MetroMusicScene

Friday Night Videos - Spoop(k)y Season with Matt Pond PA

2023-10-27T14:29:00.001-04:00

Fitting that this blog should return from a seemingly endless slumber with a Lazarean video from none other than Matt Pond PA. "Halloween 2" is a sonic if not lyrical successor to the 2005 prequel single from the 2005 album Several Arrows Later. Lyrics steeped in horror movie tropes highlight this duet with Virginia-born singer-songwriter Alexa Rose.

Punk-like in duration if not intensity, "Halloween 2" is both familiar and fresh. Steeped in gorgeous chamber pop sounds that wouldn't sound out of place on classic albums like The Green Fury or The Nature of Maps, the lyrics reflect the vulnerability for which Pond is known, tempered with what seems like a greater sense of self-awareness. Dare I say, it sounds like the work of a man who knows himself better, has stripped away the pretense and posturing of youth, and figured out how to be happy? It seems that Pond's marriage to Anya Marina is a harbinger of happier things to come.

After years of debate (Will he or won't he quit music?), struggles with his former record label, a diversion into the outfit The Natural Lines, it seems that Matt Pond PA is back(-ish). A full EP is on the horizon at a yet-to-be-determined date. And I have to say, I am here for it.

Friday Night Videos - Dee Holt, Sam Himself, and Bestfriend

2023-01-27T13:29:00.001-05:00

Today's #FridayNightVideos post features an international trio of newcomers to MMS.

First we have 19 year-old Montreal bedroom pop singer dee holt. The singer-songwriter, who's balancing a burgeoning music career with university art and animation studies, does her own single and album artwork while directing and animating her own videos. Her quirky, densely-layered style of bedroom pop will be familiar to fans of Billie Eilish. "Better" is Ramones-like in its economy, clocking in at a taut 2:02. RANGE has named her to their Class of 2023, an honor bestowed on up and coming Canadian artists, and TeenVogue has deemed her "one to watch". I predict this will be a busy year for her.

Next up we have Sam Himself, the Swiss-born, New York-based indie rocker. A self-described "Fondue Western" singer, a nod to his origin and his soaring, romanticized lyrics, Sam lives at the intersection of gravelly indie rockers like We Are Augustines and Neo-Western acts like Lord Huron. "Heartland" is catchy and soaring, painting us a whistle-punctuated story of the romance of the road as an analogy for the pull of a long-distance lover. His second LP, "Never Let Me Go", is out today on Sony Records.

Wrapping up our trio of videos is "Anxious People" by Canadian indie duo Bestfriend. Vocalist Stacy Kim and keyboardist Kaelan Geoffrey make music the Postal Service way, swapping files back and forth between Stacy in Vancouver and Kaelan in Toronto. Their breezy, lo-fi sound spans generations and invites comparisons to bands like Ivy and Stolen Jars. The video is a low-key panic attack set to music, a series of vignettes where everyday actions become glitches in the matrix. Bestfriend's sophomore EP, "places i've left", is out April 21 on Nettwerk.

New Music Monday - "Really Really Light" by the New Pornographers

2023-01-09T16:40:00.002-05:00

Today #NewMusicMonday feature is "Really Really Light", the brand new single and video from Canadian-American übergroup The New Pornographers. This is the first single from the band's ninth studio album Continue as a Guest, out on March 31 from Merge Records. The song, both by itself and as part of the larger arc of the album, are the musings of a person reckoning with mortality and sliding comfortably into his or her prime and beyond. The New Pornographers have been around sufficiently long to have burst into our consciousness and exited and re-entered the cultural zeitgeist a couple of times now.

Over the course of five albums between 2000 and 2010, the Pornos established themselves as arguably Canada's greatest indie rock band, churning out release after release packed with densely layered harmonies and lush, complicated, and undeniably catchy melodies. After a four-year recording hiatus the band returned like a band possessed with Brill Bruisers, an album characterized by a more upbeat and electrified sound inspired by bands like Kraftwerk. Over the course of 3 albums and 5 years, this new look New Pornos band featured a freshly energized sound, increasingly cinematic videos worthy of study in film classes, and the slow fade-out of original band member and Destroyer frontman Dan Bejar.

This song serves as a bridge between past and present, a reworking of a tune co-written by Bejar and bandleader Carl Newman that didn't make it onto the finished Brill Bruisers. "Really Really Light" still features the electro-pop influences of their past 3 albums, overlaid by a propulsive, guitar-driven sound more illustrative of earlier entries in the Pornos oeuvre. It's a sound that wouldn't be unfamiliar to fans of indie rockers The Weakerthans or Built to Spill.

The video, directed by LA-based filmmaker Christian Cerezo, serves as a striking visual accompaniment to the song. It features an ice skater performing a routine against the backdrop of a warehouseat, seemingly unbothered by the mundane setting. "Continue as a Guest" feels like a philosophical meta-analogue to the campsite rule, which for the uninitiated recommends leaving a campsite in better condition than you found it (or, in Dan Savage's case, as applied to relationships). We're here for such a vanishingly brief time, and the enforced isolation of the pandemic gave many of us the pause we needed to reset expectations in our lives. It's OK to not be cool, to be a little out of the loop, and to decide to do what's best for yourself rather than what other expect of you.

Dear reader(s), you may have have been wondering where I went and why I decided to return now. The simple answer is that the song struck a chord for me. I've long been on the Pornos express, and it's my wholly unqualified contention that Carl Newman is North America's greatest living songwriter. Dan Bejar is back in the band, and it feels like we've come full circle. Am I going to resume regular blogging? I can't answer that question with certainty. The good news is that it's pretty frictionless to do so if I want to.

So watch the new video, pre-order the new album and their march if you're so inclined, catch a show on their upcoming tour, and find your dharma.

Christian Cerezo

Friday Night Videos - Pronoun Edition

2020-07-31T18:32:00.003-04:00

Tonight we have a pair of very different videos that deal with time, relationships, and inevitability, with the common thread of a pronoun in the title of each. First we have the breathy and gorgeous "Now You Want to Live in the Light" from Quebec's Land of Talk. This is the fifth single from the band's Indistinct Conversations, out today on Saddle Creek. Land of Talk frontwoman and nexus Elizabeth Powell might be Canada's closest analogue to Laura Gibson, a high priestess of the inward looking, empress of the introverts. This video, as with a few others from the album, includes Canadian First Nations dancer and multidisciplinary artist Lara Kramer. The song, described as "a poem set to music" about the "tender negotiations between the light and dark parts of ourselves", takes on a haunting quality as we watch Kramer move about the back of an open trailer. She struggles, rocks, tentatively takes to her feet, a lo-fi moving tableau of an individual's battle against self-imposed constraints. It's a typical hauntingly beautiful song from a Canadian treasure.

Next up is "Plans We Made" from LA experimental electronic outfit Son Lux. Originally the solo project of composer Ryan Lott, the band expanded to a trio with the addition of Rafiq Bhatia and Ian Change on guitar and drums. The song reflects the fundamental struggle within ourselves and in our relationships, the tragedy of importance and the struggle against our better angels and best intentions. "Plans We Made" is the lead single from a three-volume cycle of albums collectively named Tomorrows, the first of which will be out August 14 on City Slang. The accompanying video is billed as the "Official Visualizer", a collection of rotating perspectives of what appears to be a meteor in light and darkness above an unnamed and uninhabited planet.

Wednesday is for (Art Rock) Lovers

2020-07-28T22:17:00.003-04:00

Today we have a couple of videos from veteran art rock bands finding novel ways to broaden their creative horizons in the middle of a pandemic. First up are Wye Oak, the venerable Baltimore duo of Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack now alternately based in Durham, NC, and Marfa, TX. "AEIOU" is the lead single from the forthcoming No Horizon EP, is an elliptical meditation on how language can be simultaneously powerful and impotent, formalistic yet imprecise. The duo collaborates with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus to craft a sound that's inherently Wye Oak, yet utterly unlike any of their previous work. No Horizon is out on Merge Records on Friday.

Next up we have "Violent Sun" from Mancunian electro-pop quartet Everything Everything. Despite having been around nearly as long as Wye Oak, being the recipients of a slew of Mercuy Prize shortlists and Ivor Novello Award nominations, I'll confess that this is a band with which I was not immediately familiar. Sonically chameleonic, they can sound like a less dour version of Doves, a feverish Coldplay-Hot Chip collaboration, or Radiohead trying their hand at a Frightened Rabbit cover, all on the same album.

A week into the pandemic lockdown the band learned that their studio storage building burned down. They seized the opportunity to "play" their ruined instruments for this video, an uptempo OK Go-esque ode to holding onto every precious moment against the backdrop of something truly terrible happening. "Violent Sun" is the latest single from their forthcoming fifth album, RE-ANIMATOR, whose release has been pushed to September 11. If you want to check out their DC cred, look at the t-shirt their drummer is sporting in the "Night of the Long Knives" video.

What is America?

2020-07-03T16:51:00.001-04:00

It seems fitting to reflect on our uniquely American values in a year marred by pandemic and social unrest, set against the backdrop of the most consequential Presidential election in the country's history. The last in-person music event I attended was David Byrne's American Utopia in February, just prior to its closing. Little did I know then that it might be my last show of the year.

This post was inspired by a video of the young descendants of Frederick Douglass reading selections from his famous speech delivered to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society the day after Independence Day of 1852. I was moved to hear his descendants read the words, "The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. ", knowing that they're still true 168 years after Douglass spoke them.

It was more than a little wistfully that I viewed the last Tiny Desk Concert filmed at NPR HQ prior to the pandemic. I'm not a believer in predestination, but it seems almost divinely inspired that Sudan Archives, an African-American violinist who blends hip-hop and R&B with African and Irish music, would be the artist to record that set. For this Tiny Desk, she eschewed electronic instrumentation in favor of a string quartet. I hope she gives her debut album, Athena, this unplugged Tiny Desk treatment.

Another pleasant surprise was the news that Heartless Bastards had released their first single in five years. A slow-burning meditation on the state of the nation that builds to a thunderous crescendo, "Revolution" not only serves as a fundraiser for the American Civil Liberties Union but also as a reminder of the circumstances in which this country was created. For better or for worse, we're still fighting to live up to those ideals, and to provide equality of opportunity to all Americans.

This is America, a nation in some ways still trying to find its away, taking steps both backwards and forwards, sometimes simultaneously, a fractious confederation of people with their own ideas of how to realize the promise of the founding fathers.

New Music Monday - Americana Crossover Style

2020-06-29T17:22:00.001-04:00

Today's #NewMusicMonday features a pair of a pair of Americana artists traveling down new sonic roadways, broadening their reach and the impact of their music. First up we have guitar virtuoso Molly Tuttle with a cover of The National's "Fake Empire". The video features Tuttle playing against a project backdrop of psychedelic imagery and protest videos. In this way, she turns up the heat on the post-ironic torpor of the original and transforms the song into a subtly searing critique of apathy. Tuttle, the first woman awarded Guitar Player of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association, won back-to-back awards in 2017 and 2018. "Fake Empire" is the lead single from …but I’d rather be with you, an album of covers she recorded in quarantine. The album is out via Compass Records on August 28.

Next up we have indie folk artist Becca Mancari. Besides her intricate solo work, Mancari is known for her role in folk trio Bermuda Triangle with Alabama Shakes' Brittany Howard. She's back with a new record The Greatest Part, produced by Paramore's Zac Farro. Leaving behind the folkier sound of her earlier releases, Mancari pursues a jangly, synth-heavy sound. The funky, sepia-tinged "Hunter" slowly unfurls to tell a harrowing tale of trauma and defiance, the lyrics inspired by Mancari's experience with a church-affiliated stalker. The song recalls fuzzier, feedback-drenched Wye Oak.

Wednesday is for Apocalypse Lovers

2020-06-24T19:30:00.001-04:00

And no, we're not talking about whatever entry that was in the increasingly tortured X-Men cinematic universe. No, we have a pair of songs from longtime MMS favorites that are suitably eschatologically-themed for release during a pandemic.

First up, we have Phoebe Bridgers. Since 2017, she's rocketed from indie breakout to in-demand producer and uber-collaborator, releasing albums with Conor Oberst as Better Oblivion Community Center and with Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker as boygenius. She just dropped a new album, Punisher, which doesn't involve any Death's Heads but does pack a mighty lyrical and sonic wallop. The concluding track, "I Know the End", is a fictionalized account of a real road trip through California, where she witnessed both the pinnacle of human achievement in a Space X launch and the dystopian wasteland parts of America have become. The song is 2 1/2 minute of the sweetly sparse indie folk for which Phoebe is known, followed by a slow-churning and symphonic crescendo worthy of The National or another Sufjan Stevens concept album. It's an astonishing, horn-drenched journey through the tinfoil-hat universe, with breathless production values that call to mind exquisitely crafted albums like Death Cab's Directions or Depeche Mode's Black Celebration.

Next up we have a heaping helping of Canadian blue-eyed soul from Basia Bulat. She released a new album, Are You in Love?, as we were settling into the "new normal" near the end of March. The final track on this album is appropriately named "Love is at the End of the World". Returning to a formula that worked so well on her 2016 album, Good Advice, Basia collaborated with Jim James to add some organ-driven psychedelic girl group groove to her sound. This is a song you listen to turned up to full blast with the top down on a dusty back road late on a too-hot July afternoon.

Friday Night Music Fight - Life's Fleeting Nature

2019-11-15T23:07:00.002-05:00

Dear reader(s), my output has dropped of late. I haven't been able to summon the energy to write while dealing with a loss in the family. A very sweet light went dark too soon, leaving my family to pick up the pieces. Days are growing shorter, the dark and cold are rapidly encroaching on our fair burg, and I have been ruminating on loss. This is nothing new, nor especially profound. Hobbes wrote that life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" more than 350 years ago, and Palahniuk mused on the topic, "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero".

First up we have MMS favorite Laura Gibson with the title track from last year's exquisite Goners. Like so many of her songs, this one is more abstrusely personal than broadly philosophical, filtered through her famously wry sense of humor. She sings "Here comes the end/of the future/if we're already goners" over the gentle swelling of horns, a future as lovely as it is bleak. No stranger to exorcising her personal demons through song, "Goners" feels like a spiritual successor to the equally lovely "Empire Builder", another lyric video about relationships in uncertain states. I've described Ms. Gibson as the musical laureate of the deeply introverted, her songs like Mary Oliver poems backed by instruments.

Next up wt have the stunningly animated "Ends of the Earth" from Lord Huron. This is the leadoff track from Lonesome Dreams, the first of a pair of perfect bookends of soaring high lonesome Western folk from these Michiganders turned Angelenos. Like the video, the song has an almost mythic quality to it, as our protagonist sets out to find the destination of a "river that winds on forever", scale a "mountain that no man has mounted", and plant his flag in "a land that time don't command". The entirety of the song is a plea to our singer's love interest to join him on his quest, asking her "To the ends of the earth, would you follow me?". As lovely as this song is, it doesn't end happily for our hero, as proceeds down that river alone.

Finally we have of Montreal's "Wraith Pinned to the Mist", a standout track from their 2005 album The Sunlandic Twins. While it's probably better known in its Outback Steakhouse incarnation, this has all the hallmarks of bandleader (and only permanent member) Kevin Barnes' lyrics—his fondness for mythology and wordplay, interspersed with the elegiac. He pines for a future where he'll live forever, growing ever younger with the object of his affections. When the tragedy of that overtakes him, he resorts to playful nihilism with "Let's pretend we don't exist, let's pretend we're in Antarctica".

Who wins this #FNMF? We all win, at least until we lose. Keep listening to the music you love, and keep telling the people about whom you care how you feel about them. "Do not go gentle into that good night".

This Boy's Life Among the Electrical Lights - The New Pornographers at 9:30 Club

2019-11-06T03:50:00.000-05:00

Life is change, expression, rebellion, experimentation, solidification, reinvention, acknowledgement, acceptance, and finally....change of a more permanent sort. Our tastes and fashions morph over time, with my journey winding its way through ragged goth to fratty prep to card-carrying REI member with a dash of Southern flair. Our musical tastes also change over time, with more science, better data, and deeper introspection fueling our re-examination for those of us who listen to new music after the age of 33...a rough age for Chris Farley, Nipsey Hussle, John Belushi, and Jesus Christ. My musical North Star has changed through the seasons of my life, those terrible early days listening to late-stage Pink Floyd and unfortunate hair bands that crystallized in my love of the dreary New Wave of Depeche Mode; my voyage Down Under to worship at the altar of Neil Finn and Crowded House; an early summer flirtation with the abstruse anxiety of Death Cab and the Shins.

One band that's been a constant companion over nearly the last two decades has been The New Pornographers, the multi-headed hydra of Canadian and American indie pop icons, instrumentalists, and singers. Why has this band stuck with me? I have a number of theories, but ultimately I really don't know. I've always been a sucker for a great hook, and New Pornos frontman and chief songwriter Carl "AC" Newman is a pop genius in the mold of Brian Wilson, without the mental illness (and in case you're wondering, IMHO Beach Boys > Beatles). Is it that they're contemporaries of mine? I suppose that's reasonable, but I'm as close in age to Ben Gibbard and James Mercer as I am to the Newman and New Pornos co-lead vocalist Neko Case. Perhaps my tastes didn't stylistically dovetail with Death Cab's stadium ambitions, or with Mercer firing the rest of the Shins for "aesthetic" reasons. As Chuck Palahniuk wrote, "We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." I don't write this blog to get rich or famous, or further any agenda other than to share music I love with those who care to read and listen. I've loved every New Pornos album, and I've only gained a deeper appreciation for their artistry the farther down this road I go with them.

Photo by Brian Flores

Across eight albums, the Pornos have been with me through the hottest days of the summer of my life and into its early autumn. That realization was front and center in a yeoman-like set tonight at DC's 9:30 Club. Clocking in just shy of 2 hours and a few north of 20 songs, the Pornos—original members Newman, Case, John Collins, and Blaine Thurier, longtime members Kathryn Calder and Todd Fancey, and newer additions Joe Seiders and Simi Stone—demonstrated that they are a band both in and of the moment, their perpetual deconstruction, reconfiguration, and experimentation their key to their consistency and longevity. Newman's magnificent shock of red hair is mostly silver now, and Neko Case must have a portrait hanging somewhere showing the ravages of time. She's ageless, timeless, and without peer, as much the beating heart of the band as Newman is its mastermind. The newest Porno, Simi Stone, brings a drop of freshness to a band that lost a bit of offbeat charm when they announced that Dan Bejar was, at least momentarily, no longer in the lineup.

The band opened with "Falling Down the Stairs of Your Smile", the lead single from In the Morse Code of Brake Lights. They veered pretty quickly from their latest release to "Dancehall Domine" (from their 2014 album Brill Bruisers), to "Sing Me Spanish Techno" and "Stacked Crooked" from their breakout Twin Cinema. While "Stacked Crooked" and Challengers' My Rights Versus Yours were unexpected additions back to their live playlist, the band largely hewed to what it does best—smart, high octane pop like "Moves" and "Crash Years" from their 2010 release Together, the unruly punk-inflected rock of "The Laws Have Changed" and fan singalong favorite "Testament To Youth In Verse" from their sophomore effort Electric Version. They filled in the cracks with the muscular layered vocals of Brill Bruisers' title track, and gave Neko Case and Kathryn Calder room to showcase the band's excellent balance of vocalists on songs like "Champions of Red Wine" and "Adventures in Solitude".

The absence of Bejar meant the deeper and murkier end of the catalogue, songs like "Silver Jenny Dollar" and "Myriad Harbor", will probably not be featured on future setlists. Perhaps her vocal parts could be turned over to Stone to give them a new outlook and fresh coat of paint. Her violin adds depth and versatility to songs, but it would be nice to see her take on the occasional lead vocal.

This is less of a review and more of a personal reflection, but even as my tastes change I don't see my loyalty to the New Pornographers waning. I can unironically say that they are my favorite band, and I don't envision that changing as long as they keep doing what they dare to do.

Friday Night Music Fight - Queen of Jeans vs Sigma

2019-08-30T14:46:00.003-04:00

It's Friday before a holiday weekend, and I'm feeling punchy from the long week behind me. This was the inspiration for the Friday Night Music Fight, a blog post featuring songs with warring titles or opposing lyrics.

In this corner, hailing from Philadelphia, we have Queen of Jeans. Billing themselves as "two gay vegans plus one beautiful boy omnivore", the band's slyly self-deprecating description of their sound as "denimcore" and "crockpot pop" underplays the lyrical and aural density and depth of their songs. "Get Lost", the lead single from their week-old If you're not afraid, I'm not afraid, is another song in a wave of offerings from young songwriters who simultaneously thread the fine line between strength and vulnerability. Kicking off with a solitary guitar riff that wouldn't be out of place on a classic Cars album, "Get Lost" explores a relationship the singer knew better than to enter but doesn't regret exiting. Miri Devora's voice dances over the pathos in her lyrics, starting out bobbing and weaving before the uppercut of the song's cathartic visual and sonic crescendo. If you like Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Angel Olsen, you'll feel right at home in the court of Queen of Jeans.

In the opposing corner our challenger is the British drum and bass duo Sigma, featuring vocals by Birdy, with their single "Find Me". This is the unapologetically romantic, almost glum, tale of lovers in a decaying orbit who can't help but keep finding their way back to one other. Built around a piano riff with shades of Jon Brion's excellent Eternal Sunshine score, this is another slow burner that transitions from a stationary perspective to a backward tracking shot of actor, rapper, and all-around "It girl" Millie Bobby Brown traveling through the streets of London lip-syncing the lyrics.

Who do you think would prevail? The baseball bat-wielding popster from South Philly, or the British duo and their telekinetic avatar. My suggestion is to never bet against a fighter from the City of Brotherly Love, and to check out Queen of Jeans next Thursday when they drop in to Songbyrd.

New Music Monday - Shura, Alison Sudol, and Jamie Drake

2019-08-19T22:03:00.002-04:00

We have a trio of artists with recent or forthcoming releases for #NewMusicMonday. First up is the British electro-popster Shura. The child of a Russian actress and an English documentarian, Shura swims in the same ocean of astute, danceable synth-pop as Robyn and Rhye. An out lesbian as well an atheist, her fascination with religion and the notion of forbidden fruit shine through in the chic video for "religion (u can lay your hands me)". Her album, Forevher, dropped Friday on Secretly Canadian. You can catch her at Union Stage on October 18.

Next up we have Alison Sudol, or Queenie Goldstein for the Potterheads among us. The artist formerly known as A Fine Frenzy has been recording and releasing music under her own name since 2015. A multi-hyphenate talent who writes fiction in addition to acting and singing, Alison crafts hypnotic, literary-tinged pop music that wouldn't feel out of place in a playlist among Lykke Li, Bat for Lashes, and The Knife. You can catch her in support of her forthcoming Moonlite EP at the Rock and Roll Hotel on September 15. For now, check out her single "The Runner".

We'll end the night with the new single from Jamie Drake. An LA-based singer, she spins beautifully-woven electro-folk webs. Her voice is a smokier version of Imogen Heap's plaintive mezzo-soprano, and songs like the exquisite "Redwood Tree" demonstrate the pop sensibilities of Andrew Bird. Her album Everything's Fine drops September 20th on AntiFragile Music, and you can catch her at
DC9 on October 25th with Cat Clyde.

Wednesday Is For Lovers of Warm Weather and Human Flesh

2019-08-14T02:04:00.000-04:00

Today's #WIFL post could do double-duty for #TBT, as our concert preview for this weekend includes a band I saw in April at what has, to date, been my favorite show of 2019. Summer Cannibals was one of the opening bands for pop-punk outfit Slothrust at Ottobar, a night that also introduced me to Baltimore's delightful Outer Spaces.

I've seen countless young bands and artists play, from early-ish shows by The National, Sharon Van Etten at the now-shuttered Red Palace, to Ra Ra Riot at Ottobar and Vampire Weekend at the 9:30 Club. The Summer Cannibals were a revelation, a collective that thrummed with energy and exploded with joy onstage. If the rhythm section of Devon Shirley and Ethan Butman isn't illegal in 17 or so states for its syrupy, thumping low end, it probably should be. You will dance to their music, and you will like it. Their sound draws inspiration from the bass-heavy legacies of Garbage and Hole, in addition to their discernible nod to early PNW punk and riot grrrl bands.

The above-the-fold story here is the interplay between bandleader Jessica Boudreaux and lead guitarist Cassi Blum. Watching the two of them shred onstage in Charm City, I had no idea that Blum was a relatively recent addition to the band. Summer Cannibals has undergone lineup and behind-the-boards changes in the last few years, going so far as to scrap a completed album amid the fallout of the dissolution of a relationship that crossed personal and professional lines. Blum might be the co-pilot Boudreaux needs to rocket this band to stardom, and Summer Cannibals' onstage chemistry is as tight as that of any young-ish band I've seen.

You can catch Summer Cannibals headlining Comet Ping Pong this Sunday with Field Mouse and Panini Girlfriend. DO. NOT. MISS. THIS. SHOW.

Photos by me

As an aside, check out Slothrust's riotously funny, often frustrating, take on Oregon Trail.

Wednesday Is For Lovers - Joyful Noises

2019-08-07T22:26:00.002-04:00

Today we received the devastating news that David Berman was found dead, and a report from Joe Pernice indicated that he committed suicide. Berman was the longtime bandleader of Silver Jews, and had recently returned with a new project named Purple Mountains. His music was an often dark and unflinching look into the tortured terrain of his own psyche.

So many of the musicians who have been so foundational to my life have died by their own hands - Crowded House's Paul Hester, Vic Chesnutt, Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse, and Frightened Rabbits' Scott Hutchison, to name a few. My PSA for the evening is this; please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 if you are in crisis. They're staffed 24 hours a day to provide confidential, no-cost support for people in distress and experiencing suicidal thoughts or urges.

I received an email earlier today about a surprise visual album from the band WHY?, the project from Yoni Wolf that has explored the sonic boundaries of hip-hop, psych-folk, and electronica. Titled AOKOHIO, the visual album features a contemporary narrative featuring Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany intercut with footage from the childhood of Yoni and his brother and collaborator Josiah.
Not unlike David Berman, Yoni Wolf and WHY? have never been shy about unburdening themselves via music. With past albums that included Alopecia and Mumps, Etc., as well as Yoni's well-documented struggles with Crohn's disease, music has served as both a creative and psychological outlet. AOKOHIO has elements of this struggle, Yoni's tongue planted firmly in his cheek as he tries to accept and rationalize relocating from the Bay Area back to his native Cincinnati.

Photo courtesy of Ryan Back

That said, AOKOHIO is a luminous experience, a truly transcendent moment for a an artist and a band that have long explored musical margins in search of new horizons. Yoni originally wanted to release the album piece-by-piece, but pivoted to exploring the concept visually when that idea was nixed by his record label. The album is structured in six movements, with some of the songs and visuals comprising each movement lasting mere seconds. It covers a vast amount of ground in nearly 32 minutes—the downtempo psych-folk and upbeat electronica of Animal Collective; the experimental and experiential hip-hop of Slug and Atmosphere; the gauzy California soul-pop of pre-POP ETC outfit The Morning Benders; the horn-accented experiments of San Fermin; and so on. Yoni's voice exists somewhere at the intersection of the growl of J Mascis, the breathy introspection of John K. Samson, and the nasal erudition of John Darnielle.

In case it's not abundantly clear, I love this visual album and look forward to the audio version due this Friday from Joyful Noise Recordings. These are dark times for many, and this album is a full-throated celebration of life in sometimes less-than-ideal circumstances. DC area fans can catch WHY? at U Street Music Hall on Sunday, August 25. Be real, be kind, and be present, both for yourself and for those you love.

MMS Monday Concert Preview - Nevermind Jetpacks, Where Are the Clones We Were Promised?

2019-07-29T16:36:00.001-04:00

Rarely have I wished I could be in two places at one time, and whether that contravention of the laws of physics comes in the form of a blue police box or a clone matters little to me (although the cleverly named and consciousness-sharing quadruplets of Starz' The Rook bring a novel take on the concept). Sci-fi nerdery aside, tomorrow brings an embarrassment of riches in terms of international artists playing in the DC-Baltimore corridor.

First up we have Scotland's We Were Promised Jetpacks, who remain near the top of any list of my favorite band names of all time (as well as that of unrealized predictions for the future). One of the great band debuts of the late aughts, These Four Walls tore the front and back doors off the hinges, punched holes in all the walls, and kicked out the windows for good measure with the band's unbridled energy. Often compared to country- and labelmates Frightened Rabbit, their songs were kinetic and propulsive, electric and extroverted as opposed to the more acoustic and inward-facing compositions of the late Scott Hutchison. "It's Thunder and It's Lightning", the album's opening track, is a perfect example of their songcraft - building from a guitar riff and barely audible opening lyric to the track's near feral crescendo.

You can catch the lads at U Street Music Hall tomorrow night, with Glaswegian guitar quartet Catholic Action opening.

On the stylistic flip side we have J.S. Ondara, the Minneapolis-by-way-of-Nairobi singer-songwriter weaving modern day fables of the experience of America through the lens of someone both black and foreign-born. Transfixed by the songs of Bob Dylan as a child, Ondara left Kenya and settled in the United States, finding himself drawn to the town where his idol began his music career. His songs are quintessential American folk, mining deeply into the music legacy of his black and white predecessors while incorporating the musical legacy of his home country. You can catch him tomorrow night at The 8x10 in Baltimore. I predict that we'll be seeing him in much larger venues, both in the DC area and across the country, in the very near future.

Wednesday is for DJ Shadow Lovers

2019-07-24T17:49:00.000-04:00

I've been mulling a #WIFL post about DJ Shadow for a while, but the timing couldn't be more opportune with the news that a collaboration with De La Soul dropped yesterday. DJ Shadow and De La Soul? AYFKM? These are artists that have produced some of my most beloved musical collaborations (Judgment Night soundtrack, anyone?), working together. I'm even willing to overlook that the single is included as part of the Madden 20 soundtrack. Check out the HQ audio and animated video version of the single.

Prior to this, arguably Shadow's highest profile recent team-up was the giddily NSFW "Nobody Speak", featuring Run The Jewels. Set against a backdrop of an intergovernmental meeting gone "Lord of the Flies" level of awry, I fear this song and video presage the state of American politics for decades to come.

Who could forget "Listen", his single with the incomparable Terry Reid? This was the man that Robert Plant considered one of the finest voices of his generation, the singer that Jimmy Page originally picked for his New Yardbirds project.

Finally we have the DJ Shadow remix of "We Might As Well Be Strangers" by Keane. I thought the remix improved upon the original by adding structure and urgency to a song that lacked both. The album version of WMAWBS landed with a gelatinous plop, despite its gorgeous lyrics and Tom Chaplin's deceptively angelic vocals. The remix imbued the chorus with an energy missing from the original lacked, the loopy electronics underneath hammering home the plaintiveness of the lyric.

New Music from The Maytags - now in 360

2019-07-22T19:19:00.000-04:00

The Maytags, the rollicking blues and soul outfit from Des Moines, dropped their first new LP in 3 years late last month. Meriweather is 13 tracks and 42 minutes of blue eyed soul that is at once familiar and different, the shared DNA with Love Lines and the Nova EP evident even as this album swerves into sonically unfamiliar territory. The silky smooth intro of the opening track, "Pt. 1", indicates that this is a late night album, the soundtrack to a private après party, the cooldown to the blistering soul for which Nathaniel Rateliff and (St.) Paul Janeway are known. Turn the lights down low, pour yourself and your companion of choice a nice whiskey, and let the feeling wash over you.

Bandleader Dustin Smith wanted to approach this album in a different fashion from the band's prior releases. Smith and his collaborators—Dan Kreipke, Sam Mogerman, Aaron Ehrlich, Andy Poppen, and Nick Vasquez—put a new spin on the whole process of putting together the album, from songwriting to playing to recording and engineering the songs. The guys holed up in a cabin in western Iowa to throw their ideas on the table and flesh out the lyrics, and then cut 25 songs with engineers in Minneapolis and Des Moines. Jon Locker of Sonic Factory Studio, their Des Moines engineer, helped the band shape their sound and pare the album down to the 13 tracks here.

As an added bonus, the video for "Cities" was recorded with in 360 of immersive video. I hope you're as eager as I am to get these guys on an East Coast tour before they're as old as they look in their FaceApp photo.

Photo courtesy of the band (and FaceApp)

MMS Concert Preview - Sons of an Illustrious Father and Nilüfer Yanya

2019-07-21T21:41:00.003-04:00

All apologies, sports racers. The MMS braintrust has relocated from sunny Logan Circle to a sleepy corner of Mount Pleasant, but I'm back up and running on most cylinders these days. I'm coming to you with a pair of outstanding shows that will show the hot and steamy District a touch of cool this week.

First up we have Sons of an Illustrious Father at DC9 tomorrow. The duo-turned-quintet-and-now-trio produces a sound that's difficult to classify, a bit emo and post-punk with a touch of weird-folk, at turns acoustic and soulful. SoaIF are so unapologetically non-heteronormative that they've named their style "genre queer".

You may be looking at the still of the video and asking yourself, "Is that [the actor from Fantastic Beasts, the DCEU's movie Flash, or the other guy from Perks of Being a Wallflower]?". The answer to that question is yes. Along with bandmates Josh Aubin and Lilah Larson, Met Gala camp icon Ezra Miller contributes to the songwriting and instrumentals.

Wednesday sees singer-songwriter Nilüfer Yanya headline a show at the U Street Music Hall. A British singer with Turkish and Barbadian roots, she crafts an exotic, fluid, sophisticated brand of indie rock - a female-fronted analog to the lush soundscapes of Roxy Music for the 21st Century. If you missed her opening for the sold out Sharon Van Etten show at the 9:30 Club in February, now's your chance.

MMS Concert Preview - Ages and Ages

2019-06-06T10:35:00.000-04:00

Photo courtesy of the band

Looking for something to do tonight? Stop in at Songbyrd and catch a set of smart and sophisticated chamber pop from Portland rockers Ages and Ages. Their sound carries echoes of the gauzy, blue-eyed SoCal soul of Local Natives, and the orchestrated exuberance of Hey Marseilles. Ages and Ages have been around for a decade, changing names, styles, and members along the way. The band formerly known as AgesandAges is centered around the duo of Tim Perry and Rob Oberdorfer.

Their earlier albums were more organic, catchy polyvocal compositions punctuated with handclaps. Their new album, the self-released Me You They We, is a departure from that formula, synth-heavy and alternately moody and manic. They reflect on their upbringing and the world around them, exploring the universal questions of the human experience while trying to build bridges and break down barriers.

Wednesday Is For Goth Lovers

2019-05-22T16:02:00.000-04:00

In honor of World Goth Day, today we bring you a Hump Day selection of old, new, and unconventional goth songs. Kick back, put on your Doc Martens, light up a clove cigarette, and enjoy.

Siouxsie Sioux at the Edinburgh Tiffany's, 1980

Up first we have Portland-based quintet BlackWater HolyLight with "Sunrise", their heavy psych take on a modern murder ballad. The band just finished a tour of Europe in support of their self-titled debut, which came out last year on RidingEasy Records.

It strains the bounds of credulity to talk about goths and not mention The Mountain Goats' 2017 record of the same name. If you missed their recent 9:30 Club set, the band is playing a pair of (sold out) shows at Ottobar in July.

Musical genres are like rivers, full of twists and turns and channels that branch off and meander. One such offshoot is cholo goth, a style invented by San Diego duo Prayers. Combining goth and post-punk influences with gritty tales of street of gang life in Southern California, "Gothic Summer" both sounds like and completely distinct from anything else in the genre.

Our final entry for today is gothic in its beauty and its tragedy. Jeremy Dutcher is a classically trained tenor and musician, a member of the Tobique First Nation of Canada, and a two-spirit individual. His album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa won the 2018 Polaris Music Prize and the 2019 Juno Award for Indigenous Music Album of the Year. He's one of fewer than 100 speaker of the Wolastoq language, and his album is both the product of his research on indigenous music and also an attempt to save the language.

Friday Interview Interlude - Seven Questions with Amo Amo

2019-05-10T16:51:00.000-04:00

Photo by Robbie Jeffers

Today we have an interview with LA-based psych popsters Amo Amo. The band formed when vocalist and guitarist Love Femme joined forces with a quartet - Omar Velasco, Justin Flint, Shane Mckillop and Alex Siegel - who had been playing as The Mother Tongues. The newly minted quintet decamped to California wine country with My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James, and isolated from the outside world and cell service they binged Stranger Things, recorded their eponymous debut, and came up with a new name after discovering another band had The Mother Tongues under trademark. Take a gander at the gorgeous video for the equally sublime “When I Think of You” before enjoying the interview with the band. You can catch Amo Amo next Friday and Saturday opening for James at the 9:30 Club.

Q: How would you describe the band in six words or fewer?
A: Psychedelic Love Soul Joy Music

Q: Who picks the music for when the band is on the road? And what's on your playlist(s)?
A: Whoever is inspired to. The playlist is vast and varied...from Bob Marley to Waylon Jennings to Selena to King Sunny Ade to Bjork to Of Montreal to Shuggie Otis to Hailu Mergia to Gabor Szabo to Sly to Jorge Ben to Manu Chao to Rotary Connection...

Q for Shane and Justin: Who are your favorite rhythm sections, and how do they color the grooves you lay down for Amo Amo?
A: To name a few: Carlton and Aston Barrett of the Wailers for their impeccable timeless grooves. Jaki Liebezeit and CAN for their fearless, tranced-out jams, and Bernard Purdie for making it sound and feel fantastic. Tina & Chris Weymouth of the Talking Heads who also honored simplistic approaches with lots of space and push and pull. Tina plays some of the most wobbly, alien-like bass lines with incredible tone and intention.

Q for Omar and Alex: How did Jim James shape the guitar and keyboard sound on the album? Are there any bands or albums that inspire your sound?
A: Jim brought some amps and instruments to the session, but he was pretty hands off and let us do our thing and arrive at our own sounds.
Omar: The guitar solo on "No Woman No Cry" to me is the perfect solo and it influenced my playing very much, both in terms of tone and choice of notes. Also, Curtis Mayfield's wah rhythm guitar playing.
Alex: I’m inspired by the synth sounds on “Ti Amo” by Phoenix, they create that hazy nostalgic vibe that I love! Jim inspired me to follow the tones I'm naturally drawn to on keys (crunchy, smooth, dirty, expansive) and encouraged me to get weird with it too. We had a lot of fun toys to play with.

Q for Love: You previously worked with Shane (also a member of Gardens & Villa) in a project called Págame, and you were a fan of the band he was in with Justin, Omar and Alex. Can you talk about your experience integrating into a band that already had an identity, and how the other members welcomed you into the fold?
A: I was roommates with Shane at one point and we spent a lot of time coming up with songs together so it felt natural. The first time I heard Omar's music I was like "What is this? This is amazing. I want to be in this band."

Q for Omar, Alex, Shane, and Justin: I've heard the story about Love showing up with a python in zir pocket. Was that true? What was your reaction? What kind of new or different energy does ze bring to the group?
It is true! Our reaction was, "We want Love in our band!" Love brings a very strong Divine Feminine energy, a voice that reaches into the farthest corners of the universe, and a creative spirit that elevates this band.

Q for the entire band: What's on the horizon now that the album is out? What are your goals and aspirations for 2019 (and beyond)?
We are on tour with Jim Jamesthis month, which is a dream. We'll be opening for My Morning Jacket at Red Rocks this summer, and also playing some great festivals. We want to write and record our next album and to continue to tour globally, growing our Amo Amo family around the world.

Friday Concert Previews - Flying Solo Edition

2019-04-26T17:06:00.000-04:00

Today we have a pair of songs from artists who established themselves as members of bands prior to embarking on solo careers. First up is Shana Cleveland, the frontwoman of surf rockers La Luz. "Don't Let Me Sleep" is the second single from Night of the Worm Moon, her second solo album. Dreamy and vibrantly textured, this album of self-described "space lullabies" is a departure from her work with La Luz. "Don't Let Me Sleep" was inspired by a dream Cleveland hand about a nightmarish concert experience—missing or misplaced equipment, a packed house, a looming set time—and a loving ghostly visitation of her recently deceased grandmother.

Photo by Eleanor Petry

Cleveland is opening for tonight's sold out show with The Mountain Goats at the 9:30 Club.

Next up we have John K. Samson, the former frontman of long-running Canadian post-punk band The Weakerthans. Samson has a new split 7" out with Kevin Devine with a recording of "Saturday Night on Utopia Parkway", a song written by Samson's wife Christine Fellows. Samson occupies that strata of erudite and introspective songwriters who don't feel confined by genre. Like Eef Barzelay of Clem Snide, Doug Martsch of Built to Spill, and The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle, Samson mines the fertile ground of his life and imagination and reflects on them in his singularly idiosyncratic style.

Samson and Devine will be playing MilkBoy ArtHouse in College Park on April 9. You should check them out.

Wednesday Is For Lovers - Free and Easy Edition

2019-04-17T16:43:00.001-04:00

Image courtesy of CLARA-NOVA

It's Wednesday, the sun is out, it's 70 degrees, and DC is in resplendent bloom. What better way to take a midweek break with a pair of songs that will have you quietly grooving in your chair, at a red light in your car, or on the Metro (you weirdo)? First we have "Free", the new single from French-American artist CLARA-NOVA. The band is the project of musician and visual artist Sydney Wayser. "Free" has that gauzy, sun-kissed feel that's a hallmark of recent California indie and alternative pop, not to mention smoky vocals reminiscent of The Japanese House, but bigger and bolder. The song also calls to mind fellow French electronica artist Petit Biscuit, courtesy of glitchy keyboards and sound effects punctuating the analog instruments.

The other half of today's equation is a new single from American electronic artist Tycho. Evolving from a part-time sideline of photographer and designer Scott Hansen into full-time, breakout electronic stardom, the song serves as a bridge to Tycho's future projects after the trilogy of Dive, Awake, and Epoch. The new song represents a new inward focus for Hansen, a counterpoint to his trilogy exploring the outer reaches of expression and experience.

I hope these songs bring you as much joy as they've brought me and remind you that we're halfway to the weekend.

Flashback Friday - Surreal Video Edition

2019-04-12T11:29:00.003-04:00

Maude: What do you do for recreation?
The Dude: Oh, the usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback.

Today we have a pair of videos that will stretch the boundaries of your perception, challenge your preconceived notions, and hopefully accomplish a little consciousness expansion while we're at it. First up we have LA-based indie folksters The Wild Reeds with their surrealist video for "Lose My Mind", a Fellini-cum-Buñuel mashup of rollerskating clowns, mustachioed women, and family videos. "Lose My Mind" is the lead single from Cheers, the band's third LP and second on Dualtone Records, last month. You can catch them next Tuesday at U Street Music Hall.

Next up we have the mind-blowing visuals of "Dépaysé" by Sinkane, the New York-by-way-of-Ohio-by-way-of-London Sudanese artist with genre-bending proclivities. With lyrics in both English and Arabic and visuals by Mad Alchemy, the song and video meld Sudanese folk music with psych rock. Dépaysé translates from the French as disoriented, a reflection of his struggles and acceptance of the dualities and the sense of dislocations in his life— being Sudanese and American, growing up in Ohio before relocating to New York.

You can catch Sinkane and his sensational band on June 12, also at U Hall. I caught their show at Black Cat the last time they rolled through town, and it was a night to remember.

New Music Monday - "Peach" by Slothrust

2019-04-01T15:09:00.000-04:00

It's been a minute, folks...and no, I'm not talking about the NPR radio show with Sam Sanders. I'm back in 2019 with a renewed focus on writing about the music that moves me.

Our first #NewMusicMonday is the subversively Disney-esque take on a walk in the woods video for "Peach" by the LA-based trio Slothrust. The lead single from last year's LP Pact, the song and video find bandleader Leah Wellbaum ruminating, stream-of-consciousness style, on the injuries and aggressions of childhood, how they try to linger in our consciousness as adults, and how those slights only have the power we invest in them. Wellbaum is accompanied through the forest with her thoughts and a bevy of plants and animals with more than a passing resemblance to Snow White's "A Smile and a Song". The piece is directed by Jason Lester, who's been behind the camera on Pedro the Lion and Butch Walker videos, and produced by DC's own Laura Burhenn for Our Secret Handshake.

The jangly, oddly timed riff that kicks off the song is supported by a propulsive 1-2 bass-guitar punch and is driven home by Wellbaum's soaring, slightly androgynous speak-singing. Besides the obvious comparisons to Nico and L7's Donita Sparks, Wellbaum's voice also calls to mind Heartless Bastards' Erika Wennsertrom and Celebrity Skin-era Courtney Love.

If you didn't catch their November show in DC, you have a second chance April 27 at Charm City's Ottobar. And for the uninitiated, the name of the band if "Sloth-Rust", not "Slo-Thrust".