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Introducing: Sophia Knapp
Name: Sophia Knapp
From: Brooklyn, New York
Story: Cliffie Swan leader Lights up solo-style
Sound: '70s singer-songwriter style
"Leaving people behind is never easy to do," carols Sophia Knapp. "Still you're moving along." The longtime leader of Brooklyn band Cliffie Swan (who, for their first two LPs, were known as Lights, pre-name-change) may not be leaving her band entirely behind, but her debut solo album sure finds her moving along.
Into the Waves, Knapp's first record under her own name, comes out February 28 on Drag City. It features a couple duets with beau Bill Callahan, and carries with it a warm, storytelling quality that never quite shone amidst Cliffie Swan's snarling psychedelic rock.
Here's, there's chiming pianos, funky bass, analogue organs, dangling guitar lines, and washed-out disco strings. The tone of the whole lands somewhere between the Laurel Canyon sound and Fleetwood Mac's coked-out excesses. Things are routinely slow and sad, which gives Knapp's glorious voice a chance to shine, and her casual, conversational lyrics are filled with all kinds of sweet, suggestive details.
Cliffie Swan have been, in their life, a band existing outside of the blogosphere's buzz, and it's entirely possible Into the Waves eludes hyping on its release. But, to these ears, it's clearly one of the best albums of 2012 thus far.
Let Your Long Hair Down:
February 23: Brooklyn, NY - Union Pool
February 29: New York, NY - Sway
Photo © Bek AndersonIntroducing: Sophia Knapp originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 at 08:00:01. Permalink | Comment | Email this
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Free Music Monday: Extra Life "Righteous Seed"
There's a ferociously melodramatic tenor to Extra Life's manic, menacing, chin/head-scratching music that seems indebted to opera, or any kind of ancient theater from a less cynical, digitally-intimate era. Charlie Looker sings as if projecting to the cheap seats up the back, hefting his voice and tightening his diaphragm as his band's bizarre medieval-math-rock ricochets madly.
"Righteous Seed" —the first taste from the third Extra Life LP, Dream Seeds, due out April 10— is suitably Looker-ish; a galloping, gathering storm of fragrant prog stirred up towards deliriously over-the-top peaks, delivered with such hysterical theatricality that most listeners will instantly bristle upon hearing it (which is, in some ways, surely the point).
"I'm by your side if you need to cry!" Looker wails, amidst a nasty song —all sludgy bass and whipped percussion— filled with religious terrors, grotesque visions, and this quality that makes me think of malicious gossip taking on a life of its own. The Extra Life leader (a former member of Dirty Projectors and homie o' Owen Pallett) calls Dream Seeds an album-long study in the "harrowing yet transformative nightmares" of children, with Maurice Sendak's Outside Over There seemingly looming as spiritual influence.
Extra Life, "Righteous Seed"Free Music Monday: Extra Life "Righteous Seed" originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Monday, February 6th, 2012 at 16:00:41. Permalink | Comment | Email this
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Free Music Monday: Black Dice "Pigs"
Black Dice have long been peers with Animal Collective, and, way back when, they felt like they were more primed for a breakout than the bros from Baltimore; Black Dice's 2002 LP Beaches & Canyons scoring some of that budding blog buzz long before it was recognized as tangible force.
Now, the thought seems funny: with Animal Collective now headlining festivals and bothering the Billboard charts, whilst Black Dice have become very much a cult band; their records growing gnarlier, stranger, and more provocative over time.
"Pigs" stands as the first taste of the April-due Mr. Impossible, Black Dice's forthcoming sixth album, and first since 2009's Repo. And it keeps with the weirdo vibes that've been raining since Black Dice broke with DFA after 2005's Broken Ear Record.
With vocals cut up into unrecognizable half-syllables and plunderphonic grunts, "Pigs" heaves with jerky, convulsive, spasmodic rhythms, creating a cacophonous clangour that sounds simultaneously joyous and menacing. If this is the 'single,' Mr. Impossible promises to be a none-too-friendly listen, all but cementing Black Dice's cult status for good.
Black Dice, "Pigs"
Photo © Barbara SotoFree Music Monday: Black Dice "Pigs" originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Monday, February 6th, 2012 at 14:00:50. Permalink | Comment | Email this
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Free Music Monday: Bear in Heaven "The Reflection of You"
In a high-concept PR prank that rivaled that time when Akron/Family intentionally leaked experimental versions of their S/T II LP, Brooklyn psych-synth outfit Bear in Heaven are in the midst of streaming their forthcoming album, I Love You, It's Cool via their website.
Only, it's being streamed but the once, slowed down to roughly 400,000% the speed; so that the album plays a single time —as some pained drone— between December and its April 3 release.
"The Reflection of You," the first non-slowed-down listen to the follow-up to 2009's Beast Rest Forth Mouth, shows they've been applying pitch-shifting to their jams, too. "There's nothing left between us, so dance with me" Jon Philpot croons; each "dance with me" repeated with draining-away emotion, his voice slowed down, and dragged/drugged out with each recurring apperance.
Lyrically and musically, "The Reflection of You" makes plentiful references to the dancefloor; in a way that's both oblique and genuine. "If you can dance with me/I think you will like my moves," Philpot sings, "if you get next to me/I will have nothing left to prove."
Bear in Heaven, "The Reflection of You"
Photo © Shawn BrackbillFree Music Monday: Bear in Heaven "The Reflection of You" originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Monday, February 6th, 2012 at 12:00:49. Permalink | Comment | Email this
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Free Music Monday: Black Marble "Pretender"
Given it's pretty much impossible to listen to Black Marble and not think of Joy Division, let's just say it up front: yes, this sounds like Joy Division.
The duo —boasting Ty Kube, formerly of shouty, dayglo-electro rave-up Team Robespierre— roll out with stark synth figures, the metronomic clunk of a rudimentary drum-machine, and suitably Hook-ian bass ringing out loud and proud.
It's a study in aching, moaning, human emotions set against robotic rhythms; but there's a sense of decay present in every note, in every syllable, and every waft of odious air. Black Marble employ once-futuristic tools of space-age sound, but as if they've dug them, half-decomposed, from the dung pile; and, yes, that's two stench metaphors in one paragraph.
"Pretender" is the perfect introduction to Black Marble's gothed-out, nocturnal underworld. And, in turn, it serves as the opening track —the lure-in— on Weight Against the Door, the EP they've just put out on Hardly Art.
Black Marble, "Pretender"
Photo © Ashley LeahyFree Music Monday: Black Marble "Pretender" originally appeared on About.com Alternative Music on Monday, February 6th, 2012 at 10:00:47. Permalink | Comment | Email this
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