Tonight Tonight in Music: Happy Birthday Macklemore, Obelus, the Fratellis
posted by on June 19 at 11:15 AM
Macklemore celebrates his birthday at Chop Suey tonight with performances from Evan Roman and Xperience, Pigeon John, Cancer Rising, Tha Stahi Bros, and DJ BeanOne.
Happy Birthday!
Also tonight:
Obelus, Lusine, Logic Probe, ndCv, Tarlton
(Nectar) Obelus’s new Conduit Records release, Montana, is a collection of instrumental ambient siftings. It’s not really something you put on to listen to; it’s something you put on to hear. The album is open, yet gathered. Guitars and synths are elongated and ruffled with clatter. Duo Jason Goessl and Adam Pessl compose tracks with samples and beds of sound. Gentle activations of imagery slowly seep out of the speakers, and repeat listens unravel their faces and plot. This CD- release show will feature vocalist and collaborator Caitlin Sherman. Obelus had an experience in Big Sky, Montana, and they captured it with long, flat, horizons of audio. TRENT MOORMAN
Donte Parks has more to say about the new Obelus record in his column, Bug in the Bassbin:
If you’ve ever wondered what Big Sky Country sounds like, this is the release for you—its lush, spacious improvisations deftly balancing drone, glitch, and silence. It’s a departure from Obelus’s more drum-centric fare, but the duo have always cast a wide creative net. Obelus invoke a bit of vinyl purity with this album, releasing the recording solely on limited-edition green vinyl.Obelus have always emphasized live performance, and perhaps the best way to experience Montana is to see the duo onstage with MIDI guitar and drums, playing off of one another and the audience. They’ll be doing that this Thursday at Nectar, with a bill rounded out by Logic Probe, Brett Bullion, ndCv, and a DJ set by Lusine. With all those forward-thinking artists on the same bill, the night sounds like an installment of retired weekly Oscillate.
Obelus:
“Big Sky”
The Fratellis
(Neumo’s) There’s nothing all that bad about Glasgow’s the Fratellis, though their list of crimes runs deep on paper. They probably got their name from sacred ’80s movie The Goonies (though they still maintain that it’s actually the name of one of the dudes in the band) and, according to Wikipedia, they got signed after only nine gigs. They’re not exactly original—their boisterous rock ‘n’ roll anthems don’t offer anything we haven’t already heard from the Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, or Louis XIV. But there are worse things than imitation, and they play their solid, popped-up garage revivalism well. Although they’ve had a lot of success in the UK, they’re still struggling to find the same fame in the U.S. Probably because there’s nothing all that bad about them. Maybe once they get involved in some kind of scandal, they’ll be huge, but a band this generic can’t exist on music alone. MEGAN SELING
I maintain, still, that The Fratellis took all the things unoriginal and wrong with current Strokes-scarred British indie music and shot it out of an over-the-top cannon of such overblown pop proportions that they, finally, made it both sound 1.] unique, and 2.] the last exclamation point at the end of one of the most dire modern movements of music.
They had nowhere to go from there.
Which is why the second album is useless.
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