Tag: Detroit

PLAYING DETROIT: 800beloved

Introducing a new column that takes us inside the Detroit music scene – AF

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800beloved
Cover photo for Some Kind of Distortion courtesy of Christina Anderson

A lot can happen in five years. Sean Lynch of Milford-based dream pop, post-punk trio, 800beloved, agrees with me. Five years ago I met Lynch, per my request as both a fan and as a writer, to chat about Everything Purple, the band’s dreamy follow-up to 2009’s Jesus and Mary Chain-esque debut Bouquet just before dissolving their relationship with their label, which lead to a three year hiatus. At the time, Lynch was still posing as a funeral director with a focus on restorative cosmetology, a profession that occupied over a decade of his life, and one that infiltrated 800beloved’s subject matter and undoubtedly crafted their signature staticky-concrete-macabre aesthetic.

Fast forward to today. I find myself at Bronx Bar in Detroit sitting across from Lynch, considered now to be one of my best friends and most faithful musical allies, to discuss a different type of undertaking, the release of 800beloved’s long awaited third record, Some Kind of Distortion. “We Beyonce’d that shit,” Lynch says in reference to the unannounced, overnight drop of the album on August 3rd. “I guess this is us going back to true left of the dial punk rock D.I.Y. We didn’t promote this record even though it was finished a year ago. It just felt like the season perfectly lined up and there was a storm that night.” This speaks true to Lynch’s creative sensibility, to trust intuition as means of honing in on emotive moments rather than popular opportunity, which explains 800’s quiet notoriety. “800beloved has become very niche-y, which is good,” Lynch explains. “We are truly comfortable narrowing the scope and not being a solicitation or a buzz band.”

For a three piece (currently composed of Anastasiya Metesheva on bass, Ben Collins on drums, and Lynch on vocals, guitar and production, respectively) 800beloved’s sound achieves a shimmering fullness that is as methodical as it is nostalgic. Some Kind of Distortion abandons traditional verse, chorus, verse, and is almost entirely devoid of hooks, a distortion in its own right. Distortion is a record with a pulse of throbbing warped sounds, and although difficult to identify, it still manages convulse with familiarity – from the warbled, zombie surf rock tones in “Die Slow,” to the droning, buzzy vocals on “Cicadas” that lends itself to sounding like an aural illusion to the soft and swelling opening instrumental track “0930131103.” “This is our attempt at psychedelic dream pop. We are playing back to our roots while exploring things we’ve never introduced to our audience through our particular filter,” says Lynch. “It’s a record that is sort of introverted and juvenile. It’s almost concept-less, in a way.”

I tell Lynch that the latest record is much less “death-y” than his previous, a statement he agrees with. “Enduring Black” (appropriately inspired by a CoverGirl cosmetic name found in the embalming room at his last funeral gig) is the shortest song on the album, clocking in just under three minutes. Even so, Lynch manages to write what feels like an obituary to his direct involvement with death work by means of his simplistic and clever lyrical prowess: ‘When I lose this black suit/I hope I forget/ what this all looks like in the end/I’d rather get distracted/by the liner ’round your eyes/Enduring Black/after all this time.’ “The song is sort of my sign off as a funeral director, an admission that I wanted more. It was my attempt to part with it, intellectually,” Lynch says. The album’s title track opens with a haunted crooning, “Time why are you so cruel/when I had all these ideas for you” and paints the glimmering sense of teenage suburbia while the song plays out like an invitation to a dystopian after party. “It’s addressing modern day distractions, but the jam seems like it’s out of a John Hughes film,” Lynch details. He is reminded, excitedly, of his inspiration behind tracking the song in post. “When you and our friends threw my birthday party at the roller rink, I just kept thinking of the stoner-y Dazed and Confused vibe of rollerskating. End of summer, stale burnt grass. That’s what I’ve tried to capture with this record.”

800beloved (which, if you haven’t figured it out by now is in fact a phone number) are not strangers to strong visual imageries that require, for those curious enough, further explanation though never deviating from disarming the audience. “The cover art is a lift from our friend’s Instagram. When I saw the photo I immediately sensed the vibe of the album which leaves this stained cafeteria feeling.” Lynch is wistful when he says this, and it is with this very passion in which he describes the synchronistic way in which the photo encapsulates the album and the band’s willingness to artfully displace themselves by releasing Distortion completely independently, that I am reminded of his affinity for detail both visually and sonically (and the palpable electricity he exudes when the two are perfectly wed). “When you work with a label and they tell you one thing and it doesn’t happen, it feels like a hula dance. A hula hoop doesn’t belong in a tree. I love the connotation of displacement of an object.”

So, yes. We were right. A lot can change in five years. Although 800beloved has remained uncompromising in vision, they continue to evolve. They’re still the band you have to seek to find or will possibly trip over. We conclude our interview (during which I’m not sure I ever even posed a question, a stark contrast to my pages of meticulous, shaky fangirl notes from five years ago) and venture out for a late night dinner where we take turns laughing, commiserating, and stealing french fries and onion rings off of each other’s respective plates. We eventually part ways at the gig van, aptly named “the space station” where Sean lends me an Alesis processor and the road worn, black electric Epiphone used on Bouquet, their first album and my summer soundtrack for heartbreak the year of its release. It’s a poetic transfer between friends; words for words, music for music, fried food for fried food. It isn’t until after I’m nestled into my apartment later that night with these symbolic musical tools far too advanced for my two- month- old fascination that Sean texts me, “I can’t wait to hear your distortions.” A perfectly apropos end to the night. I put my phone down and make some ugly, screechy guitar sounds and am suddenly warmed and buzzed by my own contortions as I dreamt of roller skates, longing for a summer that may or may not have happened yet.

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ARTIST INTERVIEW: Santiparro

Santiparro

“Spirit might give you a grand vision – like a spiritual carrot for you to chase,” says Santiparro. “It leads you onto a straighter path, to the people who will pass on good and useful teachings for your life.” Santiparro means “the lens that sees many things not usually seen.” Alan Scheurman earned the name during a 2010 pilgrimage with a Wixatari (Huichol) family to Wirikuta, the sacred desert where Peyote originates. Originally from Detroit, his  debut album True Prayer is the result of such useful teachings he has sought from elders such as Maestro Manuel Fufino, his teacher at Brooklyn’s Golden Drum. The album featured collaborations with guests such as Will Oldham (Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy), Kyp Malone (TV On The Radio), Adam Wills (Bear In Heaven), Melati Malay (Young Magic) and Ben Bromley (NewVillager).

We spoke to Santiparro about his debut album, cosmic meetings, and and ayahuasca ikaros.

AudioFemme: The debut album features collaborations from a lot of great artists – how did they come about?

Santiparro: Well, they’re all friends of mine. I recorded the second half of the record in the house where Young Magic lives and records. Adam Wills and I have been attending spiritual ceremonies together for years. There’s already been a history of collaboration with Kyp and I.  I didn’t know Will that long before we worked together. I first met him in a dream while finishing up a plant diet in Peru.  Two days later I went to his show in NYC and gave him some Palo Santo. It was a really brief but deeply cosmic meeting. He asked me if I was releasing any new music, as a mutual friend had already turned him onto my previous band Ka. I said that I was considering it, and he looked me in the eye and said something like, ‘You should be recording music, and releasing it prolifically.” So, needless to say, it lit a fire under me.

AF: The album invokes a lot of personal spiritual questions – will you brief me on your spiritual awakening?

S: Well, we awaken a little bit sometimes from the amnesia of life. Spirit might give you a grand vision – like a spiritual carrot for you to chase. It leads you onto a straighter path, to the people who will pass on good and useful teachings for your life. This happens to everyone eventually, in this life or in another. So it’s nothing new. I’m just another seeker following my path, fortunate enough to have the wisdom of elders guiding the way.

AF: How did you get turned on to music? Who are your biggest influences?

S: My dad played guitar and sang while I was in the womb. That’s the same guitar I play today. Artists that really made an impact on me in my youth were Paul Simon, James Brown, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin. All those guys have high voices, like mine. The past few years I’ve listened to a lot of drone music, African guitar music, native chants, and ayahuasca ikaros.

AF: A lot of effort went into producing this album, how does it feel now that it is finally being released?

S: It feels like i’m crossing a threshold but I know it’s only the beginning.

AF: Fun fact – I live a few blocks away from the Golden Drum and have attended many events there. How did you become involved in that community?

S: Brooke Gillespie, Matt Canale, and I once rolled a ceremonial tobacco and prayed with it together.  The intention was to build exactly what Golden Drum has become. We went to Maestro Manuel Rufino with the vision which he also shared. He helped make it a reality as other students of his came to help with every single thing that was needed.

AF: What do you like best about community living?

S: I no longer live in community in the way that I did at Golden Drum for five years. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. The purpose of living that way is to learn about your self, to heal, and to overcome your negative projections. A community is a hall of mirrors – a place to train yourself to handle life’s obstacles.

AF: Tell me about how Maestro Manuel Fufino impacted your life (and as a result, this album).

S: He saw in me from the beginning what I was meant to do and he challenged me through a process of initiation. He still challenges me, and will for the rest of my life. He’s a trickster and is very wise. His prayers and blessings have led me to many very profound meetings and realizations. Many of the lyrics are reflections of the teachings imparted through his vessel.

AF: You’re about to embark on a tour; does tour life suit you?

S: I have always been a man of the road.

AF: Do you ever get back to Detroit or feel any connections still to the city? Where do you consider to be “home?”

S: I go to Detroit about once a month to pass on the teachings that have been imparted to me by the elders.  There’s a spiritual study group I work with there. They’re growing a lot. It’s very rewarding. I live in the catskills now. I love it there. But we are putting our things into storage for this tour, as we go to Peru right after.  At the moment my home is the open road.  My wife and I are using this tour to help gage where we’d like to really plant roots.

AF: And I’m curious, what is your favorite meal of all time?
 
S: I really love a basic vegan macrobiotic plate.

Listen to his new single “Total Freedom” below.

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TRACK REVIEW: Turn To Crime “Prince of Slackers”

turntocrime

We’ve learned from Can’t Love that the Detroit-based triad, Turn To Crime, can make even muffled white noise into a rhythmic invention. They’re back with a new single from their upcoming album, Actions (out on April 28). “Prince of Slackers” embodies that similar darker electro-kooky, unconventional sound we love getting a high from. It is nothing short of their staple gravely vocals, Derek Stanton, Ian Saylor and Dorian Foerg put together the album under their frontman’s Mugg & Bopp Records. With the guys having released their debut less than a year ago, it’s clear they aren’t slowing down anytime soon. Check out the new single below.

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TRACK OF THE WEEK: Protomartyr “Scum, Rise!”

Hooray for being angry as fuck! Hooray for growling, depressive post punk! Hooray for creating a dystopian musical landscape that mirrors your hometown! “Scum, Rise!” doesn’t just get at a superbly timed sense of anxiety–with all that compulsively fast strumming and all those bleak lyrics–it also manages to be utterly, shimmeringly beautiful, even in the throes of its own desolation.

With their second studio album Under Color of Official Right, out this coming April, Protomartyr settle deeper into the near-nihilistic, aggressive approach that they established on their debut. This time around, they throw their full weight into an exploration of their hometown, Detroit. Under Color is not an album about Detroit, per se, so much as it creates the full panorama of an aesthetic landscape, complete with a swelling sense of inner turmoil balanced by external sensations: an acute sense of winter, discomfort, and urban decay. Protomartyr is practically bursting with disappointment and anger, along with a bristling intelligence that sets itself up for self-imposed isolation.

Even the group’s name screams portent: casting their lot in as original martyrs can’t be an entirely serious move on the band’s part, but does give them an austere, evocative ring even before you’ve heard the music. I’m reminded of Savages, who released their stellar debut Silence Yourself last year. But Savages’ anger–warped, noisy, and throttling–was nearly always alienating on Silence Yourself—not only was the music so atonal and distorted that it sometimes seemed deliberately repellant, but the lyrics assumed some sort of high priesthood clarity over everyone, especially other musicians, regarding life, or philosophy, or morality, or whatever. The fury and intellectual ostentatiousness is at least half tongue in cheek. I mean, calling your album—of music—Silence Yourself? Hilarious.

Protomartyr, too, spits in your face and tells you to fuck off. But there’s something less enclosed about the riffs, which, even at their darkest, have at least a trace of catchiness. Singer Joe Casey’s vocal lines aren’t distorted enough to seem far away, and remain endearing even at their most gravelly, when he’s flatly repeating the phrase “nothing you can do” towards the end of this track. Maybe it’s the reassurance of being able to hold the backdrop of Detroit in your head as you’re listening to the music: Protomartyr often gets bleak, but never becomes so interior that you get lost as you’re listening.

Listen to “Scum, Rise!” below:

EP REVIEW: Headcage by Matthew Dear (Ghostly)

I remember the first time I heard the Matt Dear track “Tide”. I was driving aroundDetroit with my sister. It was the dead heat of summer. We were trying to find the Masonic Temple to attendwhat was rumored to be an amazing dance party thrown by a little known recordlabel out of Ann Arbor that was, and still is, near and dear to us both.

As we circled ’round and ’round the Cass Corridortrying to find parking and hoping not to miss anyone’s set, she (this sister of whom I speak) put “Tide” on,and asked me if I had heard it yet. At the time, Matt Dear—one of said label’s co-creatorsand first signatories—was still just some enigmatic DJ who composed exclusivelytechno; so I was surprised to suddenly hear his deep, now distinctive singing voice emerge from the noise. Andalthough I didn’t think too much of it (the singing thing, that is) I secretly hoped it wasn’t some weirdgimmick, because I could imagine him parlaying this particular genre-hybrid he had created, into something quite extraordinary. It was 2004then. In 2011 Black City came out andblew everyone’s mind, and to me, was the culmination of something seminal aboutthat particular summer.
During the three or so times last year that I saw him and hisband (handsome and dramatically impeccablein their three piece suits) perform Black City—with trumpet player and all—I felt that same little kernel of anxiety that I rememberfrom the summer of 2004: that this amazing music might go away, like avanishing mythological creature. I felt like I shouldn’t get too attached, for fear that it may turn out to be just another fleeting iteration of one of his manyaliases.

**Listen to “Tide” Here, because apparently I’m not sophisticated enough to copy and paste code from Soundcloud.**

Anyway, you can imagine my sigh of relief upon learning that the band version of Matt Dear,Matthew Dear, would be putting out an EP in the New Year. And Headcage is pretty awesome indeed. In fourtracks it both assuages the fear I spoke of, that he’ll cease to make the songs that I love the most–those that simultaneously propel the listener into new frontiers of artsy electronic, and take him or her back to some unnameable era of dance music–and suggests to me what the next phase of his polymathic (no, I don’t really know if that’s a real adjective) career might entail .
The first track, “Headcage” is an immediate nod to the highlights of Black City (namely “Shortwave” and “You Put A Smell On Me”, I think). It combines entrancing beats and heavy, nostalgia-inspiring synthetic melodies with insightful lyrics that juxtapose Matt’s laconic persona. “Around The Fountain” and “Street Song”, are a bit slower and more psychedelic, but pack a punch for their marked lack of traditional “techno” indicators. For example, “Street Song”, is underpinned by what can best be described as a barely perceptible, irregular sounding heartbeat.

“In The Middle (I Met You There)”, is the wild card of this EP. It starts off sounding like a hip hop jam, with a line from the chorus looping over a funky beat. The melody slowly emerges from a distant synth without the listener even knowing it. Then, Johnny Pierce (from the Drums) starts to croon what has become an addictive opening verse, building up to the refrain, during which all the background music stops. Then the chorus hits, with Matt Dear’s baritone voice entering dramatically, singing along with Pierce, only an octave lower. It’s at this point we find out that “In The Middle” is actually a love song (“The waves will keep on crashing in/sometimes we lose sometimes we win/you saved me from myself again/baby I don’t know how this will end”). This lyric repeats for a minute or so before the whole thing descends into instrumental chaos. It’s both familiar and surprising, and it’s the moment of Headcage that hooks me, in typical Matt Dear fashion, leaving me yearning for more. Good thing the full length album will be out next year.

At a Matt Dear show, right before we lit a fire in a bad location