Holocene welcomes the Norwegian singer-songwriter and M83 collaborator Susanne Sundfør on Tuesday November 14th.
“So, it’s definite, then”
These are the words that open Susanne Sundfør’s extraordinary new album, ‘Ten Love Songs’. Casual but incredibly bleak, the inquiry sets the scene for a record that looks unblinkingly at the contradictions, hopes and fears, and the capacity both for rapture and betrayal that the human heart encompasses. Musically, the ambiguously titled album pulls Susanne closer to pop terrain than she has been before. Yet it also sings with the artistic freedom that has always characterised her work. Barring three tracks – ‘Accelerate’, on which she worked with Jonathan Bates, aka Big Black Delta; ‘Memorial’, with Anthony Gonzalez of M83; and ‘Silencer’, which saw her reunited with her long-time collaborator Lars Horntveth –the album was self-produced. “I wanted to feel a sense of independence in what I was doing,” Susanne says, “and I had very strong opinions about how it should sound. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since my early twenties, and I think I felt ready to prove to myself that I could actually do it. I’ve always had this insecurity about being completely independent in what I do – and maybe generally in life, too. But I’ve also felt this very strong desire to be free. So I think I needed some confirmation that I could do it. On some level, it is a very personal album; and given the themes, I wanted to do it exactly my own way.”
The album’s centrepiece is the 10-minute ‘Memorial’. A giant song whose first section gives way to a heartbreakingly beautiful and forlorn fantasia for chamber orchestra and piano that, though wordless, expresses longing, dejection and pain as powerfully as any words could, ‘Memorial’epitomises the ambition of the album as a whole. And its central refrain –“You took off my dress and you never put it on again” – captures the vulnerability, self-knowledge and candour at the heart of Susanne’s songwriting. “People try to describe their emotions with numbers today, and in terms of science, which I feel is like the religion of today. It is very taboo to be a vulnerable person. It’s almost like the biggest weakness today is to be a human being, because everything around us is about perfection, as if we’re trying to be like robots. It’s sort of what Radiohead were portraying on ‘Ok Computer’, and now it’s actually happening. If I listen to music or read books where people are saying, ‘I’m very human, I feel a lot of things, bad things, good things,’ that’s what touches me.” I definitely didn’t intend the song to be that long, but when I was working on it, I knew it needed to continue, that it didn’t make sense for it to end sooner. I worked on the first part with Anthony, and he transformed it into a massive 80s ballad. He’s a genius, I think.”
Manatee Commune, a.k.a. Grant Eadie, began in the misty trees Bellingham, Washington. Combining textures of the rainy woods and the windy seas of the Pacific Northwest with the calming mood of clean surfy guitar licks and rolling arpeggiated sine waves, Manatee Commune seeks to capture the atmosphere of taking a thoughtful, self-reflecting stroll through the forest. Bright, down tempo percussion placed neatly under pleasant, classically influenced viola melodies make his music both easily listenable and complex.
More information and tickets available at Holocene.org
SON LITTLE
For Son Little, the genesis of a musical idea -- the magic -- remains largely a mystery. But his kinetic ability to summon that energy all the same, to command it, hold onto it, and set it in motion, is the stuff of alchemy.
"The magic is this well I can draw from; you can't necessarily see it, you just have to believe that it's there," he says. "If you believe, then you can reach your hand down in there and get it wet. But if you don't feel like it's there, it won't be."
Son Little, the singer and songwriter born Aaron Livingston, is the easygoing musical alchemist of our time. He is a conjurer, and much like those of his heroes Stevie Wonder and Jimi Hendrix, his songs are deconstructions of the diaspora of American R & B. Deftly he weaves different eras of the sound -- blues, soul, gospel, rock and roll -- through his own unique vision, never forced, always smooth, each note a tributary on the flowing river of rhythm and blues. The currents empty into an estuary, and into this well water Son dips his bucket -- trusting innately in the magic's existence. And now, with his second full-length album, New Magic, he has delivered a profound statement, a cohesive creation that captures the diverse spirit of American music in a fresh and modern way.
On the heels of his 2015 self-titled debut and the 5-song EP, Songs I Forgot, that came before it, Son Little found his reach steadily growing. His song "Lay Down" had been played over seven million times on Spotify, he had toured the world with artists as diverse as Leon Bridges, Kelis, Mumford & Sons, and Shakey Graves in addition to his own headlining runs, and also became a Grammy Award winning producer, earning a 2016 Best Roots Performance award for his work on Mavis Staples's "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean." But in the midst of all this success, so too did he find that the window for writing new songs was shrinking. Where his previous releases had been culled from various eras and scattered sessions early in his career, he now craved an opportunity to sit and write a new album in a distinct, unified direction, one that would establish his place in the world of black music. The only problems were: when, and how?
"I was on the road so much and found myself wanting to write, but I couldn't really find time or space to do it in the way I wanted," Son Little says. "I was playing around with beats or messing with chord changes; I had all these little fragments, thinking I would later piece them together. I kept the wheels turning by doing those exercises, but I knew it would feel really luxurious to be able to sit down by myself and write something from scratch. I was really hungry to get in that space and chisel out something new, without being interrupted by sound checks and rides in vans and radio. All that stuff is cool and I was having a blast touring, but a crucial part for me was missing. I wanted the writing to be broken up as little as possible."
In the meantime, all that motion was filling him with both confidence and inspiration for the next step. The limitations he encountered while performing a debut record with so much studio sorcery via a live band onstage each night were influential in terms of how he began thinking about a followup. "I've often been a guy who was somewhat hiding behind the guitar," he says. "Getting used to being out front and exposing the guitar and my voice, and leaving a lot of space in the material, all really inspired me and got the wheels turning for what I would do with the next group of songs."
Sometimes, in order to see the stars, you have to get far away from the city lights. Finally, in the fall of last year, Son Little found himself in such a place, and it was there at the end of a tour in the remote, tropical Northern Territory of Australia that he looked up in the sky and saw the perfect alignment. Benefitting from several hours free on a string of consecutive days as well as the excitement of alien terrain and the inherent magic in a borrowed instrument, he felt things starting to come together.
"The Northern Territory is a place where things are moving a little slower than anywhere else," he says. "There were these big crocodiles and enormous bats, just wild things I'd never seen. I found myself with a few hours to kill a couple days in a row, and I set up in the hotel and just kinda followed the process: I found a rhythmic idea I liked and then sang and played a little guitar over it. Like a tip jar in a cafe that fills up after the first dollar goes in, you need that first little piece to slide into place and then the whole thing comes together. I ran off five songs all in the same day." (Three of those songs, "Kimberly's Mine," Charging Bull," and "Mad About You," would make the album.)
That process to which he refers stems from an experience he encountered while writing a cornerstone of his early material, the soul-scorching, chanty-like "Your Love Will Blow Me Away When My Heart Aches," one of few moments of inspiration he can still visualize. The song came to him while standing in his bedroom; beginning with a couple of words and a tempo, Son Little started to pound his fist on the dresser and made up the song's melody on the spot. "I was banging on the dresser, and then I don't know what happened. There was no melody, no words...and now there is. I know now that if I get part of the melody, a phrase or two, and a tempo, then the rest will follow. So I wanted to follow that pattern for the new songs and let the idea grow from that without worrying about what the production would sound like or which guitar to use. I was more focused on finding the song and the arrangement."
But, as it happened, the guitar seemed to find him, too. "All those songs in Australia were written with one mic and an acoustic left-handed guitar I was playing upside-down," he says. "It was borrowed from the Australian singer Gurrumul, a blind Aboriginal musician with this angelic voice. I needed a guitar and he was nice enough to loan it to me; I took it upstairs and all those songs came out of it. You hear people say guitars have songs in them, and that one certainly did.
Whether or not Son Little was aware at the time of the overt connection to his pair of R & B heroes -- Stevie and Jimi -- that lending presented is unclear. Let's, again, chalk it up to the magic.
"Those two dudes are a little bit alone there; I can't see how there can be a higher level of musical genius after Stevie and Jimi," he says. "I do think of both of them as R & B guys, but neither was trying to contain themselves there in any way. They were letting themselves be influenced by other stuff, be it jazz or Latin music or whatever, but they were just making songs and musically doing what felt good. That's what I wanted to do here. I do see myself that way, in the branches of the R & B river."
(A quick but magical aside: In the winter of 2015, Son found himself invited to a reading a friend was giving at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, the legendary underground recording facility conceived and once owned by Jimi Hendrix himself. After the event he was invited to spin his debut album on the studio's speakers, and while it played an employee asked him if he would like to "see the river" -- a trickling branch of the seldom seen Minetta Creek that runs under parts of Manhattan. "I put my record on -- which was a trip, like I was playing it for Jimi -- and we went back in the corner behind where the amps are set up, and they pulled this panel up, and sure enough, there's running water right under the floor. You can stick your hand in there and get it wet.")
Flowing water is a recurring theme in Son Little's music, in addition to its symbolic inspiration. From his debut's hit "The River" to a lyric in "Mad About You" ("Now you say it's different, baby/ After I took you to the river"), his work tends to be thematically waterlogged. "My well is fed by the different tributaries, the other water sources that pour into it," he says. "When you dip your bucket into it, you're gonna get all kinds of different water. Water behaves that way underground, too; you can dig if you know where it's at, and there are people, like the Aboriginal water diviner, who can find the water. My music has a kind of magic in it, being connected to whatever those forces are."
Having been handed the divining rod in Australia, Son Little was able to connect the dots and finish New Magic by early spring. The trio written Down Under form the heart of the album's vibe, with "Kimberly's Mine" leading the record off with its Old Blues soap-operatic feel, and "Charging Bull"'s funky, fevered groove and the D'Angelo-inspired R & B minimalism of "Mad About You" -- a lovelorn, aching track Son Little claims found itself only when he stripped it down to its barest essentials -- holding anchor in the middle. But the song that serves as the album's true centerpiece is "Blue Magic," a Philly Soul inspired number deconstructed almost like a rap song or the best of production savants like J Dilla, Madlib, and Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, complete with chiming glockenspiel bells and old school female backing vocals. With its origins predating the Australia trip, the song has the appeal of an instant classic, a feeling that did not escape its maker, either.
"I knew 'Blue Magic' would be my focal point from the second I made it up," Son Little says. "I was just goofing around before a show -- and I wish I could explain where something like this comes from but I have absolutely no idea -- and I was freestyling with the guitar. The thought occurred to me that people were characterizing my music as this new blues thing, even though I was never exactly trying to heroically 'save the blues' or anything like that, or even put myself in a place where everything had to be bluesy. But suddenly I'm telling you in the song I've got the 'blue magic,' and even though there are things called 'blue magic' I hadn't seen that phrase anywhere or heard anyone say it. But I said it, and then there's a pressure to back it up, to support that claim. I think I'm addicted to that pressure; this thing is hanging in the balance, and the whole thing can go up in smoke if I don't figure this out and put these pieces together in motion. I enjoy the feeling of not knowing what's gonna happen from there; it doesn't always end perfectly but I think you have to resolve that pressure, and not knowing how is really exciting to me. That feeling is somewhat hanging over this whole album: watch me make something out of thin air."
Following that lead are the pair of "Bread and Butter," a playful, modern take on James Brown, and "The Middle," a classic drinking-blues, both deconstructed through a filter of musical Cubism. "ASAP" is Son Little's fiery, direct take on a Hendrix rock and roll song, and "Letter Bound" reminds of a yearning, crooning Bobby Womack joint, with the "little cry" in Son Little's voice, as Mavis Staples calls it, taking the spotlight. The album ends with the ethereal, gospel-tinged number "Demon to the Dark," which serves as the singer's conversation with Washington Phillips, a little known blind musician and church deacon from early in the 20th century whose song "What Are They Doing in Heaven Today" utilized the dulceola, a novelty instrument comprised of two autoharps essentially stuck together. Phillips was a man of strong faith, a deacon in his church, and in his music Son Little found a source of forgiveness as well as an inspiration to carry on. As chiming strains of Omnichord take us out, the electricity in the air is palpable, the belief and trust in the spark at its peak.
What is the new magic? How did that deep well get there in the first place, and what is the source water of all these confluents pouring in? To Son Little, there is an attitude running through his makings and his music, a mighty river of superstition and Spanish castles that runneth over. And despite its murky and mysterious origins, the musician's divination ability is just that -- divine.
"There is this vein of the blues in it, and it can be distilled or boiled down just to the guitar and voice -- or even just the voice," he says. "And that process of me in my bedroom, making 'Your Love' with the dresser as the drum -- I did that same thing as I wrote these songs. It's that same scenario of making something out of nothing. And even if I am capable of doing that, I can't really explain it. That's the gist of the magic. I don't know where it comes from, but it's there, and I can call on it. I can call on it standing by the dresser, walking down the street, driving a car, on a train, a plane, in a hotel room, in the green room, during an interview...it's just there. I'm trying to pay tribute to that fact. It's had a really powerful and in some ways increasingly healing effect on my life. Hopefully other people have that experience with it as well. I'm just happy that it's there, wherever it comes from."
JADE BIRD
Working on her debut EP at the moment, Jade and her band (all at the young age of 18) are proving to be well beyond their years. With venues such as the National Portrait Gallery, The Museum Of London and St Pancras Church under her belt and gigs lined up around the country, we know it won't be long before Jade Bird is a household name.
XRAY.FM, Literary Arts, and the producers of Back Fence PDX present: LOFI @ WORDSTOCK! A variety show packed with Wordstock authors + Portland favorite performers in a highly entertaining variety show that features comedy, music, stories, poetry, video, raucous readings and weird stuff.
Featuring guest stars: Musician LAURA GIBSON (Empire Builder), DANIEL HANDLER(Lemony Snicket, All the Dirty Parts), MELISSA FEBOS (Whip Smart, Abandon Me), TOMMY PICO (Nature Poem), along with regular cast members ANDREW DICKSON (Moth Host), B. FRAYN MASTERS (Host of BackFencePDX), ARTHUR BRADFORD (Director of Six Days to Air: The Making of South Park), EMILY OVERSTREET (Bitch’n Band), MINDY NETTIFEE (Host of BackFencePDX/Moth)!
The bulk of the proceeds from this show will be donated to Literary Arts.
Singer/songwriter Nate Lacy spent the years since his teens exploring his inner world and his connection with the universe at large. The result of his efforts was a small collection of songs that, when finally recorded and released as Mimicking Birds in 2010, received such accolades as Pitchfork's assessment that the debut LP was "extremely gifted with cyclical melodies: thorny fingerpicked spines around which he can snake a range of sounds simply for ambience."
These days, Lacy is focusing his gaze further outward, exploring what he calls "the infinite and the infinitesimal," while also keeping lyrical watch on the crossroads where our digital future and our pastoral past bump up against each other.
Few are the artists who are able to bring such thorny and thoughtful issues to bear in their music, but that is just one of the many reasons that Eons, the new album from Mimicking Birds, is so very special.
How this comes out through Lacy is in toothsome lyrics that are filled to bursting with imagery, philosophical questions, and deep personal concerns. That he finds ways to tie these concepts together without losing his way or our fascination with them is a testament to his songwriting prowess.
The rest of the band, Aaron Hanson and Adam Trachsel, works to remain connected to the Birds' of yore, emphasizing fingerpicked acoustic guitars, the sturdy tones of a stand-up bass, and restrained drums, while pushing into the future as well.
Mimicking Birds "Layers Of Us" will be released on January 26th 2018 on Glacial Pace Records.
Nurses is Aaron Chapman and John Bowers. They split their time between Portland and Astoria, OR, and Los Angeles. Aaron Chapman and John Bowers bring their experimental pop project Nurses back to the Mississippi Studios stage for a Halloween dance party that doubles as an album release show for their latest full-length, Naughtland.
On September 22, 2017, singer/songwriter Haley Reinhart will release What’s That Sound?, her debut release for Concord Records, where she recently signed as a recording artist. The album finds Reinhart digging into her rich musical heritage and reimagining some of rock-and-roll’s most legendary songs.
Hailing from the Chicago area, Reinhart has previously shown her rare gift as a song interpreter with her certified-gold remake of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” (a 2015 release whose video has amassed over 20 million YouTube views). The L.A.-based 26-year-old has also emerged as the leading artist on Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, with her jazzed-up versions of tracks like Radiohead’s “Creep” earning more than 112 million views to date.
What’s That Sound? features 11 renditions of classic songs from the 1960s, as well as three original tracks from Reinhart. A captivating vocalist who started singing in her parents’ rock band when she was just seven, Reinhart purposely honed in on songs originally released between 1966 and 1969.
"There is an undeniable connection between the late ’60s and now,” says Reinhart. “They're both turbulent, yet hopeful times. As I thought of what songs I'd like to reinterpret, I wanted to bring these similarities to the forefront. I also feel the urge to spread the revolutionary idea of people coming together through love and music.”
In co-producing What’s That Sound? with GRAMMY Award-winner John Burk, Reinhart stayed remarkably authentic to the sonic landscape of the ’60s. Made at the historic Sunset Sound, the album was recorded to tape in order to achieve a warm, vibrant feel true to the era. According to Reinhart, the thrill and challenge of analog recording brought a potent energy to the production of What’s That Sound?.
"We recorded each song live as a band and there’s something special that happens when everyone’s all grooving together like that,” says Reinhart. “There’s no way to replicate the feeling—so even though I thought I’d go back and re-cut the vocals later on, I ended up keeping most of the raw takes. I think it really fits this record and reflects my roots.”
Mixed by Bill Schnee (a GRAMMY winner known for his work with Marvin Gaye, Rod Stewart, and Steely Dan), What’s That Sound? was also recorded using solely vintage instruments. Much of that gear was personally supplied by Reinhart’s lineup of veteran musicians, a cadre that includes her father (Harry Reinhart) on guitar and her mother (Patti Miller-Reinhart) on backup vocals.
Also joining Reinhart on What’s That Sound? is her Postmodern Jukebox collaborator Scott Bradlee, who plays piano on her masterful covers of The Beatles’ “Oh! Darling,” The Kinks’ “Sunny Afternoon,” and The Mamas & The Papas’ “Words of Love.” In addition, Reinhart’s longtime musical cohort Casey Abrams appears as a vocalist and bassist on her glorious update of The Zombies’ “Time of the Season,” Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” and her anthemic original “Bring the Love Back Home.”
Right from its first featured cover, What’s That Sound? shows the full force of Reinhart’s formidable vocal work. A longtime staple of her live set, “Baby It’s You” proves her knack for powerful belting. Although the song was originally recorded by The Shirelles, Reinhart’s horn-backed and sweetly gritty version draws inspiration from a rendition by blues/psych-rock band Smith—a track that, in a serendipitous twist, was mixed by Bill Schnee back in 1969.
Another song spotlighting Reinhart’s stunning vocal range, her fiery cover of The Box Tops’ “The Letter” finds her brilliantly matching Alex Chilton’s moody growl. “He has such a guttural, raspy tone to his voice, and I wanted to try to create the girl version of that,” says Reinhart. “It ended up coming way more naturally to me than I even thought it would.”
The era-defining track that gave What’s That Sound? its title, “For What It’s Worth” opens with a quietly haunting intro before unfolding into a full-fledged anthem. With its stirring string accompaniment (courtesy of esteemed composer Tom Scott), the song reveals Reinhart’s supreme vocal command as she lends new weight to Buffalo Springfield’s ever-poignant lyrics.
In each of the original tracks featured on What’s That Sound?, Reinhart’s timeless sensibilities are found to closely inform her own songcraft. Those gracefully arranged pieces include the album-opening “Let’s Start,” which gives a breezy nod to Brazilian music with its bright harmonies and tropicalia-inspired rhythms.
From her sorrowful howl on “Oh! Darling” to the steely intonation of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” What’s That Sound? exudes a vocal confidence that Reinhart’s honed through a lifetime of singing. Thanks to her parents’ long-running band Midnight, she grew up on rock-and-roll, jazz, funk, and blues and began mastering each genre in early childhood. Along with joining Midnight onstage throughout her youth, Reinhart studied jazz in college and played in jazz festivals across Europe while still a teenager. After finishing in third place on season 10 of American Idol at age 20, she released her acclaimed 2012 debut Listen Up! via Interscope Records. Arriving in 2016, Reinhart sophomore album Better featured “Can’t Help Falling in Love”—a spirited remake that’s garnered over 56 million streams on Spotify.
In addition to collaborating and touring with Postmodern Jukebox since 2015, Reinhart recently ventured into voice-acting by starring alongside Bill Burr, Laura Dern and Justin Long in F Is for Family (a Netflix original animated series whose second season premieres May 30). Also known for her impassioned live performance, she had her first solo headlining tour of the U.S. last summer and recently completed her first solo headlining European tour.
For Reinhart, creating What’s That Sound? ultimately deepened her connection to the music that’s long colored her world. "The beauty in the simplicity of these songs hit me more than ever while recording,” she says. “Most of the original versions aren’t even three minutes long, but there’s so much power in their words and melodies — they leave you wanting more.”
In introducing each song to a new generation, Reinhart hopes that power will have a lasting impact on listeners. “I’d love for people to hear this album and think about how it relates to our modern world,” she says of What’s That Sound?. “Even though we’re all faced with challenges, it’s also a chance for us to become more aware and more in tune with each other. Hopefully these songs will move people in a positive way and help them realize that good things will happen when we stick together.”
The New York Times reviewed Portland Queer Comedy Festival as, "My most enjoyable experience [about Portland]" and, " The performances were more than punchy enough to stand up on their own — no controlled substances necessary" [Cheap Charms and Altered States of Portland, Ore -Travel 9-8-17] and now… Portland Queer Comedy Festival presents: incomparable Sandra Valls!
From Showtime, Nickelodeon, BET to ABC; Sandra has made her mark on the comedy landscape.
Curve says, "Sandra takes comedy to a new level."
L.A Times writes, "Talented...Hilarious"
Sandra Valls is a comic, actor, singer, writer, and badass. She is a funny, high energy, smart, sexy, outspoken Latina, best known for her powerful, electric, stand up comedy performances in Showtime’s, THE LATIN DIVAS OF COMEDY (nominated for an Alma Award) and PRIDE: LGBT COMEDY SLAM!, hosted by Bruce Vilanch (both available for viewing now on Hulu.com). Her unique mix of physical comedy and ridiculously brilliant storytelling make it easy to see why the Los Angeles Times calls Sandra “Talented and Hilarious” as well as being voted one of the Top 33 Bad Ass Comics with Latin Roots by Latina Magazine, one of the Top 10 Funniest Lesbian Comics by Curve Magazine, one of the Top 100 Women We Love by Go Magazine, as well as one of the Top 10 faces to watch in 2010 by Diva Magazine.
With:
Belinda Carroll is a stand-up comedian, writer, and vocalist with appearances on Portlandia, GRIMM, and MTV. She is the co-founder of Portland Queer Comedy Festival, and has performed with and produced shows for Kate Willett, ANT, Julie Goldman, and Guy Branum among others. Belinda has also been seen in Bridgetown Comedy Festival, San Francisco International Comedy Competition, and All Jane Comedy Festival.
Hosted by:
D Martin Austin is a nonbinary black writer and comic residing in Portland, OR. They are a regular contributor to The Portland Mercury, host of Your Fault for Listening (on iTunes and Stitcher), which won "Best Showcase" at the 2017 PNW Black Comedy Festival. They were also voted "Best Male Performer" at the 2017 PNW Black Comedy Festival.
“For me if this record could do anything, it would be to bridge a divide. To say, hey, yes, Middle America I see you, I believe your economic woes and drug problems are real, but also, don't let your patriotism and your anger be exploited by con men, don't let your values be eroded by spite.” — EMA
EMA began with the urge to self-exile. After the success of Past Life Martyred Saints and 2014’s prophetic The Future’s Void, EMA retreated to a basement in Portland, Oregon – a generic apartment complex in a non-trendy neighborhood, with beige carpeting and cheap slat blinds.
She returns with a portrait of a world both familiar and alien: The Outer Ring, a pitch-black world of half-empty subdivisions, American flags hung over basement windows, big-box stores and strip malls and rage. In a year dominated by working-class alienation, EMA — a Midwesterner who has never lost her thousand-yard stare — has delivered an album that renders American poverty and resentment with frightening realism and deep empathy.
The Outer Ring is the suburban world of people who’ve been pushed out of city centers by stagnating wages and rising expense, forced up against rural communities swallowed by sprawl. It’s far more diverse than traditional images of “the suburbs” – vape shops and living-room hair salons exist next to Mexican grocery stores and Dollar General. But it’s also more deeply marked by poverty and tension, and by the anger that comes from having your story and your struggles erased from the narrative.
Songs like “I Wanna Destroy” (which shares a title with her 2015 MoMA PS1 exhibition) and “Down & Out” flicker between self-loathing and nihilism — an anger born of pain from being neglected by those in power, but no less alarming when we realize that “the kids from the void” might burn the world down.
The voices we hear in these songs — druggy, surly societal outcasts; Byronic blue-collar nihilists bringing down fire — speak to a rebellion that’s typically reserved for men. Think Bruce Springsteen’s similarly bleak outlaw portraits in Nebraska, or the quintessentially American (and quintessentially dudely) voices of Jack Kerouac or Charles Bukowski.
“During the process of this record I realized that I was ‘socialized male’ in my teen years,” says EMA. “I hung out with groups of dirtbag boys, listened to their music. I understand them, even though I was never fully a part of them. ‘Rebellious teenage dirtbag boy’ is such an outsized force in America especially... his insecurities have hijacked the nation, and his penchant for ‘joke racism’ has turned really fucking ugly. Yet I also have empathy for this person.”
Exile in the Outer Ring claims that same dirtbag alienation for women — “a woman who swallowed a scumbag teen boy whole,” as EMA puts it. “He's still inside her but in the end she's the actual spine of steel, nihilist with the gaze, wiser survivor.”
Navigating the rough terrain of femininity is not new for EMA. The Future’s Void read as a prescient statement on surveillance, but it also detailed EMA’s fears about being publicly female — a potential subject for online abuse and media trivialization, all too easily reduced to just another girl with a past and proclivities. She toured less, turned down interviews, and hid her face on the album cover, taking control by refusing to play into the trope of the blonde trainwreck.
For Exile, EMA returns to the question of how to be female without being devoured (“between a babe, and a crone, there is a queen, but I refuse to perform that,” we’re told on “Fire Water Air LSD”) while casting an eye on how male violence shapes the world. In these songs, the abuser who tells his victim she “made him crazy” in “7 Years” is not all that different from the famous white supremacist standing outside his casino in “Aryan Nation,” and both have more power than they deserve.
The album’s sound defies traditional “Americana.” An auteur in her own right, EMA has tapped Jacob Portrait of Unknown Mortal Orchestra to co-produce an album that reflects her full range, while also returning, in many respects, to her roots – namely, noise-folk outfit Gowns, and their 2007 album Red State.
The album veers from spoken word (“Where the Darkness Began”) to straight-ahead thrash (“33 Nihilistic and Female”), with detours through everything from psychedelia to raw acoustic balladry along the way. Static becomes percussion on “7 Years;” “Down and Out” soundtracks economic despair with oddly poppy synth strings. The seven-minute track “Breathalyzer” (a seven-minute noise epic in the Gowns tradition) extends modular synth solos over a simple, almost chant-like melody, until the tale of one woman’s heroic dose in the backseat of a Camry turns into an exercise in suspense.
All of these threads come together in the anthemic “Aryan Nation.” Feminist alienation becomes working-class alienation, just as one person’s abuser becomes the systemic abuse of a nation. It’s an expansive vision that brings together concerns from every corner of our present moment — and themes that have recurred throughout EMA’s career, from the brutality of late capitalism to the collapsing boundaries between private and public — into one dark portrait of what it means to be American in 2017.
“I’m actually pro-Outer Ring,” says EMA. “It feels more vibrant to me right now than most city centers. It’s got more diversity and lower overhead. It’s where the freaks and the artists and the culture are going to end up, and it could be beautiful if it doesn’t destroy itself first.”
EMA never loses sight of the possibility of healing. If Exile spends a lot of time addressing rage, it also asks what growing up submerged in all this violence does to one’s ability to connect with others (“Receive Love”) or whether it’s even possible to run away from pain (“Always Bleeds,” a song originally written with Gowns). The result is a deeply personal, confrontational, but ultimately redemptive album from a quintessentially American artist at the peak of her form.
The Blow is Khaela Maricich and Melissa Dyne. A shape-shifting entity, The Blow has taken various forms over time and manifests in an array of media, employing popular music as a vehicle for broader explorations. Operating between contexts and genres, the duo works with sound composition and recording, performance, installation, writing, and physical media, aiming to address and expand the limitations encountered within each framework. Their recent album “The Blow” received critical acclaim, being featured on both of the New York Times’ best songs of 2013 lists as well as selected as the top album of the year by NPR’s All Songs Considered. They curate the website WOMANPRODUCER.com, a collection of images and web-links of female music producers, engineers and sonic innovators. Their performances have been presented at art centers such as The Wexner Center, The Kitchen, Artists Space, The Warhol Museum, On The Boards, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, and Pulse Art Miami as well as in traditional music venues such as The Henry Fonda Theater, Great American Music Hall, Joe’s Pub and The Gramercy Theater. They live and work in New York City.
After Three Mile Pilot began an open-ended hiatus in 1997, singer/guitarist Pall Jenkins and multi-instrumentalist Tobias Nathaniel embarked on a darker, more subdued journey as The Black Heart Procession. In the many years and albums since, the band's line-up has expanded and contracted, but at its heart and soul remains Jenkins and Nathaniel, creating timeless, heart-wrenching classics that are adventurous, eclectic, and consistently brilliant.
In 2017, they'll bring you their first record, from start to finish. Here's what they'd like you to know:
In a small town, with but a small chance, two lowly miscreants toiled feverishly into the small hours of the night creating ballads of loss and self-deprecation, in hopes of illuming the world with their particularly despondent brand of mischievousness.
Nearly twenty years later, these very same scoundrels have arrived upon your doorstep to drown your sorrows, ease your pains and release your hearts.
The Black Heart Procession, purveyors of all things disconsolate, would like to formally invite you to attend a singular event, a forlorn gala, a mournful celebration of the dour. It's your town, your desolation, your reclamation.
Join us in the revelry of sorrow, as we honor the 20th anniversary of our first album. Laugh, cry and absolve your sins with us. Together, we'll brighten the world, confront the shadows beneath our beds and...
...well...you could just come to the show in your town where we'll be performing our first record from start to finish, with some extra stuff for the encore. Hope to see you all there, tears of laughter and sorrow alike.
Sam Coomes
Alongside bandmate Janet Weiss, Sam Coomes has released nine albums with his band Quasi over the last two decades and toured all over the world. Concurrently, Sam Coomes has played and recorded with the likes of Built to Spill, Elliott Smith and Jandek, worked as a producer and scored numerous soundtracks for underground films and art installations. In short, he is not a newcomer to the scene.
ALVVAYS
The band will be embarking this summer on an extensive world tour.
Antisocialites is out September 8th on Polyvinyl Records (USA), Transgressive Records (UK/EU), Royal Mountain Records (Canada), Inertia Records (Australia) and P-Vine Records (Japan).
JAY SOM
Before a month-and-change ago, Slowdive hadn't released an album in 22 years. So you'd be forgiven for watching the band perform "Sugar For The Pill" and struggling to pin down what era you're in — especially since NPR Music plopped the group in a playfully retro Brooklyn shuffleboard parlor for the occasion.
In the early '90s, Slowdive dressed up shoegaze's hazy drift with jolts of energy and a chiming dream-pop shimmer. The band lasted only three albums before splitting up in 1995, at which point members Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell formed the more countrified Mojave 3. Now, after reuniting in 2014, it's back with a self-titled album that picks up where it left off — but, while it conjures many signifiers of '90s college radio, the band's return album freshens the project up, too, with bright, impeccable songcraft. A patient mid-tempo gem that's as hooky as it is hypnotic, "Sugar For The Pill" is a particular highlight, so it's a joy to watch the reconstituted band trot it out for this Field Recording, filmed at Royal Palms Shuffleboard in Brooklyn.
Sex, Drugs and Basketball is hosting a live remote broadcast of their show, 7:30-9pm at The Lost & Found. They'll be raising funds for the XRAY.FM fund drive and it'll be fun!
More details on their event page here.
“’Soubour’ echoes a desert Led Zeppelin, while the revolving, perky ‘Nick’ suggests what a West African La’s might sound like- but it’s presented in revitalized new settings, with grit, urgency and delicacy in abundance” – Q
“Talking Heads funky… growlingly bluesy… contemplative and hypnotic… A triumph” –The Guardian
“’Songhoy Blues’ desert R&B is incredibly rousing and intense…conjuring a freedom and thrilling abandonment in its hypnotic shuffle boogie and punky blues rocks riffs” – Mojo
Once among the most prominent of Mali’s many ethnic groups, the Songhoy now live largely on the margins of the West African nation. Nonetheless, the Songhoy people retain a fierce pride in their history, beliefs, and traditional music. Hailing from the heart of Gao, on the banks of the Niger River, Oumar Touré and Aliou Touré grew up obsessed with hip hop, R&B, and classic rock like The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. They found a kindred spirit and musical brother in guitarist Garba Touré (son of Oumar Touré, long term percussionist in Ali Farka Touré’s band). When growing unrest in the north of Mali forced the young men and their families to take refuge in the southern town of Bamako, they decided to turn crisis into opportunity by forming a band. They enlisted drummer Nathanial “Nat” Dembele and baptized their band Songhoy Blues in celebration of their displaced people and culture.
The ambitious young band were soon a fixture on the Bamako live music scene. Prompted by local studio owner, in September 2013 Songhoy Blues reached out to producer/manager Marc-Antoine Moreau (Amadou & Mariam, K’Naan), in town to scout new talent for the extraordinary Africa Express project. An audition followed and Songhoy Blues were invited to record a track with Nick Zinner, acclaimed producer and guitarist in NYC’s one and only Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The song, entitled “Soubour,” proved a highlight of 2013’s critically applauded “AFRICA EXPRESS PRESENTS…MAISON DES JEUNES.”
Songhoy Blues will herald Music In Exile with a series of much anticipated North American live dates – joining Alabama Shakes at NYC’s Beacon Theatre Thursday, March 12th as well as at Chicago’s The Chicago Theatre Saturday, March 14th and Milwaukee’s Riverside Theatre Sunday, March 15th. Additional North American tour dates will be announced soon.
In addition to their increasingly busy live schedule, Songhoy Blues also appear in an eagerly anticipated new film documenting Malian musicians’ fight with the extremist forces that have seen music banned in much of the country. They Will Have To Kill Us First: Malian Music In Exile will have its world premiere at Austin’s South By Southwest Film Festival 2015.
XRAY MEMBERS RSVP HERE FOR FREE ENTRY!!!!!
$5 AT THE DOOR and FREE FOR XRAY.FM MEMBERS!
TICKETS available at the door, Members must RSVP in advance for free entry here: RSVP LINK
This event is 21 and over21+ / $5 at the door / Free for XRAY members
KILL ROCK STARS, XRAY.FM AND HOLOCENE PRESENT: THE FUTURE OF WHAT 100TH EPISODE CELEBRATION: A LIVE TAPING + BENEFIT FOR XRAY.FM
Celebrate Portland’s music community with XRAY FM, Kill Rock Stars and The Future of What. Over the last few years, The Future of What has highlighted the people and organizations that make Portland a music destination. Join us for a live taping of their 100th episode, featuring your favorite local musicians, labels and innovators. Catch XRAY FM DJs spinning between interviews then turn it up for a dance party after the show.
This event is part of the XRAY.FM Fall Membership Drive
Schedule:
7:00 PM - Take Control of Your Business
Wade Metzler (SoundExchange)
Maggie Vail (CASH Music)
Sierra Haager (Public Display PR)
Ben Hubbird (CD Baby, Party Damage Records)
7:35 PM - Rock Camp
Katherine Paul (Black Belt Eagle Scout)
Kristi Balzer (Rock'n'Roll Camp for Girls)
8:00 PM - MusicPortland Movement
Chloe Eudaly Portland City Commissioner
Meara McLoughlin (MusicPortland)
Andre Middleton (Friends of Noise)
Chris Young (Vortex Music Magazine)
DJ Klyph
8:25 PM - Lifelong Musicians
Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney, Filthy Friends)
Peter Buck (R.E.M. , Filthy Friends)
Laura Veirs
Cool Nutz
9:00 PM on - Strange Babes!!
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The Future of What is a podcast and radio program about the music industry. Each week host Portia Sabin, president of Kill Rock Stars, delves into a topic of interest to music industry professionals, musicians, and regular people alike by discussing important issues with great people who work every day to help artists succeed (largely behind the scenes).
Kill Rock Stars is dedicated to putting out exceptional records by important artists. At KRS we believe in doing it yourself, and we see our job as helping bands to realize their visions. We feel lucky that we get to work with artists who challenge mediocrity on a regular basis.
XRAY.FM's mission is to hold a microphone up to the best and most distinctive of Portland. To build a culturally relevant center for ideas, music, and creativity in service of a more open media and a more just community.CORIN TUCKER
PETER BUCK
Guitarist for R.E.M..
DJ KLYPH
Klyph has been representing the under-represented since 2009 on the Portland FM radio dial and expanded outlets of podcasting and live shows. With a consistent goal of inclusion and building community with talented individuals presenting a positive message.
Broken Social Scene
"I don't want to go out there being presumptuous," Kevin Drew says, "because, I've worn those presumptuous shoes before, and you don't want it to feel like, 'Oh, what a let-down.'" That's the fear when you bring back one of music's most beloved names seven years after their last album. But with Hug of Thunder, the fifth Broken Social Scene album, Drew and his bandmates have a right to feel presumptuous.
They have that right because they have created one of 2017's most sparkling, multi-faceted albums. On Hug of Thunder the 15 members of Broken Social Scene - well, the 15 who play on the record, including returnees Leslie Feist and Emily Haines - refract their varying emotions, methods and techniques into something that doesn't just equal their other albums, but surpasses them. It is righteous but warm, angry but loving, melodic but uncompromising. The title track on its own might just be the best thing you will hear all year - a song that will become as beloved as "Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl" from their breakthrough album, You Forgot It In People.
Its title, Drew says, captured what he wanted people to feel about the group's comeback, and how they sound playing together again: "It's just such a wonderful sentiment about us, coming in like a hug of thunder."
Broken Social Scene had reconvened, in varying forms, several times over the past four years
- the odd festival show here and there, preferably ones that involved the least possible travelling. But the idea that they might turn their hand to something more than greatest-hits sets had been stirring since November 2014, when producer Joe Chiccarelli told Drew the group needed to make a new album.
"He started showing up at our label, asking if we were going to make an album," Drew recalls. "He just didn't give up; he just kept saying, 'You've got to strike, you've got to do this, the time is now,' and so finally we agreed."
As might be expected to be the case with a many-headed hydra of a group, getting all the principals to agree wasn't easy. Drew's co-founder Brendan Canning was keen, but Drew and fellow BSS lifer Charles Spearin took more persuading. A turning point for Drew came with the Paris terror attacks of November 2015, which made him feel the world needed an injection of positivity: "It just sort of made us want to go out there and play. Because I think we've always been a band that's been a celebration."
Canning picks up the story: "By autumn of 2015 we had started getting together and trying some ideas out, just getting back in that jam space, in Charles' garage. Then we set up shop in my living room and we were starting to come together in a very familiar kind of way, jamming in the living room, eating meals in the kitchen together, because that's what the band is about: 'Hey, let's all get on the same page and get the energies flowing in the same direction.'"
Recording finally began in April 2016 at The Bathouse studio on the shores of Lake Ontario, with later sessions in Toronto and Montreal, before the group went right back to basics. "It was very beautiful the way that it ended in Charlie's little rehearsal garage space," Drew says, "after going to all these studios. We just worked there, doing back-up vocals and handclaps and all the shit we used to do when we were younger." And then it was to Los Angeles, where the album was mixed.
The result is a panoramic, expansive album, 53 minutes that manages to be both epic and intimate. In troubled times it offers a serotonin rush of positivity: "Stay Happy" lives up to its title, with huge surges of brass that sound like sunshine bursting through clouds. "Gonna Get Better" makes a promise that the album is determined to deliver. That's not to say it's an escapist record: Broken Social Scene are completely engaged, wholly focussed, and not ignoring the darkness that lurks outside. But there is no hectoring, no lecturing, but a recognition of the confusion and ambiguity of the world. As the title track closes with Leslie Feist murmuring "There was a military base across the street," the listener is caught in the division between the notional security provided by national defence, and the menace of the same thing.
The gestation of Hug of Thunder was no idyll. When You Forgot It in People made their name, Broken Social Scene were young men and women. Fifteen years on, they were adults in or on the cusp of middle age, and - as Drew puts it - "all the adult problems in the world were happening around us individually, whether it was divorce or cancer". Three members of the band lost their fathers while the album was being recorded, "and it seemed like the days of going in the studio, getting stoned, drinking five beers and saying, 'Who gives a fuck?' were over".
Then there's the fact of the size of the ensemble, and the number of competing voices. "You don't always get the final say with Broken Social Scene," Canning says, with a certain degree of understatement. He compares the process of getting everyone to agree on a song to party politics: "It's like you're trying to get a bill passed through the House - you have to be really committed to wanting to win."
But, still, if they were to return, it had to be with everybody, no matter if that meant things might get unwieldy. "I'd like to believe that Broken Social Scene can be whatever it can be," Canning says, "but I think the fact we'd gone away for so long meant we really, we really couldn't have done the same thing without everyone involved, you know?" The story of
Broken Social Scene, he insists, was built on the involvement of everyone, and so if the story was to be continued, those same people had to return.
"The thing that has changed is that the relationships between us are established," Drew suggests. "And in a family, you ebb and flow and you come and you go and you're in love and then you're annoyed - but it's established now, the relationships aren't going anywhere, you know? And I think through time, because we've been through so much together, personally and professionally, when we're all on stage, everybody knows what they're doing, everybody has a melody to back up someone else, you feel supported, you're a crew, there's nothing but protection all around you."
Canning picks up the theme: "Before we were making this record, I said to everyone: 'We all basically want the same thing, we might just have slightly different road-maps on how to get there. So how do we stray off on certain country roads but get back onto the main thoroughfare?'"
That Broken Social Scene were a family again, driving along the same main road, became apparent to UK fans in September 2016, when the group - with Ariel Engle the latest woman to assume the role of co-lead vocalist - came over for less than a handful of festival shows, to test the waters. Their Sunday teatime appearance at End Of The Road - an ecstatic hour of maximalist music, physically and emotionally overwhelming - ended up being one of the biggest hits of the festival. It achieved what Drew has always felt music needed to do: it created transcendence, a pocket of time where everyone present was living only in the moment.
"My 11 year old nephew asked me, 'Uncle Kev, why do adults get drunk?' and I looked at him and thought, 'OK, brilliant question, I'm going to give a brilliant answer,'" Drew recalls. "And I looked at him for about 10 seconds and I said, 'Because they want to feel like you. Because they want to feel like a kid again, they want to forget everything, they want to be innocent.' We are built in a way now where you can't do that, because you're walking around with the anti-transcendence box in your pocket, and in your hand, and in your home, and on your bedside table: it's the anti-transcendence. It's called your phone! And we're getting killed, we're getting killed!"
So what do Broken Social Scene want listeners to take from Hug of Thunder? Canning wants it to make them "pause for the cause and maybe just leave things in your life alone for 53 minutes". For Drew, it's about what it's always been about: making the connection. "I just hope they understand that there's others out there, that they're not alone," he says. "I know that's silly! But you'd be surprised how many times I've had to tell people, 'Hey, you're not alone on this, you're not alone thinking these things.' I mean, with the title Hug of Thunder, I want to hold people. I want to fucking hold them. And when we do shows, I'm not: 'Look at me, I'm elevated up on the stage,' It's: 'We're here with you, this is us together.' Broken Social Scene is about the people, and it's always been about the people."
Depeche Mode:
As promised, Depeche Mode continues to roll out their Global Spirit Tour, with the second leg bringing their stunning live show to fans across North America this fall.
Following an extensive European summer tour, the 28 show North American run, exclusively promoted by Live Nation, will kick off on August 23rd in Salt Lake City, UT and will stop in 26 cities across the United States and Canada, before wrapping up in Edmonton, Alberta on October 27th.
Fans can register now for early access to tickets at presale.depechemode.com. By registering, fans will reserve a spot in line for the fan presale, which they can then improve by sharing their unique presale link with friends and family, or by preordering Depeche Mode’s new album Spirit. On March 6, days before tickets go on general sale to the public, fans who have registered will be let into a special ticket presale in waves, based on their place in line.
The European stadium leg of the Global Spirit Tour, running May through July, has already sold over 1.5 million tickets and has sold-out shows across Europe – just the start of what is poised to be a record-breaking global tour. The Global Spirit Tour will later bring the band to Latin America, with details to be announced shortly.
The Global Spirit Tour is in support of the band’s upcoming 14th studio album, Spirit, out on March 17th via Columbia Records. The album’s powerful and timely first single, “Where’s The Revolution”, has already been well-received by critics and fans alike, lauded as a strong “return to form” for Depeche Mode. Spirit has already garnered critical acclaim in early previews, with Q Magazine calling it “the most energized Depeche Mode album in years”.
Warpaint
Warpaint will be on the road for the next couple of months behind their latest album, Heads Up. One run of North American dates in particular will see them support UK legends Depeche Mode, who also recently put out their Spirit LP.
This newly unveiled trek takes place from late August through late October, with stops scheduled in Denver, Chicago, Montreal, New York, Miami, Austin, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. It’s part of Depeche Mode’s larger stateside Spirit tour and comes after Warpaint’s busy summer spent playing festivals like Governors Ball in New York, Rock Werchter in Belgium, and Lollapalooza.
The Black Angels
Alex Maas – vocals, bass, organ/drone machine
Christian Bland – guitar, drone machine/organ
Kyle Hunt – keyboards, percussion, bass, guitar
Stephanie Bailey – drums, percussion
The Black Angels' most revelatory collection thus far, Indigo Meadow marks the Austin, Texas-based band's fourth full-length release, following 2010's acclaimed Phosphene Dream.
Once again The Black Angels prove themselves the undisputed avatars of contemporary psychedelic rock, simultaneously exalting the genre's kaleidoscopic past as they thrust it ever
further into the future.
Now a quartet, the band – with the able support of producer John Congleton (David Byrne & St. Vincent, Clinic, Explosions In The Sky) – have brought new focus to their wide-ranging
songcraft, their righteous riffs and dogmatic drones gaining increased power as they fuel a more expansive emotional trajectory. The ominous organ grooves and carpet-bombing beats still resonate with feral rush and napalm fire, but songs like "Love Me Forever" and the bottomless blue title track see more than a little light piercing the Black Angels' notorious
heart of darkness.
"There's a different feel to it than any of our other records, " says singer/multi-instrumentalist Alex Maas. "It still has those 'What the hell's going on?' moments, but when you're having a psych experience, you don't want it to be dark all the time. That's not where you want to be."
Phosphene Dream was followed by two years of nearly non-stop touring, a thrilling, often grueling run that by its end saw the band's roster diminished but their spirit restored. The Black Angels closed the circle and in January 2012 they convened to begin writing and woodshedding new material. The next few months turned out to be the most artistically fecund of the band's career, their fresh energy unlocking an abundance of songs and intriguing musical options.
"A weight was lifted off of us," guitarist Christian Bland says. "It's like ESP when you're playing together, like you're channeling something. If someone isn't in the same headspace, then the ESP feels disrupted."
In August, The Black Angels headed to El Paso's renowned Sonic Ranch. Located on 2,300 acres of pecan orchards bordering the Rio Grande and Mexico, the studio – the largest
residential recording complex in the world – proved the ideal locale for the band's aural adventurism.
"It's awesome to be out there, away from everything, and just be saturated in the music," Maas says. "You have nowhere else to go but the studio. It was really healthy for us, a really healthy experience."
Furthermore, the band's choice of producer/mixer John Congleton allowed for an extra set of ears, not to mention a tie-breaking vote in the ever-democratic Black Angels hierarchy."When we work with a producer," Bland says, "the hope is that they'll give us that extra push that we need and that's what John did. He became the fifth member. It can be
nerve-wracking working with someone you don't really know but we felt like he was coming from where we were coming from."
Positive vibrations shine through Indigo Meadow, with radiant new hues spilling out like a blindingly bright field of Texas bluebonnets over the Black Angels' traditionally shadowy
palette. "I Hear Colors (Chromaesthesia)," in many ways the album's centerpiece and overall sonic manifesto, is a 21st century trip as transcendent as any anthem in the psychedelic canon, while the wyrd folk-flavored closer, "Black Isn't Black," points towards heretofore unventured musical and emotional terrain.
"We make this music because it makes us feel good," Maas says, "we hope – that it makes other people feel good. People ask me what I do and I tell them I'm a music therapist. It
sounds completely ridiculous but that's how I see myself, that's how I see our band, that's how I see music in general – as therapy for people. Without it, life would be so much harder."
"There are still some pretty evil songs on there," reminds Bland. "I like the juxtaposition of something sounding sweet but maybe there's an underbelly to it, so if you dive in further you get the full story."
To be sure, all is not moon pies and rainbows 'round Indigo Meadow – this is The Black Angels after all. Tracks like the high-powered "Don't Play With Guns" and the post-traumatic acid-punk of "Broken Soldier" continue the band's longstanding role as psychedelic provocateurs, exploring archetypal themes of wasteful wars, creeping paranoia, and the corruption of power to score a disorienting soundtrack to our own increasingly
Strangelovian culture.
"There are a lot of fucked up things going on in this world," Maas says. "We're lucky to have an outlet and a platform to acknowledge these issues."
Founded in 2004, The Black Angels have been the spearhead of the post-millennial psychedelic movement, picking up the mantle of their hometown's long lysergic history and
reinvigorating it with progressive political commentary and unrestrained creativity and ambition. Like any great psychedelic family band worth its salt, they have also birthed their
own cottage industry, from The Reverberation Appreciation Society label (home to numerous new psychedelicists as well as their own many extracurricular outings) to hosting the annual
gathering of the tribes at the amazing Austin Psych Fest. Now entering its sixth year, APF has proven the locus for today's incredibly wide-ranging psych scene, as expansive and
revolutionary and exhilarating now as at any moment since its 1960s zenith.
"We took it upon ourselves to help expand the genre," Maas says, "not just sonically but let other people around the world experience it. And then vice verse, bring psychedelic music
from all over the world to Austin."
Indigo Meadow affirms The Black Angels' spot at the forefront of what is looking like a third psychedelic golden age, as hypnogogic production, mysterious world music jams, andpropulsive, primitive pulsebeats come to define the sound of modern rock music, from the always audacious underground all the way to the cultural mainline.
"I can see it bubbling right now," says Bland. "It needs to steam over. It'd be pretty cool if we could do a little psych takeover. Back in the early 2000s, when I heard the Strokes and the White Stripes on the radio, that really stood out to me. It was different and it really inspired me. I'd love for that to happen again, maybe with one of our songs, and for there to be a complete overhaul of how people listen to music again."
"You get jealous in a good way," Maas says of the modern psych boom, "so it pushes you. It's inspiring. It's great to see it, it's great to be a part of it. It reconfirms to us that we're
doing the right thing."
With each new record, The Black Angels have consistently elevated their art, their creative voice becoming clearer and more distinct. Indigo Meadow continues their extraordinary
evolution, its monumental melodies and vast vision marking it as testament to the band's full-throttle commitment to the psychedelic ethos of ritual, community and boundless
experimentation.
"Music is a spiritual thing for us," Maas says. "It's what's kept our band united. Music is our religion. That word can be so dirty sometimes, but this music is our spirituality. Without sounding too hippy-dippy about it."
Formed in 1987 in the sleepy coastal town of Irvine, Scotland and acclaimed for their delicate, deft, and often witty songwriting courtesy of hyper articulate lead singer Frank Reader, the band’s early days suggested they were destined for world wide fame. Their John Leckie produced debut, Cake, spawned bona fide alternative radio hits in "Obscurity Knocks", "Only Tongue Can Tell" and "Circling the Circumference". In the US Cake spent three months on the Billboard 200. The follow up album, I've Seen Everything, released in 1993, included the single “Hayfever" which had entertaining honor of being featured on the the MTV animated series, Beavis and Butthead. But the band’s third album, A Happy Pocket marked the beginning of a tumultuous period for the band. A Happy Pocket was released in the UK and Japan, but was unavailable in the U.S. after the band's American distributor declined to release the record. After Go!Discs was acquired by Universal in 1996, the band was dropped from the label, subsequently forced to sell their Shabby Road recording studio and declare bankruptcy.
Since then, their recording and touring has been sporadic but now, after 30 years together and with over 100 songs under their belt - most recently from their acclaimed 2016 Mike Mogis-produced album Wild Pendulum- they’re taking to the road for their most extensive US tour in decades. These special acoustic shows will feature arrangements for every song in the catalog, whether fan (or band) favorites, deep album cuts or obscure B-sides. These intimate performances will remind their feverishly loyal fans what made them fall in love in the first place.
The A.V. Club said “Wild Pendulum is lovingly crafted, with layers in all the right places, ” while Allmusic exclaimed the album is “quite likely the best sophisticated guitar pop album anyone is likely to hear in 2016.”