Tuesday, June 12
611 Florida Ave NW WDC
http://www.claviusproductions.org
8pm, $5 suggested donations
call 202-360-9739 for info
BYOW!
Madagascar (instrumental gypsy folk from Baltimore, mem. of The Big Huge)
Lord Fyre (mem. of John Wilkes Booze, Emperor Jones)
Normanoak (mem. of Impossible Shapes, Secretly Canadian)
The Horns of Happiness (mem. of Impossible Shapes, Secretly Canadian)
Ryan Jewell (experimental percussionist from Columbus OH)
Madagascar
http://www.wearemadagascar.com/
Chamber music, Yiddish folk, gypsy laments -- the members of Madagascar draw on these influences, and more, on Forced March, their debut album for Western Vinyl. The nostalgic waltzes, melancholy dirges, and dance tunes on Forced March are powered by a seemingly disparate collection of acoustic instruments (accordion, ukulele, musical saw, and glockenspiel, to name a few) that seamlessly mesh together in the hands of Madagascar. Haunting, wordless vocals occasionally join the mostly instrumental mix, forming a music that is timeless yet unique, tragic one moment, joyous the next. It's like street music for some crumbled, forgotten city, folk songs for a long-extinct people. Engineer Rob Girardi, working at Mt. Royal Studios in the bands' home base and hometown of Baltimore MD, used a traditional approach in recording the band that makes Forced March a sonic delight as well as a collection of excellent songs. The musicians largely played together in one space, sounds were captured mostly by room microphones straight to 2” tape, and very few overdubs were done. T.J. Lipple's “purist” approach to mastering further ensured that Forced March sounds like actual musicians, playing real instruments, together in the same room -- a rarity in these days of made-in-Pro-Tools, hyper-compressed albums. It's the first effort, but certainly not the last, from a new, unique voice in music.
“Like sitting on a rooftop in Zagreb, watching the crowds go by.” - Dave Heumann (Abouretum, Anomoanon)
Lord Fyre
http://www.churchofsunra.blogspot.com/
http://myspace.com/lordfyre
"A founding partner of the John Wilkes Booze collective lets one fly (more or less solo) in Bloomington. The instrumentation is squiggly as hell, incorporating a lot of space without sacrificing a certain claustrophobic luster." (Bull Tongue's Top 80 of 2006)
This is the debut LP from John Wilkes Booze singer and co-founder Seth Mahern. Burning, explosive, paranoid drones emanate from the noisy grooves of this platter, tickling your ears and rattling your spine. You're in for a horrific swift boat ride down the Bay Hap River, where mangled vines of whoosh and mounds of acid steel guitar can crush your soul into a quivering, wasted piece of jelly. And that's just side A!
Destruction at 2013 was recorded at the Church of Sun Ra during the great tape scare of 2005 by his goddamn-self. Additional sounds were provided by others living in the garden. Bloomington, Indiana, is a magical place where you can see, feel and hear the light. Every audible sound was captured by analog signal onto magnetic tape before being transferred to metal masters and finally pressed into melted black vinyl bits.
Normanoak
http://www.normanoak.com/
http://myspace.com/normanoak
Chris Barth re-emerges with A Double Gift Of Tongues to share once again Normanoak's mysterious fibrillation of heart and lung. Unbound from his share of duties with The Impossible Shapes, Barth chronicles a world "of acorns, blood, and sacrifice; of the holy hexagram of intertwined triangles; of the holy books writ in the sands of madness; of the Prince of Cups charioting across the steady sea, eagle drawn; of the planets Jupiter, Mars, Mercury and Luna spiraling through the darkness of Nuit; Of the language behind language and the seeds of the unspeakable."
Barth's ability to chew up, unbuckle, and alternate between sanguine sanctity and life's whimsical playfulness has never shown itself in a purer light than throughout the 14-song landscape of this limited vinyl release. Fans of the inwardly mobile mysticism of Donovan or the soul damaged guitar skree of George Brigman's Jungle Rot in its most minimal state should book their ticket to A Double Gift Of Tongues immediately. Aum.
The Horns of Happiness
http://www.myspace.com/thehornsofhappiness
"Horns of Happiness began as the lo-fi pop side project of Impossible Shapes' Aaron Deer, whose 2004 release A Sea as a Shore featured an array of instruments delivering a somewhat uneven group of songs. The addition of drummer Shelley Harrison, however, helps to make Would I Find Your Psychic Guideline more engaging. The six songs on this 12"-only release are hypnotic, cyclical affairs, relying on dense, fuzzy organ drones and simple, driving drum beats. The arrangements are often simple -- typically featuring no more than two or three parts -- but the results are far from boring or generic.
Organ and drums are the most prominent instruments utilized here -- although keyboard flourishes, strings, and guitars find their way in as well. Deer's pure, clean vocals are the perfect counter to the eerie, robotic sonics, but they're only featured on about half of the songs. As a result they become part of the mix in a unique way -- not by demanding your attention, despite their clarity, but by snaking their way through the tracks." (Cory D. Byron, Pitchforkmedia)
Horns Of Happiness provide the two sides to the second half of their newnew sound with What Spills Like Thread. With the follow-up 12" to last year's Would I Find Your Psychic Guideline, they're now navigating the waters of hypnotic, organ-driven thump rock. On this record, the HoH have expanded into a trio, with new member Elaina Morgan providing the bottom end to the disjointed fuzz of Aaron Deer and Shelly Harrison's organ/drum combo. Played out in two extended jams, side A evokes ESG on the dance floor with Can at an absinthe-fueled afterparty, while side B is a woozy pop-drone undulation.
Ryan Jewell
http://www.myspace.com/ryanxing
Ryan Jewell was born in a small Appalachian river town in southern Ohio in a landscape set between the rundown post-industrial factories and train yards and the natural beauty of the forested foothills and the Ohio River. The juxtaposition of these two seemingly conflicting environments has profoundly affected his aesthetic. He studied percussion and electronic composition techniques at Capital University and has since studied drumset with Susie Ibarra and tabla with Dr. Lowell Lybarger. His improvisations are equally influenced by Midwestern underground experimental noise, free jazz, psychoacoustics, reductionist impov, and certain schools of avant-garde composition. Ryan likes both long and short durations of sounds and tries not to make a big deal about it. He has performed or recorded with C. Spencer Yeh, Tatsuya Nakatani, Reuben Radding, Larry Marotta, Mike Brown, Hasan Abdur-Razzaq, Seth Meicht, Nate Wooley, Napolean Maddox, Queen Mae and the Bells, Terribly Empty Pockets, Luasa Raelon, and Ed Chang.