Last summer I took a trip to Brooklyn to check out Mother Mother, since the Canadian band only had two U.S. dates on their ’07 tour, both in New York. I stood five feet away from the stage and was instantly captivated. Their debut album, Touch Up, released in 2007 on Last Gang Records, had been on constant iPod rotation since it dropped. There was something about their Vancouver sensibility and genial alt-folk sound that made songs like “Dirty Town” and “Polynesia” more than just powerfully catchy tunes; the songs became a part of my life soundtrack. The voices of singer/guitar player Ryan Guldemond, Molly Guldemond (Ryan’s sister), and Debra-Jean Creelman combine to create a hauntingly harmonic wall of sound that is sometimes chill-inducing.

Mother Mother is now touring the United States to promote their new album, O My Heart. They’ll be stopping DC9 this Saturday with Ki: Theory and the Blackout District.

Ryan Guldemond took a few minutes out of his tour schedule to answer some questions for Black Plastic Bag.

Read the rest of this entry »

Via Wonkette:

Berklee-trained neo-psychedelic rockers Apollo Sunshine play tonight at DC9 before heading to London for a European tour. Their sound is a throwback to ‘60s-era underground pop/rock, combining big fuzz with eclectic orchestration. Their songs swell with wah-wah and bounce with heavy echo and break into bouts of chaos, blending the Violent Femmes and the Kinks—a refreshing change for a moment saturated with formulaic indie dance bands. As Sam Cohen recently told Paste: “We were much more imagining things, considering all possibilities, and that led to, ‘you know what’d be great here is a whole string section, or a bunch of horns,’ and just going for it and indulging in every far-out idea we had.”

The show starts at 9 p.m.; tickets are $12.

I found myself wishing I had kids to take to it.

7:30 PM, JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER
For better or worse, it was an intimate evening at the Goldman Theater - less than 20 people in attendance. “Isn’t it terrible? I’m competing with Sarah Palin!” chanteuse Yardena lamented with a grin. Indeed, it was so uncrowded that the profanity from the tech booth echoed through the room. (”I was good with this shit, man! What the fuck?!”)

Yardena killed anyway. She drew from her unique repertoire: 500-year-old Sephardic folk songs with Latin jazz arrangements. Her clear, steady alto and impeccable rhythmic phrasing alone built a compelling performance, but Yardena’s onstage charisma is something else again. It’s difficult to describe: sultry and magnetic, but in a more sophisticated, mature sense than those words might suggest. The key lay in her control: On “Noches, Noches” and “La Vezina Catina,” she pulled off melodrama without exaggeration–a skill so difficult, it never occurred to me that it even existed.

Her sextet was (mostly) aces: Bassist Pedro Girando played with great sensitivity; trumpeter Jonathan Powell’s lovely, flamenco-like solos had a languid, liquid tone (particularly on the torch-ish “Adio”); and Tony De Vivo and Neil Ochoa’s percussion had a canny grasp of both subtlety and power. The weak link was pianist Pablo Vergara, whom Yardena called “my favorite.” Though he had great chops, he was a bit to anxious to show them off and did so without regard to taste or propriety. Speedy harmonic whirlwinds are great…but in the middle of the sad love song “Yo Me’namori D’un Aire”? It doesn’t play.

10:00 PM, BLUES ALLEY
Monty Alexander is an underappreciated pianist: He has a heavy, percussive touch; a love of thick chords; and a vast rhythmic sense encompassing swing, funk, and the Caribbean islands (Alexander is Jamaican). But last night at Blues Alley he was practically a sideman in his own trio.

His drummer was Herlin Riley, a New Orleans native and alumnus of Wynton Marsalis‘ bands. And on the Georgetown bandstand, he was a star. On the first song (which Alexander didn’t name), Riley drove the trio—also featuring Hassan Shakur on bass—through a stormy swing that soon dissipated into firm reggae–and back again–with crisp, precise sound. Then he let loose with a thunderous flood of drums. It was a performance by what Miles Davis would call “a bad motherfucker.”

It didn’t stop there. On “Hope,” he shivered the cymbals on the minor-key melody, then tattooed the funk break with bass-drum heartbeats. “No Woman, No Cry” got a soft march; by the closing number, an unnamed blues, Riley was doing tricks to great applause, twirling one stick on the offbeats and never missing the ons.

Not to take away from Alexander, mind you—he played beautifully, in particular a winning rendition of Tony Bennett’s “Good Life.” Shakur was a monster, too, dueling with the others on grooves of his own design and laying down nice solos on the opener and “No Woman, No Cry.” But Riley had the crowd in his hands; it was his night and everybody knew it.

The Monty Alexander Trio will play two shows nightly (8 and 10 pm) to October 5 at Blues Alley, 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Tickets are $27.50

If there was ever any doubt that D.C.’s experimental underground was alive and kicking, it’s been erased this week. Not only are we in the middle of the eighth annual Sonic Circuits Festival (ongoing through Sunday at the Velvet Lounge and the National Museum of Women in the Arts), but area artists also just unveiled District of Noise, a brand-new compilation of local music deviants released in conjunction with the week-long event. Sunday served as both the festival’s opening night and the record’s release party, hosting performances by many of the acts featured on the compilation’s 17 tracks. The show itself was a revolving door of musicians and on-the-spot collaborations, championing the vibrancy of the DMV experimental scene while exhibiting its incestuous network.

Compiled by festival curator and Zeromoon label-head Jeff Surak, District of Noise reveals a clique of artists steeped in audiophile philosophies and improvisation, emphasizing sheer sound and ambiance rather than traditional song structure or accessibility. It’s the first compilation birthed from the Sonic Circuits run, assembled from some of the area’s more active artists, though not completely all-encompassing of the numerous projects around. According to Surak, District of Noise “acts as a vehicle to promote local artists, in hopes that people will support them the rest of the year when they play out.”

The record eases in with BLK w/BEAR’s deft loop deconstruction, piling processed cello and bass atop prepared vinyl records. Such incorporation of rhythm or familiarity—however faint or obtuse—outlines the most successful approach to making difficult music more palatable for the average listener, serving as a launchpad for the surrounding overload. Both Blue Sausage Infant and Cash Slave Clique (MP3 below) invoke the technique as well; BSI drowns heavy metal riffage with synthesizer oscillations while CSC pummels a drum machine beat with seizure-inducing electronics. An enticing introduction, indeed.

Echolalia’s “Falling Out” ushers in the industrial cloud that hangs throughout the middle third of the record, mixing menacing drones with minimal flourishes. Individually, the tracks maintain their own subtle flair, but on the surface, the frigid, electronic haze and mechanistic growls melt together without much protest. Seamless or samey, it’s your call. But a close listen will reveal rewarding compositions, most notably Mind Over Matter Music Over Mind’s eerie gurgles, Janel & Anthony’s cello/guitar manipulations (mp3 below), and Northern Machine’s obliterated organ.

Tone Ghosting injects a ripple into the album’s flow with “Amaxana:Visitation,” a frenzy of clipped vocals relentlessly mutated atop flickers of drum machine and static. The meticulous sonic fetishism that the compilation emphasizes is perhaps most beautifully represented by Cory O’Brien and his Myo moniker: His contribution builds through hushed crackle that colors the background hum, escalating in pitch as the track progresses. Surak’s own electroacoustic outlet Violet concludes the record with a disorienting piece of digital skitter; a shortwave malfunction glowering in the doldrums.

District of Noise provides a welcome snapshot of Washington’s most bizarre, marrying the work of industrial/experimental pioneers like Maurizio Bianchi and Stockhausen with the new-school noise antics of NYC stable No Fun Productions. It may not have quite the subterranean notoriety of the latter’s annual No Fun Fest, but Sonic Circuits still provides an impressive array of art and innovation, putting a uniquely D.C. spin on the concept of experimental music.

Four full nights of music remain in the Festival, with several artists featured on the compilation still scheduled to play, including Mind Over Matter Music Over Mind, Myo, Janel & Anthony, Northern Machine, and RDK. You can find a full schedule up at the Sonic Circuits site.

DOWNLOAD:

Cash Slave Clique, “Sonicervex”

Janel & Anthony, “Improvisation 61″

Sorry, this is going to be a very genre-specific post, but if you’re not a metal fan you’re not interested in these bands anyway, so I’m not that sorry.

I went to a tech-metal show last night at DC9, and a doom metal show broke out instead.

At least, it did for about 20 minutes, which was the time allotted to openers Salome, a local group playing slow, sludgy stuff in the best tradition of Black Sabbath, Sleep and the like. Hailing from Annandale, Salome are a three-piece of drums, guitar and vocals, and as with all good bands of this sort, are skilled in the art of finding a nice heavy riff and riding it for all it’s worth. What made them interesting was their vocalist: “Kat,” a small-statured woman whose vocals went from doomy roar to death-metal growl to black-metal shriek, often all in the same song. Virginia’s own Angela Gossow?

There’s no shortage of female-fronted metal groups these days, but almost all of these frontwomen sing in pretty sopranos. Not so Kat, whose throaty howl made a fine complement to Salome’s huge guitar sound and slow, relentless drumming. I didn’t even mention these guys in my preview of the show because I had no idea who they were, but I do now and they have my attention.

Salome were a bit of an odd choice to open this show, as all the rest of the bands play a much more mile-a-minute, complexity-obsessed brand of metal. Very few bands are as complexity-obsessed as Behold… the Arctopus, whose show featured the musicians’ fingers flying around nearly as fast as their hair. (Warr guitarist Colin Marston was wearing a Darkthrone t-shirt, which was kind of funny in that the Norweigian black metal band probably played about as many notes in their entire career as Marston fires off in a single practice session.) “Better start practicing,” a fan said to me after their set, but let’s be real: with no amount of practice could 95% of the population possibly become as proficient at their instruments as these guys.

Musicianship aside, the music was great, and the band has come a long way in recent years to write interesting compositions to match their raw technical ability. Lots of twists and turns, starts and stops, themes that fragment and recur; this was pretty heady material all in all.

Intronaut, a band distinguished by the fact that they sometimes sound like they have Jaco Pastorius sitting in on bass, did not disappoint either. Unsurprisingly, the bassist was front and center both in the stage setup and in their sound, flying through melodic leads as often as he played chordal support. The group played several new songs from their upcoming album (slated for a September release), which showcased a very technical aspect of their compositions, in contrast to the somewhat more atmospheric material on their earlier releases. We’re talking off-kilter rhythms and time changes galore, something that very much appealed to my ears, which were raised on copious (unhealthy?) amounts of prog.

I did not stick around for Mouth of the Architect, for the very good reason that I was tired. It happens.

A bunch of photos, mostly in glorious black and white, at Flickr here.

On Saturday night, Jill Scott sang at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md. About midway up the center seating area stood a little boy. He wore a white undershirt and white basketball shorts, and he was with his mother, a petite woman in a green dress. The boy couldn’t have been more than 8—though I would guess that he was 7.

He was loving Scott. As soon as she opened her mouth, he was standing up, rocking to the beat. His finger waved above his head. His arms pounded the air. Every once in a while, he’d turn and sing a lyric to his mother, who mouthed the music back to him. Except for one time. In this instance, she gestured for him to go into the aisle and sprayed him up and down with bug repellent.

But that was the only noteworthy pause of musical bliss.

That boy was a gold-star concertgoer. He made sure every penny spent on his ticket was worth it. Come to think of it, he probably couldn’t even see Scott. There was a pack of guys standing up in front of him most of the time.

No doubt about it, this adorable little mini-fan was feeling what most others in the audience revealed with slightly less enthusiasm: Man, Jill—she’s damn good.

You get the sense that Scott treats a crowd of 40 no different than a crowd of 4,000. She laughs. She curses. She instructs. She informs: Before a series of slow jazzy love songs, she says, “This is the segment of the show I call ‘Trying to get you laid.’” Between songs, Scott says that she thinks she knows something about relationships, and she’d like to share it. In the end though, she delivers no real speeches. With emotional authority, Scott just sings her heart out, and mostly forgets about the audience mid-song, just concentrating on her sound. This was particularly true with her rendition of “Insomnia,” in which she sings about the hours passing by as she waits in bed wondering where her lover is. The woman earns her back-up singers (three, for the record). She also looked great. As the token full-figured woman, Scott was featured in Vogue’s “Shape” issue this year. But there’s no doubt, she can pick out her clothes: on Saturday, she came out in a black satiny tunic, big jewelry, black leggings, and chunky heals.

Scott saved two of her most popular, more up-tempo songs for the end of her performance. After “finishing” her set, she sauntered—and this woman really does saunter—off stage only re-emerge a few minutes later with go-go legend Chuck Brown for her hit “It’s Love” from her debut album, Who is Jill Scott? At this point, a man stepped out into the aisle for the sole purpose of shaking his butt. He stood there for a while, back bent, cheeks out, and wiggled his tush. Then, an usher directed him back to his seat.

After “It’s Love”, Scott continued onto her latest catchy tune “Hate on Me.” Chorus: “Hate on me hater, now or later….”

No one seemed to be complying.

Four full-length records in about four years … don’t America’s indie rockers have TVs anymore?

But it’s clear that Oxford Collapse are having too much fun not to be churning out their raucous, sing-along pop tunes on automatic. The Brooklyn-based art pop trio are best known for keeping alive the poignant embers of guitar-driven ’80s college rock and “jangular” pop.

Oxford Collapse’s forthcoming album, Bits, is a departure from the trio’s past efforts. In Sub Pop-inspired PR poetry, the band’s previous work “reflected an almost preternatural awareness of the ['80s college-rock mindset] and was/is excitable and bounding against prison walls of their own device.” Um. Well that’s a charming way of saying that the new record sees the the band loosening up the creative process, overthinking things less and writing songs with greater urgency and compulsion.

In fact the band had 30 songs worth of material going into the studio for this record, forcing some spillage of the surplus exuberance onto two separate vinyl releases (the Spike of Bensonhurst 7-inch on Flameshovel Records and the Hann-Byrd 12-inch on Comedy Minus One).

If that doesn’t tide you over until Aug. 5, when Bits is released, then go see their joyous, blistering live show this Saturday, Aug. 2 at Black Cat, alongside We Are Scientists and Frightened Rabbit. Expect to be entreated with soaring melodies, frenetic guitars, and some of the noisiest heartfelt songs you’ve heard in a long time.

Here is Oxford Collapse’s video for “The Birthday Wars,” a track off of Bits: