All photos: Jane Briggs

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MP3: True Womanhood – The Monk

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MP3: True Womanhood – Five-Colored Hands

Live performances are one of the most lucid windows into someone’s heart and soul.  Tons of choreography, pretension and rehearsed spontaneity suggest an egomaniacal fiend.  A stripped down acoustic set suggests the performer is intimately associated with his/her craft, material and audience.

In the case of True Womanhood, I see their youthful naivete on display on multiple fronts.  The borderline giddy exuberance with which bassist Melissa Beattie visibly anticipates each song in the set is probably the most endearing and genuine.  Their overwrought theatrics of deconstruction and brooding are a bit excessive and make it immediately apparent they have been weaned, like myself, on the public catharsis, self-destruction and breakdown so prevalent in the 90s heyday of modern rock.  The giants of grunge and garage are channeled, and in this fashion, True Womanhood wears their influences lovingly on their collective sleeves.  This is a natural out-growth of the youthful artist, one still enamored with idols and inspirations and only beginning to find their own voice.  They still bear the marks of disbelief at what they are accomplishing and a hint of insecurity with how they portray themselves live, opting more often than not to showcasing tried-and-true rock cliches.

But their youthful melodramatics and over-born airs can be forgiven, as they seem to display few of those insecurities in their music.  Read the rest…

Atlanta, Georgia’s Deerhunter is a ridiculously amazing concoction of garagey, psychedelic-rock ear candy, and they’re coming to the Ottobar on November 3rd. I must admit I am jumping onto this bandwagon way way wayyy late, but after the nuclear fallout of hype, I have completely fallen for them.

I’ve heard nothing but good things about their live show, so this one is not to be missed, my friends.

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MP3: Deerhunter – Fluorescent Grey

Ok, Fluorescent Grey (above) isn’t the BEST example of a Deerhunter song because it’s a bit more structured than the majority of their stuff– but GOOD GOD DOES IT BRING THE ROCK (be patient, young ones).

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MP3: Deerhunter – Microcastle

Here is the title track from their newest release, the full length Microcastle. Download and enjoy. If you’re into ambient psych-mellowness plz also check out Atlas Sound, frontman Bradford Cox’s solo project.

Fantastic set again from Jenn & Andy, this time in support of Barack Obama for reasons we went over at length last week.

Download the entire set in a ZIP file: FLAC or MP3

Stream MP3s after the jump.

Wye Oak
The Metro Gallery
Baltimore, MD
October 26, 2008

Band:
Jenn Wasner-guitar, vocals
Andy Stack-keyboard, guitar, vocals

Source: Peluso CEMC6/ck4(card)>PS-2>AD-20>NJB3
Transfer: NJB3>PC>SF-7>Wav>FLAC
Taper: Jeff Mewbourn (jm292@yahoo.com)

baltimore-taper.blogspot.com

Read the rest…

Bloodlusting Broad

Last week, I attended the only operatic event you need to see in 2008: Salome @ the Met Opera in NYC. Salacious greed of Biblical proportions makes perfect parallel to today’s vulgarity on Wall Street and Main. Plot-in-brief: Booze, more booze, and a winsome floozy — complete with black-winged angels of death. A voice in the wilderness… One act Opera put on in the midst of “A once-in-a-century credit tsunami.”

Join me in my Dress Circle seat… Read the rest…

I suppose anyone can be prolific. To be prolific, broad & incredibly talented is another game altogether. In just the past 2 years, Richard Swift (Secretly Canadian) has released 3 diverse, provocative projects. As Onasis finds him in the smokey, analog-fueled dinginess of 60s garage rock.  Then we have the Ground Trouble Jaw EP, which features “2 soul jams, 1 funny doo-wop song & 2 synth/pop/?”.

Before that, we saw Swift take on his more well-known aural demeanor, with 2006′s Dressed Up For the Letdown. The list goes on and on. Electronic music, classic-style retro singer-songwriter, etc, etc etc. If you are a musician, you’ve got to respect this guy’s talent, creative output, and variety.

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MP3: Richard Swift – Dressed up for the letdown from Dressed Up For the Letdown

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MP3: Richard Swift – Knee-high boogie blues from Richard Swift as Onasis

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MP3: Richard Swift – The Bully from Ground Trouble Jaw

Let’s not forget his short films and music videos. They, too, are amazing. Here’s to you, Richard Swift. You are one prolific mofo!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this interview are highly political and solely my own, which is why I have identified the interviewer as myself and not the whole of Aural States.  Aural States as an entity is politically neutral…like Sweden.

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MP3: Wye Oak – Remember, Above from Daytrotter Sessions

As I walked into El Rancho Grande, that lovely community-invoking coffee-house on Falls Road in Hampden, I see strewn across the table lots of construction paper.  Surrounded by people cutting furiously and laughing.  The cutting is for hand-crafted posters advertising Hope Night, an Obama benefit night of music, community and activism.  It is an immediate realization of the ideas inspiring the night.

And they’re just getting started…

I took some time out last night to chat with Andy about this Sunday’s event, how it developed, and more specific reflections on the nature of politics and music…

Greg Szeto- So…what happened exactly? Read the rest…

“It was all a dream. I used to read Word Up magazine.”

Well for the young Mudge it was actually URB, and XLR8R. So, I was pretty happy when XLR8R sat down with Kevin Martin, aka The Bug, and Annette Henry, aka Warrior Queen. This producer/MC dubstep duo were responsible for the hard-hitting single “Poison Dart” from The Bug’s London Zoo album. Read my review here.

This interview provides a valuable primer to an interesting scene emerging from that island across the Atlantic known for pushing electronic music forward , with a little help from another island nation in the Caribbean also know for musical innovation.  Cultural cross-pollination is cool!

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MP3: WZT Hearts – Title Unknown from The End, Part Two: The Beginning, the Wham City compilation (2007).

Oh no!  WZT Hearts is done.  So says City Paper’s Noise blog today.  Bummer.  But I was wondering how long the long-distance thing would last with Jeff aka NoTendo up in NYC and others scattered about.

Good luck to everyone, and we can’t wait to hear the Jasonx2 project!

Neutral Milk Hotel – Engine – 10/18/2008 Brillobox, Pittsburgh PA from Engine on Vimeo.

Yes, folks, that is indeed THE Jeff Magnum.  But fuck if everyone who is talking didn’t need an ass-kicking.

Read the rest…