Four shows in a row this weekend...
Thursday, August 16
Velvet Lounge
915 U St NW WDC
http://www.velvetloungedc.com 202-462-3213
$8, doors at 9pm, 21+
Caution Curves (DC electro-acoustic improv ensemble)
Capillary Action (Philly instrumental experimental genre-hopping prog-psych)
Zdrastvootie (Holy Mountain, prog weirdness from CA)
Caution Curves http://www.thecautioncurves.org A cosy electro acoustic combo comprising Amanda Huron, drums and percussion, Tristana Fiscella, vocals and guitar, and Rebecca Mills on her laptop, hailing from Washington DC, who's music is refreshingly nice (as opposed to nasty).
"Lemons" begins with a yawning sleepy start from vocalist Tristana Fiscella...something about liking lemons?
A slightly neurotic potpourri of naive noises...the music flittering about dangerously like moths round a candle, but hanging together on thin threads. A change comes half way through as Ms Fiscella tries desperately to stay awake as she sings some "proper verses" over simple, understated drums.
On "Leslie", a naïve ambling clattering of drums, percussion and twangy guitar floats along nicely. The sun is out, it's spring, and squirrels hop from branch to twig, until after a deep breath, a moaning and a wailing hails drums building and falling, against a feathery warm duvet of laptop gurgling. The track sinks into colder regions, the sun is obscured by dark clouds and guttural words can be made out as bassy low bit drones fill out the space?as the voice soars, we quiet down to almost nothing as Tristana pleads, please please please please, please Leslie come home!
Maybe it's the sound of Tristana Fiscella's voice or the lemony nature of the first track, but this awakens something in my severely damaged memory and, on hands and knees I finger my way along my vinyl shelf until I dust off Danielle Dax, and more specifically her early work in the Lemon Kittens (hence the lemons). This was a pleasant reminder of the lovely Ms Dax, and the observation that experimentation when in feminine hands is simply and wonderfully NON-po-faced and refreshingly UN-nerdy!
And there is something feminine and charming about The Caution Curves, that is pastoral and free. The warmness of the laptop sounds that fill the air are delightful, the voice is improvised and happily carefree and unselfconscious. The drums although nicely recorded, are verging on the amateur, and it takes a while for me to decide whether I like them like this or whether someone needs a few lessons?but finally I decide that I not only like them like this, I love them like this...don't change?please?
As my favourite German improvisers, Can once said? I want more? (furthernoise.org)
Capillary Action http://www.capillaryaction.net/ For all intents and purposes, Capillary Action is Philadelphia native and Oberlin College junior Jonathan Pfeffer accompanied live by keyboardist Sam Krulewitch, drummer Ricardo Lagomasino, and bassist Spencer Russell.
The music is hard to describe in simple terms: on Capillary Action's 2004 debut, Fragments (Pangaea Recordings), Pfeffer demonstrated an uncanny ability to dip into everything from melodic death metal rave-ups, fractured no wave-inspired crescendos, Latin rhythms, video game music, lazy alt-country pop, lounge jazz, new wave synths, and mathy melodies -- sometimes all within the same song.
But on Capillary Action's sophomore effort, Cannibal Impulses (Pangaea Recordings), Pfeffer discards the eclectic math rock stylings of Fragments for something completely fresh. Incorporating influences ranging from the meticulous nature of early 20th century classical and the satisfying crunch of chip tunes music to the insistent melodies of Javanese Gamelan and the heavily orchestrated soundscapes of Japanese noise artists, Cannibal Impulses is a harsh and challenging expedition into Jonathan Pfeffer's warped psyche.
"Fragments is a nifty guitar record that plays well with different moods and feels, making for a cohesive whole that flows from track to track in an almost suite-like fashion. It's an assured debut, and Pfeffer is a clearly talented musician who bears watching to see where he'll take his craft." (Joe Tangari, Pitchfork Media, #46 on Joe Tangari's Best of 2005 List)
"It's impressive that Pfeffer managed to make an instrumental guitar rock record with a lot of genre-changing and without a single style to call its own (there is no Capillary Action sound in the same way that there was a Don Caballero sound), all without ever entering jam band territory. Pfeffer's songs are compact, and they're full of unexpected changes rather than endless repetition." (Charlie Wilmoth, Dusted)
Zdrastvootie http://www.myspace.com/zdrastvootie "Holy Mountain, the label that has so far essentially been home to only two artists, Six Organs Of Admittance, and Steven Wray Lobdell (and of course his Davis Redford Triad) has finally drawn new blood, seeking psychedelic sustanence from outside their very elite holy land. Coming soon, massive, lugubrious psych drone from OM (ex-Sleep!) but first stop, Santa Cruz, and the curiously named Zdrastvootie. The minute we threw this on, we immediately thought: Polvo plays Torch of the Mystics (the Sun City Girls classic). And we haven't really been able to come up with a more apt description. Angular guitars woven into dreamy post-rock soundscapes, occasional Greg Ginn-like psychedelic squalls, all with a very Eastern raga-like hue. Rollicking and shambolic one moment, shimmering and pastoral the next. Riffs explode into full-on rock mode but immediately decay into splattery, spare ambience. Chaotic skronk and skree implode into propulsive Krautrock mesmer. Really fucking great." (Aquarius)
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Friday, August 17
Velvet Lounge
915 U St NW WDC
http://www.velvetloungedc.com 202-462-3213
$8, doors at 9pm, 21+
Religious Knives (Troubleman, mem. of Double Leopards/Mouthus/White Rock)
Thee Ultimate VAG (DC improv guitar/percussion duo, mem. of Kohoutek/To Live and Shave in L.A.)
Woods (mem. of Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice/Meneguar, Fuck It Tapes/Release the Bats)
Twilight Memories of the Three Suns (DC experimental acoustic sounds, mem. of Kohoutek/Piasa/Alzo Bozsormenyi)
Religious Knives http://www.doubleleopards.org http://www.heavytapes.com Religious Knives is Maya Miller, Michael Bernstein and Nate Nelson. They spend a lot of their time playing in bands like Double Leopards, White Rock, and Mouthus, and running labels like Heavy Tapes and Our Mouth. This recent incarnation of Religious Knives has been compared to Goblin and Popul Vuh, which is chill, because who wouldn't love that? Electric piano, guitar, drums, percussion, tapes, effects, and plenty of singing, moaning, and screaming all find themselves together at last in Brooklyn, New York. Come and love with them today.
The circle-jerk noise-rock scene has ensured that you've probably never heard of Religious Knives. The New York trio??consisting of members of more "popular" groups Mouthus and Double Leopards??originally issued the recordings collected on Remains on limited-edition CD-R and vinyl, and the group is more likely to mount an art-gallery installation than a conventional tour. The five instrumental tracks on Remains make an argument for Religious Knives' promotion from the avant-garde minor leagues, and if one of Paul Bowles' surrealist desert novels ever gets adapted for film, the score is already finished. From the krautrock/industrial groove of the 16-minute "Bind Them" and the muezzin-call drone of "Electricity And Air" to the Scott Walker-in-Morocco murk of "Wax & Flesh," the sonic equation is easy to figure out: East Germany meets the Middle East meets the East Coast. (Matthew Fritch)
Thee Ultimate VAG http://www.claviusproductions.org http://www.myspace.com/accidentswithmagnets Dreamy moonlit melodies as imagined by axeslinger Chris Grier (To Live and Shave in L.A./Sean McArdle Band/ex-Mungo Jerry) and skinpounder Scott Verrastro (Kohoutek/Insect Factory/Sequence Chair/ex-Ozark Mountain Daredevils). Setting a course for the heartland of America, this duo contructs ribald ditties derived from ancient Guatemalan ballads translated to these modern, not-so-chaste times. Bring your lambskin, earplugs, and a box of chocolates.
Woods http://www.fuckittapes.com/woods.htm Woods began in the woods, at the foot of Bear Mountain. In the earliest days it was a collaborative improvisational group with two core members and several guests, known as "woodsists." Shortly thereafter, Jeremy Earl and Christian DeRoeck emerged from the woods, dusted themselves off, and began to walk upright. The two woodsists immersed themselves in human culture, learned to craft a melody, to wield a tambourine, to construct a crude phonograph from spare bicycle parts. They learned the value of a cassette. Jeremy and Christian returned to the woods and shared their newfound knowledge with the other woodsists. The result was Woods, songs and improvisations by outsiders, inspired by the human experience.
"Spawn of the holy Meneguar are The Woods and their completely rad debut. Originally put out on The Woods' own Jeremy Earl's Fuck It Tapes label as a double c20 near the end of '05, Release the Bats has now done it up as a proper CD. Sometimes, the four short sides seem like an advantage, giving the short album a distinct pacing and more proper feel but others I just feel like I'm flipping stuff over too much too often. The sound quality here sucks but the scratchy cassettes fit this band perfectly. I can only hope that the Release the Bats CD doesn't clean it up a terrible amount. The album founded mostly in acoustic guitar-led folkiness with the duo laying down massive vocal hook after massive vocal hook in reedy falsetto but the influence of Fuck It is evident: the pop songs are visited frequently by noise, tape trickery, massive psych guitar, retarded classic rock soloing, glockenspiel and, on one occasion, larynx-ruining hardcore vocals. The lyrics here deal with the oft-trodden grounds of love and loss but the boys' singing voices give them an abstract feel; as if you have no idea what they're singing about even though you know exactly what's going down. All the songs here have any extremely unified feel, making discussing them individually useless. An album doesn't have to be varied to be great. Didn't Loveless teach you that?" (Fakejazz)
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Clavius Productions presents the debut of Not Bullshit, a DJ night -- first Mondays at the Velvet Lounge -- for people who hate DJ nights. And to show you we're not full of shit, we are celebrating with live sets by a couple of kickass noise-rock bands and a couple of brain-raping noise acts. No spinning during music sets allowed!
Saturday, August 18
Velvet Lounge
915 U St NW WDC
http://www.velvetloungedc.com 202-462-3213
$7, doors at 9pm, 21+
Catacombs of Rome (garagy synth-punk from Milwaukee, in the vein of Drive Like Jehu/Devo/Silver Apples/Chrome/Brainiac)
Tenement (Wisconsin punk rock!)
Byron House (noisy scum-rock duo from Tampa FL)
Oubliette (solo analog noise/tape loops from GA)
Haves and Thirds (five-minute walkman-and-guitar set, from Tampa FL)
plus DJ sets by members of Kohoutek and The Points!
Catacombs of Rome http://www.myspace.com/catacombsofrome Sounds like: If Devo smoked a J laced with katnip, then performed a Herniorraphy on an Arena Rock band (such as .38 Special). Maybe throw a conjoined twin or two in there and you have our sound.
About: We don't take ourselves too seriously, which has helped us play music together for 5 years. We sweat a lot. We released a split EP with Jackalope in March of 2006 called "Chapter 1: Talking On the Telephone." We write songs about people. Bill Hicks saved our lives, so did Hot Snakes. The Jerk is the best movie ever made. We tend to watch the show Cops a little too much. We'll play in your living room if you want us to.
Byron House http://www.cephiastreat.com/ A two-piece guitar/vocals/drums noisy scum-rock band. Have been playing for the past five years. Performances include self-induced hysteria, irrational momentum and "crazy eyes". Based out of Tampa, Florida.
Oubliette http://www.myspace.com/0ubliette http://www.obelisksounds.hostrocket.com Dude from the back woods of Clyo, Georgia. He plays broken analog equipment and hand-sliced tape loops. He usually enjoys playing with his upper torso covered in barbed wire.
Haves and Thirds One man band who performs with an old '80s hood and aviator sunglasses over his face to build the mystery. Plays the most blissed-out, body-moving balm music you've heard in just five minutes. Just a walkman and a guitar. Tampa, Florida.
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Sunday, August 19
Velvet Lounge
915 U St NW WDC
http://www.velvetloungedc.com 202-462-3213
$7, doors at 9pm, 21+
Jack Wright (improv solo sax from PA)
Safe (DC analog electronics/tapes/shortwave radio duo)
Scott Allison (of Kohoutek, solo electronics/guitar textures/field recordings)
Jack Wright http://www.springgardenmusic.com/jackbio.html Over the past twenty-five years Jack Wright has been a bold saxophonist, as well as an influential musical personality. Either on tour or organizing the next one, he has played in virtually every venue available to experimental improvised music in the US, and many in Europe as well. In 1982 he created Spring Garden Music as a vehicle for organizing an improvisational music community, with a home base at his house in Philadelphia, now a residence for improvisers. He has been called the Johnny Appleseed of free improvisation for his encouragement to young players. As a musical explorer as well, his music passes through radical shifts of style and approach from one year to the next, yet always somehow identifiable as his own. These days he is playing mostly alto and soprano saxophones, in every possible direction, sometimes even recognizable as such. He lives in Easton, which enables him to commute easily to NYC and Phila. He is also increasingly active in Europe, touring both sides of the Atlantic with European musicians.
The Washington Post once allowed this to be printed: "In the rarefied, underground world of experimental free improvisation, saxophonist Jack Wright is king." And a German publication, Bad Alchemy, had this to say of his solo: "Wright does not make music, he embodies it, he transforms it with a naiveté of another order. It grows into a sound river, he is part of the diaphragm through which the heterogeneous whispers."
Jack has over sixty partners around the US and in Europe with whom he plays on his travels and records. His most recent tours have been with Fabrizio Spera and Alberto Braida in Italy; with Agnes Palier and Olivier Toutlemond in France, Switzerland and Germany, with Michael Johnsen and Sebastien Cirotteau in Europe; with French soprano sax player Michel Doneda and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani in Japan, France and the US; Carol Genetti, sound vocalist of Chicago, and Jon Mueller, percussionist of Milwaukee; cellist Bob Marsh of the Bay area; Nate Wooley, trumpet, of NYC in Europe; Michael Griener percussion and Sabine Vogel flute of Berlin; Reuben Radding, NYC bassist; and Phil Durrant, English laptop musician.
Safe The new improvisational collaboration of Tyler Higgins and Dave Vosh. Employing assorted electro-acoustic devices and modular synthesizer, they focus on the sound emitted by machines, sounds derived from radio and slowly evolving noise. Dave has been experimenting with electro-noise music since the early `70s and this project with Tyler is among the first things he`s done since escaping the basement last year. Tyler has been creatively misusing technology alongside other musical pursuits since high school, recently focusing on very direct ways of producing and manipulating sound.
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JUST ANNOUNCED! Sunday 9/2 @ Velvet Lounge:
Eugene Chadbourne & Jimmy Carl Black (original Mothers of Invention member, the Indian of the group!)
