Posts Tagged ‘Washington’

PRIESTS – ” Nothing Feels Natural “

Posted: March 11, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The first album to completely blow me away in 2017 was Priests’ “Nothing Feels Natural” . I’ve been waiting for a new release from Priests! for awile after a couple of EP’s, But I Love this record and what this group is all about The first 3 tracks are simply perfect : so musically subversive, great.

The Washington D.C. punk outfit can give you an accessible hint of balladry on the album’s title track, but come for blood on the Dick Dale-like twang of “Jj.” Singer Katie Alice Greer might as well be standing at the podium when we damn all the bullshit society constructs to hell, with pianos and horns backing her every decree. Much like some of their contemporaries they blend a combination of old Post Punk and newer influences to create a sound that stands out. Priest’s are a powerful and necessary band

Priests – Nothing Feels Natural, bandcamp: https://goo.gl/TN4Vdy

Tracklist:

01. Appropriate 0:00
02. JJ 5:13
03. Nicki 8:13
04. Lelia 20 11:54
05. No Big Bang 15:05
06. – 17:55
07. Nothing Feels Natural 19:11
08. Pink White House 23:11
09. Puff 27:19
10 Stuck 29:11

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MOUNT EERIE – ” A Crow Looked At Me “

Posted: March 6, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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If you’ve have heard any of the songs from “A Crow Looked at Me” already, you’ll know that this is almost certainly the most heartbreaking, harrowing, beautiful album that will be released this year (and quite possibly any other year.) It’s about the loss of Mount Eerie main man Phil Elverum’s wife Geneviève, who died last year of pancreatic cancer, and the long, empty days that followed. Elverum explained the choice to release these songs in a long statement , which concludes thus: “There is an echo of Geneviève that still rings, a reminder of the love and infinity beneath all of this obliteration. That’s why.”

WRITTEN AND RECORDED
August 31st to Dec. 6th, 2016 in the same room where Geneviève died, using mostly her instruments, her guitar, her bass, her pick, her amp, her old family accordion, writing the words on her paper, looking out the same window.
Why share this much? Why open up like this? Why tell you, stranger, about these personal moments, the devastation and the hanging love? Our little family bubble was so sacred for so long. We carefully held it behind a curtain of privacy when we’d go out and do our art and music selves, too special to share, especially in our hyper-shared imbalanced times. Then we had a baby and this barrier felt even more important. (I still don’t want to tell you our daughter’s name.) Then in May 2015 they told us Geneviève had a surprise bad cancer, advanced pancreatic, and the ground opened up. What matters now? we thought. Then on July 9th 2016 she died at home and I belonged to nobody anymore. My internal moments felt like public property. The idea that I could have a self or personal preferences or songs eroded down into an absurd old idea leftover from a more self-indulgent time before I was a hospital-driver, a caregiver, a child-raiser, a griever. I am open now, and these songs poured out quickly in the fall, watching the days grey over and watching the neighbors across the alley tear down and rebuild their house. I make these songs and put them out into the world just to multiply my voice saying that I love her. I want it known.
“Death Is Real” could be the name of this album. These cold mechanics of sickness and loss are real and inescapable, and can bring an alienating, detached sharpness. But it is not the thing I want to remember. A crow did look at me. There is an echo of Geneviève that still rings, a reminder of the love and infinity beneath all of this obliteration. That’s why.

PRIESTS – ” Nothing Feels Natural “

Posted: January 26, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Among the most blogged new band is this punk band from Washington DC who also run the label Sister Polygon (Downtown Boys, Snail Mail). The title track to their debut LP is “a bracing anthem about the struggle to realize yourself against seemingly irresistible forces”

If any band has understood this in recent years, it’s Priests born and bred in Washington, D.C., operating under the notion that nothing about American systems or society is natural.

Nothing Feels Natural, the band’s first proper album after a couple of tapes, a 7″ single and 2014’s Bodies And Control And Money And Power EP, isn’t a direct response to the state of the nation so much as a state of mind. For Priests, the personal has always been political; the band recognizes that the self is fluid, and that how we interact with each other is just as vital as how we confront the world. That’s why Nothing Feels Natural, in 10 tracks that embody the spirit of punk — while fully embracing the R&B, pop and experimental layers that course through the band’s discography presents itself as a broken and abstract view of what it means to live in a broken and abstract society.

The album represents a step forward for Priests. It’s the band’s most stylistically diverse work, expanding on their lo-fi post-punk bona-fides with ideas drawn from pop, R&B, and industrial noise. Thematically, Nothing can be understood as a series of vignettes — nine stories that crystallize into a bigger picture about the economics of human relationships, the invisibility of feminized labor, and the theoretical dual purpose of art for the group and the individual. The album will be the first full-length LP released on Sister Polygon Records, the label that the band operates cooperatively.

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But Nothing Feels Natural moves beyond the trappings of an album that speaks to a specific time: It wants to keep speaking with us.

band members, Daniele Daniele drums, Katie Alice Greer vocals, G.L. Jaguar guitar, Taylor Mulitz bass

KINGDOM Of The HOLY SUN – ” At the Gates of Dawn “

Posted: December 29, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Not for the first time do we see Kingdom of the Holy Sun as a Featured Artist. This is the second time featured on here. The Seattle Psych band feature on this week with tracks from their upcoming album At The Gates Of Dawn. The bands latest offering is pure Club A Go Go beat influenced by bands like The Doors, The Seeds, 13th Floor Elevators and Electric Prunes. This album is up their with recent neo psych bands also coming out of America like The Spyrals, Night Beats and Black Angels. The band have gone in a different direction since their earlier releases. At The Gates Of Dawn is a nice upbeat garage album, the band use the full array of sounds and effects available to them, nice fuzzy tones, wha-wha and jangling guitars, lovely harmonies in the Byrd’s style with swirling electric piano riff’s accompanied by some solid beat drumming. At the Gates of Dawn is another quality psych album coming out of the ever blossoming scene.

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Kingdom of the Holy Sun is:
Guido Anselmi: Vocals, Guitar, Farfisa, Mellotron, Percussion.
Scott Kennedy: Backing Vocals, Guitar.
Josh Deveney: Guitar.
Daniel Sansone: Bass Guitar.
Benajah Weiss: Farfisa, Vox Jaguar, Mellotron, Guitar.
Christian Powers: Drums, Percussion.

LAURA BURHENN – ” Apples And Oranges “

Posted: December 25, 2016 in MUSIC
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The Washington, D.C. native has released a 2-song single featuring the lead “Apples & Oranges” and the second, “Good Medicine” under her own name.

Burhenn has worked under other monikers such as The Mynabirds and Georgie James, but this new material reminds me a lot of what she’s done in the past as a solo artist on Wanderlust, but shows tremendous growth as an artist.

The Mynabirds‘ singer wrote this song as a reaction to what she described as her confronting the “yawning black void” of her future. But rather than fearing the darkness, she took comfort in it. Featuring B-Side “Good Medicine.”

KING DUDE – ” Sex “

Posted: December 8, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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King Dude returns with his latest meditation in eleven parts titled “Sex”. Following in the tradition of unexpected divination through the good lord Lucifer, the King challenges the listener to explore the theme of sexuality through nothing other than rock n’ roll of course. An album about dudes, girls that no one knows, backseats, becoming a movie star in L.A., Lucifer, and wanting to die in sex positions,  His Majesty, monarch of the morose plots a fifth set of infernal coordinates, spins an archaic compass and navigates the way to a post-punk prairie, resplendent in dark blossoms of neofolk and blues. Lust, passion and desire are summoned for company and make the acquaintance of habitual consorts macabre and melancholy

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King Dude is “our favorite whiskey-soaked Luciferian sex god” his latest album hammers that point home even further—especially the “sex” part. The King (né TJ Cowgill) has issued his most dynamic, varied effort yet with Sex, a long, slow ride through his customary dark folk, post-punk, swaggering rock ‘n’ roll. He’s all over the place here, redefining the King Dude sound whenever he feels like it, and circling back to more familiar, lovelorn territory on the wine-stained closing dirge “Shine Your Light,” his shuddering baritone holding court throughout. The snarling devil country of “I Wanna Die at 69” slithers up against the clean majesty of “Holy Christos” and surrealist garagey racket of “Swedish Boys,” changing gears with every song and oozing sensual energy even when Cowgill gets truly weird (see “The Girls,” a full-blown psychedelic nightmare). Whether you’re trying to fuck or feel like making love, Sex is the perfect soundtrack.

 

DYKE DRAMA – ” Up Against The Bricks “

Posted: November 16, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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For those who were upset by G.L.O.S.S passing, there’s still a lot of music to look forward to. Who knows what its members will go on to produce, but rest assured Sadie Switchblade will be around for awhile, making country-leaning rock music that sounds-off to seminal American bands passed; Switchblade channels indie greats and even covers Lucinda Williams with grace and reverence. With her other project Dyke Drama’s Up Against The Bricks is a semi-sweet meditation on identity, love, and longing. It’s rarely incendiary, but never afraid to prove a point

Dyke Drama is the solo project of Sadie Switchblade (G.L.O.S.S., Peeple Watchin‘, etc.)

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This album was recorded one week in the spring of 2016, produced and engineered by Joey Seward in Shelton, WA. Recorded in Joey’s garage, on broken and borrowed gear…again…(but some of it less broken than last time).

Sadie Switchblade played guitars, drums, bass, tambourine, and sang. Erica Leshon sang vocal harmony. Joey Seward played organ and sang backing vocals. Chris Grande played additional guitar on “I Just Wanted To See You So Bad”.
All songs by Sadie Switchblade, except “I Just Wanted To See You So Bad” by Lucinda Williams.

 

MIDDAY VEIL – ” I Am The War “

Posted: November 10, 2016 in MUSIC
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Seattle’s Midday Veil are getting noticed all over the place, which is quite an accomplishment for a band that counts Stockhausen among their influences and has been known to cover Amon Düül II.” “Midday Veil consistently produces some of the best experimental psychedelic music I’ve ever heard, always bending genres and minds at the same time.”

“Even when they’re voyaging deep into the unknown, Midday Veil stimulate the synapses with dynamic arrangements and the kind of melodic sensibility that eludes the majority of their peers. They bludgeon, seduce and inflame.”
Known for dramatic performances as well as subtle, varied recordings, Seattle experimental rock ensemble Midday Veil combines otherworldly vocals and cosmic synths with driving, hypnotic rock grooves to produce music that rewards careful listening and defies easy categorization. These Space rockers adding electronic elements to their arsenal , but Midday Veil’s sojourn into more danceable rhythms doesn’t hinder their ability to get really far out, while still dispensing existential lyrical wisdom.

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Members
Emily Pothast
David Golightly
Timm Mason
Jayson Kochan
Garrett Moore

ERICA FREAS – ” Patient Ones “

Posted: October 1, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Erica Freas is an Olympia, Washington-based musician, founder of Rumbletowne Records, She’s highly-regarded for her involvement punk bands RVIVR and Somnia as well as her acoustic solo projects. “I am in love with the way that a song feels different when it’s bare and stripped down and when it’s driving and loud. It can be more accessible and allow the beautiful parts of the lyrics or guitar melodies to stand out better. It’s exciting to play around with variation,” she said.

Though the sounds may vary, even when she is writing an intimate ballad, Freas’ punk roots are never totally out of the picture. “I’m playing to a drummer that’s not there and often writing that percussion into the guitar parts. Punk rock taught me how to sing loud with confidence and loads of my solo songs are down-picking the whole time. I’m a rocker even when I’m fingerpicking a lullaby, it’s just in there.”

Freas released her latest solo album on Don Giovanni Records, titled “Patient Ones”.  A prolific songwriter, the album’s songs are a from collection of material she’s been steadily building on since her 2012 album Belly, and an EP titled “Tether” she released the following year. “I’ve got these songs coming through, and every now and then the basin gets full and there’s enough material to make a collection,” she said.

Production on the record is minimal, but with Freas’ smooth voice and the luscious, warm tones of her Martin 0015M (which she sometimes runs through a Fender Deville 4×10 combo), you wouldn’t want it any other way. Cellist Jen Grady provides accompaniment on some tracks otherwise Freas is completely on her own.

 

Voice & Guitar : Erica Freas
Cello : Jen Grady
Choral Arrangement : Lindsay Scheif
The Patient Ones Choir : Colin Ashante, Don Freas, Ethan Camp, Jack Gray, Jemmy Joe, Julian Gomes, Matt Buscher, M Sather, Paris McClusky, River Nason, Sam Kates-Goldman

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SAVAGES – ” Live at The 9.30 Club “

Posted: July 7, 2016 in MUSIC
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This concert video, filmed in March before a sold-out crowd at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., the London band Savages is by turns tender and ferocious as it showcases tracks from its latest album, Adore Life. Savages’ lead singer Jehnny Beth is a revelation: Even as she challenges the audience to match the group’s energy from every corner of the stage — as well as catapulting herself onto the audience at one point — it’s Beth’s emotional, life-affirming lyrics that leave the strongest impression.

See for yourself: Savages’ U.S. tour begins on July 15.

SET LIST
  • “I Am Here”
  • “Sad Person”
  • “City’s Full”
  • “Slowing Down The World”
  • “Shut Up”
  • “She Will”
  • “Husbands”
  • “Surrender”
  • “Evil”
  • “When In Love”
  • “I Need Something New”
  • “The Answer”
  • “Hit Me”
  • “No Face”
  • “T.I.W.Y.G.”
  • “Mechanics”
  • “Adore”
  • “F******”
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