calls because I was too scared to know if he was having the time of his life without me. I can be selfish, sometimes. After a few weeks we decided in time and in tune that I would join the last leg of the tour. This solved several curiosities and satisfied my deprivation since his departure. I told my boss (never did I ask permission) that this was something I needed to do, and that he had no choice other than to be okay with it because I already bought the plane ticket to New York City and had already arranged for someone to care for my cats (see, I told you I loved them). I was warned of a few things while packing and frantically rearranging my life for this temporary escape. Packing was impossible as I realized I was at the mercy of the tour bus, the tour schedule, and that I had absolutely no control over anything that would likely happen. I had to let go and say yes, advice I have spent years giving other people would forcibly become my wayward mantra.
I landed in New York City last week. JR JR was gearing up to play Webster Hall and all I cared about was being reunited with my person. I had no idea that my life would forever be changed. My path was being unknowingly rerouted and my goals were silently one-uping each other. I was no longer a voyeur to a life I once dreamed of, but an active participant. This was more than tour. This was more than music. This was an adventure.
Things you might not know about tour:
1. There is no pooping on the bus.
This might not seem like a big deal (and it isn’t) until you have to actually go. Pissing is fine, as long as your aim and balance are in check. You are at the mercy of whatever city you’re headed to next and the speed of the driver. Sometimes it’s best to sleep through the discomfort and pray you can hold it another 5, 6, sometimes 8 hours. Once we’re parked, we usually collectively spend the first part of our morning/afternoon looking for Starbucks bathrooms (for which I would like to publicly apologize for the havoc we have wreaked in aforementioned restrooms).
2. Sleep. Is. Everything.
Before I joined the crew, I would get so pissed at Michael for sleeping until two or three in the afternoon, as I had already been awake, at work and productive for hours before him. Now that I am a bus rat, I find it easy to sleep undisturbed until early afternoon because I know that load in (the literal loading of equipment into the venue) is going to be brutal, and the day is non-stop from the moment the tour manager shakes us awake. This leads me to point number three.
3. Bunks are NOT comfortable.
The size of a coffin, perhaps with a bit more leg room, the bunks are not ideal for anyone. Period. Even though I have my own bunk (I use it for storage mostly) I have chosen to cram into Michaels and it took three days to find our Tetris-like synchronicity during sleep. I’ve bumped my head, kneed him in the ribs, rolled out and off and on night one I had a panic attack induced by claustrophobia. I thought I was dead and had been buried. This is a common feeling while on tour. On the rare occasion that a real bed is available to us, we take it. We nap in it. We spread our limbs and jump on it. Beds are a luxury. Despite the stiff necks and sore limbs, the bus is our home and our bunks, most nights, are heaven. The curtains provide pitch blackness so that sleep at any hour is possible. Waking up disoriented is normal and actually grounding, if you can believe that.
4. You will get fat on tour.
I had a plan going in. I’m going to eat healthy and light and find ways to exercise along the way. This made no sense considering I don’t even do those things in my normal life. Well, it’s day seven and my clothes are fitting tighter, my face is noticeably a bit puffier and we even Uber’d from our hotel to a Taco Bell because, well, dinner wasn’t enough. It’s not that tour makes you fat, more so tour makes you hungry. You’re forced to think ahead every single day. If we woke up at 3pm, load in is at 3:30, soundcheck is at 5, that means we won’t have an opportunity to eat again until we load OUT sometime after 11. And of course there are bus snacks and green room hospitalities (booze, pizza, and cupcakes to name a few) all of which are contributors to this few extra pounds. A huge part of it, for me, is wanting to eat food in every city we go to. We ask the locals where the best tacos are or where their favorite pizza joint is. We indulge and are thankful for our generous per diem that allow us to be fat, happy, and well, fat.
5. There’s no time to party.
I think it’s a universal image. The band. The bus. The parties. Girls waiting to fuck you. We have been fed this story time and time again and in a lot of instances it’s true (if you’re Motley Crue and it’s 1987). Not only do I know the JR JR boys personally enough to know they do not fit this description, I have learned that there just isn’t time to be bad. Half the band is married and the other half are in relationships, and as a whole the shared goal is always the music. Between promo and press visits with radio stations, gigs and meetings with managers, and long bus hauls, we are lucky if we get enough time to wash ourselves in venue sinks (because showers are just as rare as beds and pooping opportunities). With rigid tour schedules, most of the time sleep is valued over night life exploration. Playing Xbox in the back lounge is preferred over drinking with fans. And visiting local museums and zoos is more appealing than Tinder’ing and scoring drugs. I can’t speak for every band, but I can speak for JR JR. We like burritos and nature walks, when time permits.
As I said earlier, I am somewhere in Columbus, Ohio. The bus has finally stopped near our venue for the night, and the boys are in search of breakfast. In just a few days my life will return to its normal speed and I will be forced to apply what I’ve seen and what I’ve learned to making my life back home more exciting. I will undoubtedly miss the lulling sway of the tour bus and the excitement of waking up somewhere other than where I fell asleep. I’ve walked the steps of Harvard and played drums during soundcheck at 9:30 Club in D.C. I’ve felt the vibrations of the roaring fans from the green room and I’ve watched hundreds of people sing along to every word. Beyond everything I’ve learned I’ve fallen even more in love with Michael, music, and this strange country than I ever thought possible. Tour is not what you think, not for a minute. But it’s that shift in perception and these sweeping realizations that have brought me closer to myself in ways that are still unfolding, still indescribable. The tour wraps in a few days in Chicago. We are all excited to go home and to sleep in real beds and shower for as long as the hot water allows. Collectively I know we will miss this strange, ever moving adventure…until the next time the bus pulls up.
Wolf Eyes reemerges with their Third Man Records debut (the label created by Detroit’s own prodigal son, Jack White) with I Am A Problem: Mind In Pieces. After an aggressive and perplexing takeover of Third Man’s Instagram account last week (they lost over a thousand followers as a result, which warranted a regretful apology from the label), Wolf Eyes is doing what they do best: making noise that is as jarringly tragic as it is sonically eruptive. Considered the “kings of U.S noise” and pioneers of trip-metal, Nate Young, John Olson, and Jim Baljo have not departed from their signature nuance of dismal, distempered dystopia on I Am A Problem as explored previously on their exhaustive, extensive catalogue. But don’t assume that Wolf Eyes are wading in stagnant waters. In fact, this time around they’ve managed to turn their chaos into discernible, tortured transcendence. Although celestially despondent, I Am A Problem never runs away from itself; each track cascades into a cosmic rawness that warps, wraps, and entangles you. From start to finish (and back again) it’s difficult to put a finger on what makes this album seem like it’s on the precipice of undiscovered territory, yet remaining familiar simultaneously. Perhaps it’s the vocally palpable despair paired with the bombastic layering of intergalactic pulsations reminiscent of both heartbeat and heartbreak. Wolf Eyes finds a way to make abstraction relatable and intoxication desirable.
It was the day of my grandmother’s funeral. Having spent the better portion of my day mourning the loss with my father and chain smoking while driving familiar streets of my hometown where the old bars had new signs, I was unnerved with realizing not everything was as I left it when I moved out and to Detroit two years ago. By the end of the day, I was disheveled and still dressed sullenly in black. My face was puffy from crying and both my body and mind were fevered with exhaustion. David Bowie’s “Changes” came on the radio as my boyfriend at the time asked what I wanted to do. It was late. It was Saturday. I was tired. But without hesitation I stared out of the passenger side window at a sky that threatened snow and said, “I have to go to Temple.” This was not some prolific religious sentiment, although looking back maybe in some ways it was. Temple is “Temple Bar,” one of Detroit’s most unassuming vestiges and my salvation was (and still is) Haute to Death; a monthly dance party thrown by Ash Nowak and Jon Dones.
Creators, curators, and collaborators in life, love, and the dance floor, Nowak and Dones are more than DJ’s, they are partners and hosts to what will undoubtedly be your favorite night (if you’re lucky enough to remember it). Emotional electricians, they are instigators of catharsis with a killer record collection and an undeniably thoughtful approach to weaving a tapestry of people, environment, and sound. What started as a search to throw the best dance party for friends is now celebrating it’s eight year residency this month. “We’ve developed a family of people here,” says Dones. “Ash and I don’t have a lot of family. We feel so connected to the people that show up that I don’t necessarily have to know where they came from, or what they do for a living because we’re all here together. What we do isn’t about us, it’s about you.”
For eight years, Haute to Death has called Temple Bar its home base and in some ways its birth place. A pock marked parking lot surrounds an institution colored building with the name painted crudely above the door, Temple Bar is the last place you would expect to find the city’s most welcoming and unapologetic dance party. The DJ booth sits high above the dance floor where Nowak and Dones are glassed in and silhouetted by neon genitalia (one of many idiosyncratic details of Temple Bar’s landscape). The aforementioned dance floor is contained by a half wall and is no bigger than a few handicap accessible bathroom stalls side by side. The intimacy is the most intimidating quality of a Haute to Death event and paradoxically is what invites you in to stay. Since it falls on the third Saturday of each month, the T.V. sets are tuned to SNL (which seems meta in context) and the awkward pool table wedged between the bathrooms is always strangely occupied as people aim their pool sticks into the air because rarely is there room to make a real shot (hell, you’re lucky if can stand with your feet apart). Sometimes a dog shows up, and no one has ever seen anyone actually play the Sopranos pinball machine near the entrance. Skin will touch skin, sweat will converge with other spilled fluids, and your hair will refuse to hold whatever product or styling you came in with. The air is promised to be thick and salty and each party is not without its share of playful dance offs, fits of cinematic twirling and even the occasional new wave twerk-a-thon. Without fail there will be at least one tangible moment where the music finds temporary shelter within you and shakes something loose (or perhaps pieces something back together). You can be yourself, someone else, or no one at all.
“Jon and I like a lot of the same things. We ultimately have the same end goal but have extraordinarily different ways of getting there,” explains Nowak on their ability to collaborate. “You can’t play candy all night long. It’s fun and tempting, but it’s not sustainable.” Even under the shimmering lights and the waves of glistening skin, there are periodic points in the set where things go from moody, to dark all the way back to desert-like electro pop. “We focus on thoughtful sets with emotional arches,” Dones adds.
Over a bottle of wine, I tell Nowak and Dones (now considered my friends and creative cohorts) what I love most about their monthly sweaty soiree. “What is the more interesting story is your experience,” Dones says. “We’ve never been to Haute to Death. We don’t know what it’s like.” I walk them through the first time I showed up. I felt like a squad-less orphan until they spun a New Order mix that I would have never heard anywhere near my hometown suburb and how when I stand under the disco ball and Kraftwerk’s “Telephone Call” bleeds into Azealia Banks “212” (one of Nowak’s staple mixes) I feel like I’m being transported to another planet (yet feel completely grounded). I remind them of the time the speakers blew during their annual “Bosses and Secretaries Edition” and a resident babe and H2D’er dressed in an all white suit, booted up the jukebox to save the party with Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” and how everyone felt this shared emotional rush of relief, gratitude and well, praise to this unworldly little slice of party heaven that we all feel has been gifted to us. These magical moments are exclusive to what Nowak and Dones do which is far more than spin records or craft playlists. They provide a setting, a mood, and a warmth that encourages each person in attendance (whether they are actively participating or not) to formulate their own memory and to use the floor as their own therapy. (Nowak even adds that they’ve only had ‘one fight in eight years’, which is pretty impressive.) I recollect all the times I danced with a broken heart, physical injury, and creative malaise and how by the end of the night, even though I end up with my lipstick kissed off, my eye makeup running down my cheeks and my clothes adhered to my skin, Haute to Death never fails to stir me back to life. A confectionary and visceral collision, Nowak and Dones are artists of experience and Haute to Death is their torrid and glittered canvas. “It’s a mess,” Nowak says, “and it’s really fantastic.”
Rolling Stone gave Protomartyr‘s third album TheAgent Intellect four out of five stars. Pitchfork gave it a 8.2 rating, and Consequence of Sound thought it worthy of an A-. And somehow, I feel like I just walked into a movie theater during the credits and everyone is clapping. I feel like I missed something. I’ll admit, it took an annoying amount of Facebook shares and reposted reviews to spark my interest in Protomartyr, who on paper seemed like they would fit my taste profile. The term “post punk indie” was tossed around and some comparisons to Ian Curtis of Joy Division, too. At first glance, it seemed moody enough for me to say yes to, but at second and third glance I’m left shrugging my shoulders.
An ambitious four piece, TheAgent Intellect is Protomartyr’s third album in three years. An impressive feat, yes. However, after an appropriately chosen three listens, I spent half the time waiting for something to happen and the other half wondering if Rolling Stone and I were listening to the same album. To be fair, I like the album. It’s fine. But that’s exactly what’s wrong with it. What sounds like a collection of early 2000’s indie B-Sides reflective of, say, Louis XIV (remember them? Yeah, no one else does, either). Intellect rides a steady trajectory, rarely seizing the moment and instead primes for the aforementioned moment without resolve, release or that thing. Perhaps it’s the lack of explosive, emotive moments that makes this album unique. Maybe we’re saturated in riding the roller coaster to the point where albums like Intellect seem refreshing. The songs run together like a high school watercolor but maintain a respectable cohesion. The drums on “Cowards Starve” sound like the drums in “Boyce or Boice” and “Why Does it Shake?” The vocals are somehow consistently flashy in their flatness. After riding the stagnant wave, a track like “Clandestine Times” wakes you up not by being particularly loud or outrageous but for being the song. Yes, it sounds like something ripped right off of The National’s Trouble Will Find Me, but it’s unexpected in context and is the bloodiest, messiest on the album, making it for me the most sincere moment on TheAgent Intellect. It is after this track that the album adopts a slightly more unmerciful tone and at some point sounds as if Protomartyr are actually feeling something instead of just making sounds about feeling something.
The truth is, when it comes to music I much rather feel passionate about hating or loving something than be unmoved. I wanted to inhale Agent Intellect and wanted to crave more of it. But really it comes down to being challenged and surprised. If I were at a house party, I could hear this fading into the background over beer bottles and conversation; a non-intrusive soundtrack to a night you probably won’t remember, because the party was only okay.
Sitting on an over-packed suitcase that refuses to shut (yes, I really did need five pairs of shoes) as I compile neurotic checklists, compulsively looking at ten day forecasts and somehow I am already missing Detroit: my beloved mother-ship. I’m hitting the road and heading west to camp in the Grand Canyon and some 27-year-old debauchery in Vegas as some ill planned rite of passage in honor of my birthday. I’m going it solo, but not without bringing a little bit of Detroit along for the ride to keep me company.
My mom likes to boast that my first concert was Iggy Pop. She was seven months pregnant and claims that Iggy waved to her belly (that’s me, you guys)! This, to me, is the pivotal road trip song to end all road trip songs. As a Detroit legend and my personal savior of all things badass, it only seems appropriate to bring a little bit of Iggy with me to Sin City.
Okay. So I’m already imagining me rolling out of the Hertz car rental in my 2015 Ford Focus with this song blasting. If you’re from Detroit, Danny Brown is a household name and using his lyrics as punctuation is the norm. “Growing Up” is (quite literally) fitting for this birthday adventure.
Since moving to Detroit, nothing compares to the ferocity of seeing Detroit punk band Human Eye live. This song is ruthless, raw and unrelenting. “I Feel Mean” is unpredictable and messy in the way punk is messy, but with enough control to make it insanely catchy. Frontman Timmy Vulgar is an icon and is undoubtedly doing it right. I’m eager to let this song bounce against some desert rocks (as I think about smashing an ex boyfriend’s window…or something).
I was a ripe 18-19 when I was introduced to the Silent Years. I still lived with my parents but I latched onto seeing every Silent Years show I could. They were sincere and the songs had beautifully designed rising and falling, which suited my love of cathartic build ups and bands with lots of members. They were Detroit’s answer to Arcade Fire. This song was the first I heard of theirs and it still ignites something, which seems perfectly suited for my cold canyon nights ahead.
Okay. So I really love 800beloved. As a friend and fan, I couldn’t think of a better song to chain smoke in my rental car to as the desert landscape bursts through my windows while talking to myself as both passenger and driver. While adding this to my playlist I am reminded of my long history with this song and the album “Bouquet.” Seven years ago, I was still living at home and just had my heart broken. I was never one to do spontaneous things at that age and always favored the safe route. But then this album came along and challenged all of that. The song implies a listlessness and a burning desire to leave shit behind and that’s exactly what I’m doing.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Few bands are as aptly named as psychedelic Detroit four piece, Moonwalks, whose upcoming release Lunar Phases could act as a wild, yet tailored, road map to uninhabited galaxies and black holes, alike. The band’s first LP, scheduled to release via cassette tape and digital download later this month (MANIMAL Vinyl) is as warm as it is cooly intergalactic and is as 1960’s retro as it is refreshingly modern. Collectively, Jake Dean (guitars/vocals) Kate Gutwald (bass), Kerrigan Pearce (drums) and Tyler Grates (guitar) admit to being moved by the production of old Lee Hazlewood records, which makes sense, considering Lunar Phases has an undeniably sultry, Western-shootout vibe. (If the shootout was between aliens and cowboys, directed by a 90’s Tarantino respectfully.) “We’re becoming more collaborative as a four piece,” says Grates. “When making music, it’s important for me not to consider any influences I have at the time. Anything can sound like everything. However, it’s a little different in the recording process. We all have similar taste but different ideas, so we’re constantly coming up with different landscapes of sound.” More than Brian Jonestown Massacre-esque jam rock moments or sedated Jeffry Lee Pierce vocals, Moonwalks’ sound is the figurative dusting off of something once lost. Like water on Mars, Lunar Phases taps into what you thought you knew, but with an exploratory freshness best suited for lovers of reverb, distortion, and unexpectedly emotive cosmic collisions of past and present.
What is most surprising of their debut LP is the seamless cohesion not only between tracks, but in Moonwalks’ shared cadence, notably in their confidence in letting each instrument/effect have space to swell, breathe, and explode. This is glaringly apparent on vocal-less track “Cream Cheese Ashtray,” a demanding instrumental that gives the aural illusion of bending time; warped but never “off,” askew but never elementary nor hesitant. Delay heavy track, “Painted Lady” (one of two songs named after beloved Detroit bar/venues) is reminiscent of early Black Rebel Motorcycle Club minus the cliche hook/verse progression, artfully distorting your notion of what comes next; another example of Moonwalks’ ability to give new life to the already familiar.
Lunar Phases is, for the lack of a better word, mature. The album, a richly dynamic and attentive mosaic just under thirty minutes long, manages to achieve the robust fluidity that most bands don’t find until their second or third release (if at all). With extensive touring planned for the coming year and by the sounds of it, more studio time, too, Moonwalks exudes a completeness but with ample room to morph, grow, and reimagine. “I think were becoming tighter as a band,” Grates explains. “We’re getting more comfortable with playing shows and touring around the country. I think if the four of us weren’t in a band together, we’d still be hanging out all the time.”
While we await the release of Lunar Phases, satisfy your hunger by checking out Moonwalks’ 2014 EP:
I’m in denial and am disruptively nostalgic at 3am on a Tuesday. While I struggle to retire my sundresses to the back of the closet, this seasonal transition has me hungry for that time a few months ago when I had tan lines and bite marks and could keep my windows open without complaint. My time machine of choice is Jamaican Queens‘ 2013 release, Wormfood. I’ve always considered Jamaican Queens as the “cool” band from Detroit (and what makes them cooler is the fact that I think they would hate that I said that). Ryan Spencer, Adam Pressley, and Ryan Clancy are Jamaican Queens: the band you wish you were in.
Wormfood captures, though paradoxically, a recklessly hazy lethargy that is exclusive to summer. There is an element of irresponsibility lyrically and in the squeezed and strained arrangements, like taking someone else’s prescription pills or having indiscreet public sex that makes the listener squirm with reflection. Honest and almost self deprecating, Wormfood is pleasantly shameless in its ability to wrestle with love, intimacy, and confessionary party fouls. Reminiscent of MGMT or sometimes Animal Collective, Jamaican Queens take the popular, palatable fuzzy, synth pop/rock aesthetic and knocks it over in slow motion, leaving a sweetly apologetic yet selfish collection of messy songs/feelings in its wake. In the opening track “Water,” Spencer admits: “I don’t want to spend time with her friends/I don’t wanna do things for her/I don’t wanna go down on her/I don’t wanna tell you it’s the end/ain’t love a trap/aren’t you a mess/you wear it well.”
There is something achingly personal about Wormfood. It’s that conversation you don’t want to have (but have had). It’s driving drunk, wishing you were straight. There is a hidden sadness that speaks to the strange social pool that Detroit kids find themselves flailing in (and maybe it has nothing to do with geography). It’s like pretending you’re drowning to get attention, even though you can stand comfortably flat footed on the lake floor, head above water. Wormfood represents a bleeding dichotomy between wanting to change and knowing you can’t (or knowing you can but will wait a few years until you get your shit together). Wormfood is a party, start to finish. But not like a ‘90s teen movie house party, rather a party where that girl you sort of know sort of almost died, and where you give yourself a pep talk in a toothpaste splattered bathroom mirror convincing yourself out loud that you’re okay, as demonstrated by the chorus of the closing track “Caitlyn.” “I’m sorry about the earth around you caving in/I’m sorry about the earth around you caving in/I’m sorry.” This sincere phrasing comes after the line “I’ve begun to think of love as an impossibility/do you agree?” A perfectly apt pairing of sympathy and complacency, which is what makes this particular collection strangely suited for feeling pieced together carelessly with chewing gum and being unabashedly intoxicated on summer, or in my case, autumnal dreams of the latter.
Even without knowing the emotionally turbulent backstory behind Flint Eastwood’s latest EP Small Victories, the first single “Find What You’re Looking For” paints a cathartic landscape that evokes the sensation of conserving breath and energy before climbing a mountain. The song resonates as whispered, yet resilient, triumph. Jax Anderson is no stranger to small victories, nor large ones, respectively. A statement released with the single informs that the song is an interpretation of the last words spoken to Anderson by her mother before she passed: “Don’t let this break you.” As the listener or compassionate voyeur we may not know what the “this” is and we may not know what we’re looking for, but it is with this haunting ambiguity that makes the track accessible and effective in its ability to sound both confident and cautious. In the wake of such loss, Anderson sounds as if she’s begging the sky, crooning, “I don’t want to lose you/this moment next to you/you tell me what to do.” What is most strangely refreshing about “Find What You’re Looking For” is that it shines as a great contrast to the gritty, danceable electro-indie-rock vibe of Eastwood’s 2013 release, Late Nights in Bolo Ties. If this track is any indication to the journey ahead both for Anderson and the audience, Small Victories (to release on October 9th, 2015)will likely encourage the defiant act of letting the light into the dark places.
The first half of my conversation with Natasha Beste of moody electro-pop duo Odd Hours is instantly dedicated to playing six degrees of separation between the two of us until we are able to piece our social puzzle together, realizing that we run in the same circles and are friends with the same people and both conclude that Detroit is a lot like high school.
“In Detroit, it’s really easy to make things happen if you are really motivated and dedicated. If you are snotty or mean or not serious about what you’re doing, it will get around fast,” Beste says. “I’m lucky to have met and become friends with people that make doing this fun, it never feels like work.”
This non-work-work Beste is referring to is Odd Hours latest EP noreprinphrine + dopamine, an assertive and pouty collection of songs that are as glittery as they are confrontational. Beste’s attention to duality, both in her personal life and in her Odd Hours world (she is also a teacher and video artist) resonates as a playful game of tug-of-war sonically. Beste describes the toggling of themes as a “constant up and down.” From asking for what you want and ending up bored by the instant gratification to feeling left out or misunderstood yet worthy enough to exert power, Odd Hours challenges themselves by provoking a polarizing experience. As it turns out, this very balancing act of various selves and influences resulted in what Beste considers to be the truest version of what they’ve been trying to accomplish since they formed. “I think with artists there are things that come out of you naturally. And for me things were coming out of me that weren’t matching what I was listening to, or what we were making,” Beste explains. “We’ve been morphing and changing our sound and we finally feel comfortable in our skin. We want to keep going with how we sound now.”
Odd Hours have been making noise around the city for five years. Beste and her collaborator and Hours guitarist, Timothy Jagielo, assembled after exhausting previous projects, wanting to expand beyond their old work and Detroit city limits. “I was in a lot of different bands before I met Tim but after a while I really wanted to do something that would allow me to be loud and raunchy,” Beste says “We were both in a place where we wanted to start something new.” With additions bassist, Clint Stuart, and drummer Randy Hanley Jr, each track on noreprinphrine + dopamine is a banger in its own right, successfullyandcollectivelyfulfilling Beste’s aforementioned desires of sounding loud and raunchy while remaining a compelling and polished production. When asked about the possibility of a full length release, Beste is uncertain, but unwavering in her convictions towards quality vs. quantity. “It’s the way that my brain works. My whole life of music I’ve really stuck with EPs. I’m not saying we would never release an LP. Everything that needed to be said was said within these songs.” she explains. “It could be the next thing we do, but it has to feel right.”
The accompanying video for their first single “SWTS” is a true testament to Odd Hours theatrics; a great introduction to their provocative landscape, their lust filled, odd world. Full of if-David Lynch-cast-Lindsey Lohan-in-a-music-video vibes (Beste laughs excitedly at this comparison) aligns with the estranged bossiness of the song where Beste howls: “I thought someone told me / Like Christmas / I would get to make a wish list,” a vulnerable plea paralleled with warbled rock vocals, a sensibility carried throughout the EP.
By the end of our chat we realize we share a friend in noreprinphrine + dopamine producer Jon Zott and that we were both on set for Tunde Olaniran’s video earlier this year and it is with this strange connectivity that we are able to commiserate over the special brand of small world-ness Detroit offers. I finish by apologizing for referring to her music as bratty, though meant as a compliment as it’s a trait I regard as honest and unapologetic, to which she assures me is a perfectly apt description. “It’s funny because my boyfriend Kevin (and partner in Gold House Media) as well as my guitarist Tim and Tunde all call me a brat because I get what I want. But I have a vision,” Beste explains. “I am always three steps ahead.”
Detroit is a perplexing musical playground. From the greats of Motown all the way down to (like, rock bottom level down) king of the trailer park Kid Rock and his pasty, ornery 8 Mile loving opposition, Eminem to minimalistic power duo, The White Stripes and that guy selling a surprisingly fire rap demo in the gas station parking lot, the fabric of Detroit’s musical reputation is eclectic and strange; a fitting categorization. But what often gets overlooked is Detroit’s unbreakable continuing history of women in music. While compiling this list of friends, virtual unknowns, and local legends, I found I was overcoming my own poorly formed belief that Detroit was deficient in powerful female influence. Detroit is ferociously defined by the voice, talent, and unwavering sense of “Yeah, I got this” best demonstrated by these babes. The collection of women below share in their uncompromisingly daring expressions of self which in turn is a reflection of Detroit’s maverick spirit.
Jax Anderson, lead queen, is a powerhouse. Unsigned rockers, Flint Eastwood are on to something. Slinking rock-revivalist vibes tinged with Sleater-Kinney moments and vocal ferociousness that could give Alison Mosshart a run for her money, Flint Eastwood makes The Black Keys sound like watered down elementary school karaoke.
Married electro punk duo ADULT. fronted by Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller, is Detroit’s answer to Devo, Romeo Void, and Wall of Voodoo without ever feeling like an imitation. First assembled in 1998, ADULT. is an obscure and active staple and in many ways a pioneer in the formation of Detroit’s current synth punk scene.
Formed in 1997 by Amy Gore, The Gore Gore Girls are one of the cities most influential psych-punk bands. Fittingly named after a 70’s splatter flick, The Gore Gore Girls have toured as support to The Cramps and have played festivals with The Stooges, The Strokes, and The Zombies. Over the course of ten years and three albums, they’ve managed to maintain their psychedelic, raised-from-the-dead sound that continue to set the stage for some of the other ladies on this list.
4. SUZI QUATRO “IF YOU CAN’T GIVE ME LOVE”
https://youtu.be/L0uWVw4aBxY
Detroit’s under credited queen of rock is as much of an influence today as she was when she hit the scene back in 1972. Although not the first of her kind, Quatro paved the way for girls who could hang with the boys by crafting a subdued androgynous persona on stage and a roaring rock sound behind the mic. Considered one of the first female bassists to break through in the boys game of rock n’ roll, Quatro remains one of Detroit’s baddest women of rock.
Singer Rachelle Baker and producer Nick Marrow make up Little Animal, a dreamy duo responsible for the sexiest music in town. Smoothly assembled, celestial textured electronic beats that could be easily be the love child of Erykah Badu and Bjork.
Ruth Synowiec fronts Mexican Knives, a buzzy, lo-fi blues rock band with biting bass lines and pulsing surf punk undertones. Alongside guitarist Zach Weedon and drummer Blair Wills, Synowiec vocals are a perfect counterpart to their Brian Jonestown Massacre tendencies. She may have told The Detroit Metro Times last year that she “has no idea what she’s doing” although endearing, it’s clear that she’s wrong.
Asia Mock, Sarah Stawski, and T.J Grech are Pretty Ghouls, an angsty, raw nerve punk trio that is undoubtedly one of the hardest, fuzziest newcomers to come out of Detroit in recent years. Unapologetic, Pretty Ghouls channel Detroit god Iggy Pop through their own “fuck you” filter, which makes sense considering Mock told Detroit’s Metro Times in 2012 that she wants to be the first, black female Iggy Pop. “I just want to scream in people’s faces and maybe get to rub my vagina on something in public.”
Jessica Hernandez is a Detroit darling to the max. One of our cities most beloved female acts, Hernandez (and The Deltas, respectively) have birthed their own breed of soul/pop that is as sugary as it sexy. Colorfully confident arrangements paired with Hernandez’s signature saccharine vulnerability makes for some of Detroit’s grooviest pop.
9. CHEERLEADER “QUENCHED”
Flint-based Cheerleader, comprised of Nisa, Polly, and Ashley, is a muddy, gritty Nirvana-demo sounding trio who unabashedly thrash lyrics like “Little boys with big dicks/we need a cure for it” over messily effective compositions. Although Cheerleader doesn’t have a large collection of songs, they are a defiant presence in the Michigan underground.
10. EL DEE “HEAVEN HELP ME”
Lauren Deming, or El Dee, leads a group of friends/musicians into a jazzy throwback dreamscape all her own. Rich and pure, Deming’s vocals are breathy, yet challenging. Without a rigid commitment to an era niche, El Dee manages to fuse Gershwin-esque standards with contemporary arrangement not unlike Amy Winehouse or Jon Brion, with avoiding sounding like a “fusion” artist.
