So, there was this show, EIGHT, presented as part of the Capital Fringe Festival that Fringe & Purge Action News and Commentary Squad MVP Ian Buckwalter and I both really dug. It's comprised of eight monologues, only four of which are performed on any given night, as selected by audience vote. The show is deservedly [...]
"Jazz Ruins Everything," read the sticker on bassist Devin Hoff's electric instrument, but if anything the Nels Cline Singers have gotten more jazzy, or at least less noisy, over the past couple of years. That didn't make last night's packed-house show (there may well have been more folks crammed into the Black Cat backstage than [...]
Zevious and Seabrook Power Plant were a perfect pair at Baltimore's Orion Sound Studios on Saturday night, each bringing a viciously complex brand of mathy rock to the table. Zevious' compositions stood out, building enormous tension and proving to be much more than just an exercise in counting out weird rhythms. Seabrook Power Plant was [...]
"I know it's weird," Tanya Tagaq said of her music on Friday night at National Geographic. Tagaq's emotional stage presence was both a strength and weakness, as she vacillated between cathartic release while throat-singing and vapid philosophizing while singing conventionally. Despite the low points, the performance, which mostly consisted of a single long [...]
Just the idea of an Inuit throat singer performing at National Geographic should be enough to pique the interest of many adventurous music listeners. But if that weren't enough, a mere list of Tanya Tagaq's musical associations should lead to outright fascination. To wit: Tagaq's latest record, Auk/Blood, was released on Mike Patton's [...]
D.C. has seen no shortage of interesting fringe music lately, but this week is a particular highlight reel of slightly out-there stuff (especially if you count Andrea Centazzo's solo performance in Baltimore last night). Here are four shows worth checking out to stimulate your ears and brain:
Tonight: Atomic at Twins Jazz. This Swedish/Norwegian [...]
Welcome to the Pitchforkast. Here, your friendly Pitchforkast team (YFPT) will attempt to predict the Pitchfork rating for albums that have not yet appeared on that Web site. Note: Ratings estimates are arrived at through expert guesswork.
TODAY: Liars, Sisterworld—leaked January 2010; out March 8
Holy dude do those Pitchforkers love their Liars. Ratingswise, Brooklyn’s finest [...]
This week, haterate spewed everywhere. The dudes behind Fan Death Records aren't impressed with D.C.'s music—and they named names. Check out what they had to say, and the 100-plus comments—angry, amused, confused—that followed:
Fan Death Records to D.C. Bands: "Stop Sucking"
Twitter Adds Local Trending; D.C. Tweeting Skews Scatological
Arts Roundup: Michelle Rhee at Sundance Edition
New Songs for [...]
The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet—really a sax quartet plus a drummer—brought its eclectic mix of jazz, world music, and the avant-garde to An Die Musik in Baltimore last night. The all-female group named after Billy Tipton, the biologically female saxophonist who spent his career and adult life identifying as male, played two sets of music far [...]
Undoubtedly, two of the biggest names of the last decade's indie rock and electronica were Spoon and Four Tet. In this week's City Paper, our critics take a look at their new records and how each act is faring at the dawn of the 2010s.
Spoon's Transference leaves Marc Hirsh underwhelmed:
Transference is larded with bits and [...]
