MP3: “Subtractions”

In setting out to create his fifth album for Anticon, Martin Dosh had two goals in mind. First: Get loose. 2008’s Wolves & Wishes took a step in this direction by way of its guests - freewheelers like Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Odd Nosdam - but Dosh records are well-known for their impeccable arrangements. To wit, Andrew Bird used W&W’s “First Impossible” as the rhythmic backbone for a song on last year’s critically acclaimed Noble Beast LP. (Dosh has been collaborating, recording and touring with Bird since 2005.)

Dosh’s second goal seemed to be in direct conflict with the first: To conceive yet thicker terrain for his already seething soundscapes. More drums. More vocals. And new to the Dosh catalog, lots of low end. Against all odds, Tommy skirts critical mass but stays organic, is never overwrought, and miraculously avoids becoming cluttered. Instead, this unique brand of maximalist, rhythmdriven post-rock sweeps lilting beauty, serious beats and even airy moments into its comely whirlwind.

When Tommy begins, “Subtractions” is already in full swing, as a dark assembly of grunts, buzzing, and kalimba transitions into marimba plunks and note-hopping electric guitar. The song evolves throughout its four minutes, eventually resolving in Tortoise-y figures played out on an array of instruments. “Yer Face” opens on a loop too, but quickly distinguishes itself via standup bass, syncopated keys, and a rare lyrical performance by Dosh. Andrew Bird sings on “Number 41,” over pedal steel and a bassy beat chopped à la Radiohead’s “Pulk/Push Revolving Doors.”

“Town Mouse” plays like a warm, wide-open jam session, with different drum kits coming from different speakers, Dosh humming throughout, and bandmate Mike Lewis’ horns flying over fuzzy Rhodes blurts. True to Dosh’s letting go of control, Lewis actually wrote “Loud,” a gorgeously spare piece that ambles off into the horizon before “Airlift” wraps Tommy’s first half with lo-bit keys and a cut-up sample of Dosh and a friend covering Pink Floyd’s “Run Like Hell” back in ‘87. “County Road X” tills different soil still, largely focusing on improvised piano and glistening atmospherics.

Next is “Call The Kettle,” a live fan favorite dating back to 2001 that finally gets an official release, albeit one reinvented by the dense, mesmeric thicket of notes played on saxophone, acoustic guitar, and 200-year-old harpsichord (recorded at St. Paul’s Schubert Club music museum). Bird returns to lay his light twang over the heavy feedback wash of “Nevermet,” while the bright epic “Gare De Lyon” slowly builds - for eight and a half minutes - to the album’s close.

On this final song, Dosh stretches out immensely, nursing melodic sprawl through a tense percussive passage and on to a huge finish: an explosion of thrashing bass and drums that burns brightly before the record comes to a crashing halt. The abrupt finale fits Tommy, which is dedicated to and named after Dosh soundman Tom Cesario, a dear friend who unexpectedly passed two Christmases ago. Here, Dosh pays his respects best as he can, coming away with a record inspired by tragedy, but undeniably full of life.

Personnel for Tommy -

sources, samples and live tracks:
mike lewis - basses (5,8,10) saxophone (1,4,8) piano (3,5,6,7)
nordlead 2X (2) background vocal (1,3) glockenspiel(5)
jeremy ylvisaker - electric guitar (2,3,4,5,6) slide guitar(8) feedback(10)
background vocal (3) mini-korg k2 (3)
ryan francesconi - guitars (7,8,9,10) bulgarian tambura (10) banjo (10)
bass (7,9) accordion (7)
chris morrissey - electric bass (1,4,6)
andrew bird - vocals and lyrics (3, 9)
freddy votel - auxilary percussion (5,8,10)
todd sickafoose - acoustic bass (2, 9)
derek phillips - drums (left side, 4)
mike sopko - acoustic and electric guitars (1)
bryan olson - guitars (4)
paul niehaus - pedal steel (3)
j.t. bates - cymbal (6)
tim glenn - processed prepared piano (7)
jon davis - microphone and bass sample (3)
martin dosh - just about everything else

DOSH

01.28.10 Duluth, MN Pizza Luce *
01.31.10 Missoula, MT The Palace *
02.02.10 Calgary, AB Republik *
02.03.10 Edmonton, AB Brixx Bar *
02.05.10 Vancouver, BC The Biltmore Cabaret *
02.06.10 Seattle, WA Nectar Lounge *
02.07.10 Portland, OR Hawthorne Theater *
02.08.10 Eugene, OR WOW Hall *
02.10.10 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill *
02.11.10 Los Angeles, CA Echoplex *
02.12.10 Scottsdale, AZ Chasers *
02.13.10 Flagstaff, AZ Green Room *
02.15.10 Albuquerque, NM Launchpad *
02.16.10 Denver, CO The Marquis Theatre *
02.18.10 Lawrence, KS Jackpot Saloon *
02.19.10 St. Louis, MO Firebird *
02.20.10 Madison, WI High Noon Saloon *
03.17 - 03.20 Austin, TX SXSW
04.09.10 Minneapolis, MN 7th St. Entry
04.10.10 Minneapolis, MN MacPhail Center For Music
04.11.10 Minneapolis, MN Bedlam Theatre

* = w/ Eyedea & Abilities

Dosh
Tommy
(Anticon)
Street Date: April 13, 2010

1. Subtractions
2. Yer Face
3. Number 41
4. Town Mouse
5. Loud
6. Airlift
7. Country Road X
8. Call The Kettle
9. Nevermet
10. Gare de Lyon

DOSH LINKS:
Band Page - www.doshfamily.com

MySpace - myspace.com/doshanticon

Press Materials - anticon.com/pr/dosh.htm

MP3: “Evelyn McHale”

“We never meant you any harm.” Ever the pragmatists, Parenthetical Girls are set to release Privilege–the band’s new full length–as a box set of five extremely limited 12″ EPs on their own Slender Means Society label. These EPs will be sold separately in sequence every quarter over the next 15 months, each as they are completed. They will not be distributed to stores. As the cycle concludes in May of 2011, the fifth and final 12″ will come packaged in a beautiful, aesthetically cohesive LP box designed to house all four of the preceding releases, forming the complete Privilege album. Limited to 500 physical copies per EP, the 12″s will each feature original art by renowned Swedish illustrator Jenny Mörtsell, and will be hand-numbered in the blood of their respective band members. The first 12″–subtitled On Death & Endearments–will be released on February 23, 2010.

When last we left Parenthetical Girls, the group had undergone a seismic shift in both scope and purpose, shedding the trappings of their past–and of indie rock altogether–with their critically acclaimed Orchestral Pop opus Entanglements. An experiment in Pop maximalism, Entanglements took perverse pleasure in blending the bloated chamber arrangements of a century’s worth of pop history with the rhythmic dissonance of modern classical composition–and then topping it all off with a dense, Joycean novella narrated in part by a pedophile. Needless to say, it was all a lot to swallow.

Having taken pop extravagance to its logical conclusion, Parenthetical Girls have given the orchestra their leave–and the resulting transformation is no less momentous. Returning to its core membership of vocalist/songwriter Zac Pennington, multi-instrumentalist Rachael Jensen, and producer/arranger Jherek Bischoff, the group set about a path that they have heretofore never really charted: that of sonic restraint. And though the results could scarcely be called subtle, the language of Privilege is direct and unambiguous–a new creative candor that’s felt in both its words and music. It’s Parenthetical Girls in fighting trim, and the difference is both immediate and undeniable.

The group inaugurates this ambitious experiment with Privilege, pt 1: On Death & Endearments–a compelling four-song suite drenched in the long-latent glam-racket so often suggested in Pennington’s androgynous lilt. Nowhere is this more apparent than with lead-off track “Evelyn McHale,” a Bolan-ian homage that–much like Entanglements’ “A Song For Ellie Greenwich”–imagines the infamous title character as a springboard for more allegorical confessions. The cinematic desperation of “Someone Else’s Muse” follows–its pulsing grandeur underscoring a tale of emasculation and resentment in the face of another’s deserved success. The deathbed march of On Death & Endearments–punctuated by gloriously gated snares and a haunting angel chorus–simultaneously recalls the staggering Hounds Of Love heights of Kate Bush, and the calculating, icy croon of early Roxy Music. The EP concludes with “Found Drama I,” a tragic, Eno-indebted lullaby whose atmospheric longing swells with heartbreaking sweetness. Together, they comprise a bold, strikingly cohesive pop clarion call that further solidifies Parenthetical Girls’ place amongst the most surprising and uncompromising pop groups at work today. And there’s more where that came from.

SELECTED ACCOLADES FOR ENTANGLEMENTS

” one of 2008’s great misunderstood albums.”–The Onion

“Songwriter(s) of the Year” - Sound Magazine

Parenthetical Girls
Privilege: Pt. 1 - On Death & Endearments
(Slender Means Society)
Street Date: Feb. 23, 2010
Formats: Vinyl and Digital only

Track list:

Side A
1. Evelyn McHale
2. Someone Else’s Muse

Side B
1. On Death & Endearments
2. Found Drama I

PARENTHETICAL GIRLS LINKS:
MySpace - myspace.com/parentheticalgirlsband

Press Materials - slendermeanssociety.com/PRESS/privilege1.html

MP3: “Bright Orange Air”

Bio:
A worrier, childhood choir member, and unfocused student of many instruments, Sebastian Krueger marries the darker ornaments of baroque pop with lo-fi intimacy. Far from his Wisconsin roots and perfunctory piano lessons, he works out of a small Brooklyn apartment as Inlets, incubating songs over the course of months and creating short, dusty suites.

Thanksgiving of 2006 brought the free online release of Inlets’ first offering, The Vestibule EP, an eight-song collection that won round praise from music blogs including Stereogum, Gorilla vs Bear, Said The Gramophone, and Le Blogotheque. Framed by eclectic layers of clustered woodwinds, brass, and percussive guitars, the record captured a personal and raw enterprise. The self-released Vestibule EP has since been downloaded over 40,000 times.

Rather than promote the new project, Krueger dug in and committed to the slow process of writing an ambitious collection of new songs. Now, Inter Arbiter picks up where Vestibule left off, but the scope is wider and the hues are sharper. Krueger has honed his arranging abilities, creating elegant high drama from bursts of strings and discord from jangly cheap guitars.

The somber piano placesetting of “[]” opens Inter Arbiter with wispy clouds of harmony. Delicate finger-picked banjo buoys “Great Exit Lights”, taking dark woodwind deviations through themes of hibernation. “Bright Orange Air,” with it’s winding rhythmic guitars and choired choruses, is an ode to the psychotropic effects of municipal lighting, while “Sunfed Shapes” heaves over lurching reeds and angular chords as an elegy to idleness and want.

Inter Arbiter congealed in the free spaces between working full time at a civil rights organization, adhering to acceptable and neighborly hours for noisemaking, and recurrent existential crises. The self-recorded album has an unexpectedly broad three-dimensional impact for an effort managed nearly entirely within the spartan low fidelity confines of a small apartment bedroom.

Throughout the process of recording Inter Arbiter, Krueger remained a busy collaborator, assisting My Brightest Diamond with woodwinds, playing banjo with Feist on Saturday Night Live, and contributing to records by DM Stith and Marla Hansen. The new record includes help from friends like Beirut frontman Zach Condon, Dirty Projector’s vocalist Angel Deradoorian, as well as cellist Maria Jeffers and violist Marla Hansen of the string quartet Osso.

Inter Arbiter is due April 20th via twosyllable Records.

INLETS

Jan 21 Brooklyn, NY Bell House *
Feb 08 Richmond, VA The Camel
Feb 09 Washington, DC DC9
Feb 10 Philadelphia, PA Khyber
Mar 17 - 20 Austin, TX SXSW

* = w/ Vetiver

Inlets
Inter Arbiter
(twosyllable)
Street Date: April 20, 2010

1. []
2. Canteen
3. In Which I, Robert
4. Great Exit Lights
5. Bright Orange Air
6. Bells and Whistles
7. Maspeth
8. Sunfed Shapes
9. Famous Looks
10. Your Good Arm

INLETS LINKS:
Band Page - inletsmusic.com

MySpace - myspace.com/inlets

Label Page - twosyllablerecords.com

VIDEO: “Redeemer” (Dir. by Jess Holzworth) NSFW!

MP3: Imaad Wasif - “Priestess”

In another life, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Imaad Wasif might have been a poet or a priest. He draws inspiration from beyond the veil, seeking connections and cosmic patters in the hopes of expressing the simplest but most profound message to his listeners: We are not alone. The urgency of that communication, and his need to convey it, give both his delicate guitar ballads and his fervent rock songs a ferocity and focus that resonates with every note.

Wasif goes far beyond the here and now in his music, but he is very much of this time. He is a rock musician who came of age in the Coachella Valley of the 1990s. Early on he played live and in the studio with Lou Barlow’s Folk Implosion. In 2006, Kill Rock Stars released Wasif’s self-titled solo debut, an acoustic psych gem. Around the same time, he was enlisted as a touring guitarist and opening act for Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Sophomore album Strange Hexes revealed Wasif’s varied influences. The album was recorded with his band Two Part Beast (Bobb Bruno and Adam Garcia) and self-released in March 2008. That album was the first to hint at the distinctive sound Wasif has ultimately crafted for himself; a blast of post-modern psychedelic rock that is at once potent and refined. The album will be re-released by Tee Pee Records in 2010.

Having gained a reputation for his intense live shows while opening for RTX, The Raconteurs, Neko Case, Arthur Lee’s Love and Sebadoh, Wasif has plans for an extensive tour in the fall of 2009. He can also be found playing guitar on “Little Shadow” from the YYY’s latest album, It’s Blitz! and Lou Barlow’s forthcoming solo album, Goodnight Unknown. His collaboration with Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bradford Cox of Deerhunter, and “Little” Jack Lawrence of The Raconteurs and Dead Weather on the score for the Spike Jonze-directed film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are hits theaters in October.

The theme of love in its many guises, both as redemption and call to arms, is one that Wasif returns to again and again in his songs. Its mythical quality becomes a springboard from which he explores the mysteries of life and the universe on his third album, The Voidist. Recorded with Two Part Beast, plus guests Dale Crover (Melvins) and Greg Burns (Red Sparowes), by Chad Bamford (Weezer) with additional recordings by Mathias Schneeberger (The Obsessed, Gutter Twins), the release is due from Tee Pee Records in October 2009.

IMAAD WASIF

Feb-04 Los Angeles, CA Spaceland #
Feb-11 Los Angeles, CA Spaceland %
Feb-18 Los Angeles, CA Spaceland &
Feb-27 San Francisco, CA Noise Pop
Mar-17 - Mar-20 Austin, TX SXSW
Mar-26 Brookdale, CA Historic Brookdale Lodge *
Mar-27 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall *
Mar-31 Eugene, OR Wow Hall *
Apr-01 Portland, OR Doug Fir Lounge *
Apr-02 Vancouver, BC Biltmore Cabaret *
Apr-03 Seattle, WA The Comet Tavern *

# = “An Evening of Bad Vibes” feat. The Dead Wasif, Mockingbirds
% = “An Evening of Faith Folk” feat. Imaad Acoustic set, Becky Stark, Voice on Tape
& = “An Evening of Cock Rock” feat. Imaad Wasif with Two Part Beast, Lou Barlow & the Missing Men, Avi Buffalo
* = w/ Dead Meadow

Imaad Wasif
The Voidist
(Tee Pee)
Street Date: Oct. 13, 2009

1. Redeemer
2. Priestess
3. Fangs
4. Widow Wing
5. Our Skulls
6. Return to You
7. The Hand of the Imposter
8. Daughter of Fire
9. Her Sorcery
10. Another
11. Razorlike

IMAAD WASIF LINKS:

Myspace: myspace.com/imaadw

Label Page: teepeerecords.com