Reviews

Blonde Redhead | Webster Hall | Nov 3 2010

The crisp Autumn air paired with the teaser of Pantha du Prince’s electrifying and deeply shrouded curtain of sound set the tone for the first of a two night run for Blonde Redhead at Webster Hall. Pantha du Prince shrouded in bass and fog let us know that a lush and overwhelmingly breathtaking evening lay ahead. I was unsure of what to expect from Pantha du Prince, as he’s described as a minimalist but his sound is anything but minimal. It’s full-bodied, entrancing and more than anything it thunders.

Emerging on the stage, clad in a porcelain white dress, and haunting mask-hat-wig, Kazu took the stage opening with Black Guitar with Amedeo. Beckoning and captivating the crowd, luring us in with ominous gestures, Kazu moved across the stage illuminated in white light. The full scope of Kazu’s soft resonant vocals paired with Simone’s commanding drums and Amedeo’s heart wrenching guitar playing created an intimacy that could be felt throughout. I could go on about the ambiance: the cathedral-like lighting, the mist that gave rise to the looming and the swell of the atmosphere, the twins in their sharp, pin-striped shirts, and Kazu and her single armwarmer, conductors hat and booties but I’ll refrain. I’ll let the photos do the talking.

The set was emotional and a great pleasure for devoted fans of Blonde Redhead, offering a wealth of favorites from both “Penny Sparkle” and “23″. A personal, notable gem was the surprise of a double encore led with a shaky yet endearing start to “Silently” where Kazu apologetically explained that “Sometimes when you’re not practicing the old songs you forget.” That was just one of many intimate and touching moments during the show. The night air was full of magic, surreal light and fantastical moments. I’ll suffice it to say that from the floor up through the ceiling Blonde Redhead created a chamber of resonant sound that could be felt in undertaking waves.

Please visit Blonde Redhead for tour dates, 4Ad sessions and news on the band.

Setlist:

Black Guitar

Here Sometimes

Dr. Strangeluv

Spring and by Summer Fall

Oslo

En Particulier

SW

Spain

Will There Be Stars

Not Getting There

Falling Man

23

Encore:

Melody of Certain Three

My Plants Are Dead

2nd Encore:

Penny Sparkle

Silently

Love or Prison

Tour Dates:

Sun, 11/14 – San Diego CA – House of Blues
Mon, 11/15 – Pomona CA – Glass House
Tue, 11/16 – Los Angeles CA – The Music Box
Wed, 11/17 – Los Angeles, CA – The Music Box
Fri, 11/19 – San Francisco CA – Warfield Theatre
Sat, 11/20 – Portland OR – Roseland Theatre
Sun, 11/21 – Vancouver BC – Commodore Ballroom
Wed, 11/24 – Seattle WA – Showbox (at the Market)
Fri, 11/26 – Salt Lake City UT – The Depot
Sat, 11/27 – Denver CO – Ogden Theatre
Mon, 11/29 – Houston TX – Warehouse Live Studio
Tue, 11/30 – Dallas TX – Granada Theater
Wed, 12/1 – Austin TX – La Zona Rosa

♬♥ Ditte

Letters To Emma Bowlcut: Letter 11

Bill Callahan’s Letters to Emma Bowlcut arrived today. A great surprise for a breezy summer day. The first thing I did when it arrived was smell the pages. I do that all the time with books.

I thought eventually upon completion of the whole thing that I’d get around to reviewing it all but certain things you can’t contain. And certain things you want to share as they’re happening, as they’re fresh in your mind and reeling on your senses.

An excerpt,

Letter 11

…I got blitzed last night and wept like I was being whipped. Robin asked me to never call her again. The ceiling and floor are so thin I was half hoping that one of the annoying women from above or below would hear me and come up or down from their beds into mine. They never came, but I could hear one of them creaking the bedsprings with her lifted neck and I took it as an act of commiseration.

I’m empty from bawling. Feel like I need to take a wife. And my hands smell like gunpowder. Happy birthday,by the way.

Work teeters. I keep the instruments in good order through disuse. Silver discs in boxes with mother-of-pearl inlay and velvet lining.

I think it’s a good idea not to give a fuck. I find myself suddenly not giving one. And I’m well aware that you can reshelve the books in flawless alphabetical order while still not giving a fuck. My good gracious lady, my light behind the rabbit’s ears I fall at your feet and kiss your mansome shoe. Please ignore the flask exposed in the process.

It’s slowly unraveling and unveiling itself.

♫ ♥ ditte

The sweltering, nearly stifling heat. The glitter. The boisterous, restless, unrestrained energy- a daunting sort of energy that loomed in the air that could be felt throughout the crowd because we knew we were on the edge of something. We were anxious, we were waiting, waiting to experience something that we were sure would satiate our anxious bodies and would leave us captivated, but we weren’t quite sure what. Would it be a playfully rapturous daydream? Would we all be left swaying, our arms and hands in the air, eyes fixed on Ariel and gazing until the morning? We were beside ourselves. Not to mention prior to Ariel and his Haunted Graffiti officially taking to the stage, glittery glimpses of Ariel could be seen off stage. At one point he handed the bassist of Puro Instinct a glass of water. In another flash you could see Ariel off to the side dancing frantically like a 5 year old that could not be contained and simply would not go to bed. He could feel our energy- all in a tizzy and suspenseful! At another point he grabbed the microphone and sang along with them during their last song sending the crowd into an eager frenzy.

Puro Instinct exits, the screen falls from the ceiling and we’re left again with old movies in infrared and negatives courtesy of Irving Plaza. Not enough. We wanted Ariel. The mere hint of Ariel was enough to send us dancing in place and grinning watching Ariel as he set up behind the screen.

Out comes R. Stevie Moore (how appropriate!) and that’s when the magic hits. That’s when our eager frenzy turns into an altered state of excitement and wonder.  It’s a parade! Stevie is smoking a cigarette, banging on a tambourine and Ariel follows behind. He’s covered in a halo of light and face paint, his hair sticking to his face from sweat- just the way you want to see Ariel make an entrance! We wouldn’t have been satisfied any other way. The band moves into “Hot Body Rub” and we were gone. Exalted. We were strapped into our seatbelts so to speak. We were going for a ride. Ariel’s interaction with the crowd at certain points was intimate. Though never addressing the crowd fully, there were points when he was teetering dangerously close to the edge of the stage, and in those moments, the illumination of the lights paired with the shimmery gold of his top made me think of a distorted dysfunctional rock n’ roll Jesus. There were moments when Ariel was close enough to touch, adorable moments such as the moment shared between him and Stevie under an umbrella, a moment of visible annoyance with Ariel’s hands waving wildly in the air to “turn the volume up” at the sound guys overhead, and moments such as during the encore of “For Kate I Wait” when the stage turned into a merry mayhem similar to something you’d find in the evening hours of a family reunion; Stevie laying on the stage, shaking his tambourine and smoking a cigarette while one of the members of Puro Instinct banged the tambourine against his side. Eventually Stevie handed his purple hat off to Ariel which he wore throughout “For Kate I Wait”. These were personal and real moments, however disorderly I couldn’t help if those moments were his gifts the fans,as if he was silently sharing something with us alone. I’d like to think he was.

No one need be afraid of Ariel losing his authenticity since his signing with 4AD. He’s in good hands as has not lost his essence. The fear of the fan is always that once “their” gem gets too big they’ll lose their flavor. Ariel is still a fanciful and eccentric clutter of chaos on stage. Stumbling and tipsy from the music, you can feel his raw purity; the earnest in his lo-fi home recordings can still be felt. Ariel’s soul hasn’t gone anywhere- it is apparent that he simply wants to share his experience with you. It’s a beautiful mess. It’s the kind of mess that you’ve always wanted to emerge from the walls of your bedroom as you listen to any one of his albums. To see it unfold in front of you, billowing and whimsical is an experience I cannot properly describe except to say that is something close to magic and something close to mayhem; perhaps even astral. Ariel took us for a ride that was not of the world.

I always imagine Ariel sitting on a brown shag rug with wood paneling, indian style with a microphone in his hand, pushing keys, pressing buttons, fiddling with the volume. He’s sitting in the living room. Maybe there’s a green sofa, dented and worn. Maybe there’s a glass on a round glass table gathering condensation. Just alongside him is a sliding patio door and he’s got it wedged open just a bit to let the air flow through. There’s a pool, neglected and full of leaves. And it’s just Ariel and his stack of cassettes and his homemade sound having a musical freakout. That very same mix of nostalgia, mixed with effervescent joy was exactly what we got. Hot, sticky, beguiled- we left enchanted.

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti/Beverly Kills

Tour Dates
♫ ♥ ditte

Twin Sister “Color Your Life”

http://twinsistermusic.com/

The follow up to the their 4 track debut, Color Your Life, is the atmospheric, sultry and romantic second EP from Brooklyn’s Twin Sister.

Andrea, Bryan, Eric, Gabe and Idbhav sensually unfold an aural bedroom complete with faraway, dreamy vocals from start to finish.

Possibly the most haunting of the tracks, the opening track, “The Other Side of Your Face”, slowly unravels and climbs as Andrea Estella’s pleadingly haunting voice beckons and coos.  The second track “Lady Daydream”,  floats through and offers up a lovers testament while tapping on our heartstrings and our nostalgic senses of lovers come and gone with lyrics such as, She took it all from me/Now I can’t find my place/Do you ‘member me/Do you know my face?”.  On “All Around and Away We Go” we’re teased and coaxed with a softly sultry disco beat that steams up the room.

I recently put Twin Sister on a mix titled “Summer Daydreaming” for all those muggy, steamy, firefly filled nights of romanticism and longing.

Twin Sister is currently on tour with Memoryhouse.