My most-anticipated day in quite a while has arrived. Wolf Parade released At Mount Zoomer today. The Sub Pop band’s release is its second, the first being 2005’s outstanding, mindbending Apologies to the Queen Mary.
I have the record on order, and I’ll post a review here when I’ve soaked in it for a few days.
It’s best described by a term we regularly drop here at NWMB:
Class A Face-melting, Stomach-churning, Palm-sweating, Loin-tingling Two Day Music Candystore Assault That’s Not Bumbershoot or Sasquatch.
July 12 and 13 at Marymoor Park
Are you seated? Heart meds within reach? Then look here:
Beachwood Sparks / Comets on Fire / Fleet Foxes / Flight of the Conchords / The Fluid / Foals / Grand Archives / Green River / The Helio Sequence / Iron & Wine / Kinski / Low / Mudhoney / No Age / Pissed Jeans / Red Red Meat / The Ruby Suns / Seaweed / Wolf Parade, and more to be announced.
In unabashedly conspicuous celebration of 20 years of not going out of business (sometimes only barely), Seattle’s Sub Pop Records will gather past and present label-mates for a series of events, including a two-day festival at Marymoor Park on July 12 & 13 and a comedy show on July 11 at Seattle’s Moore Theatre. Proceeds from the sale of tickets will go to support beneficiaries of each participating act’s choosing. Tickets go on sale April 26 at 12 PM Pacific at SubPop.com and all Ticketmaster locations.
Be still, my beating heart.
Jesy Fortino goes by band name Tiny Vipers, a unique and curious name to match an equally unique and curious sound. Watching Tiny Vipers at Triple Door last night, who is older (24ish) than she appears – but clearly wise beyond her years – was a pretty unique experience. OK, I’m done with the word unique already (almost). But you’d have to see her to get it. Her music, is, well, difficult to classify (aka unique). It’s intense, beautiful, folk, acoustic, moody, deep, dark, thoughtful, deliberate, intense, and soft all the same. Her voice is beautiful and rich, folky and difficult to pinpoint. Which is exactly what she is as an artist – difficult to fully grasp, difficult to pinpoint. Her guitar-picking may sound simple and bare, but it’s really much more deliberate and complex if you properly tune in. She also has perfect ‘pitch’, a very rare talent at that. She’ll properly draw you in, engage you without doubt. Her lyrics are stories(?), they’re hard to decipher, let alone follow, but this is a side factor when it comes to Tiny Vipers. What she has going on is a lot deeper and textured than can be defined by the words she’s singing.
There is no statement Tiny Vipers is trying to make. But there’s something about her music, her presence, that makes a statement all the same. There is no pretense in who she is, she delivers a raw, but soft and gentle, performance. She’s on stage, not there to please anyone – in fact one gets the feeling it wouldn’t matter if she were playing all alone in an empty apartment, or in front of thousands of folks (though one would question if she’d ever wish to go down this path, she seems the kind who would quietly allude to remaining just under the radar, or under no radar at all). She’d still deliver the same performance, wholely consumed in her art, her work, which in many ways makes her the untouchable, powerful and mysterious artist she is.
Triple Door’s acoustics and sound did justice to Fortino’s performance. It was a thoughtful show, a contemplative one from the audience’ perspective, and a very enjoyable and real experience at that.
This kid is raw talent. Check out the EP ‘Hands Across the Void’ (Subpop, 2007) for a glimpse into the deep and complex soul of Tiny Vipers. And to get an idea of Fortino live, pick up the DVD series ‘Burn to Shine’, Seattle WA edition – one of filmmaker Christoff Green and ex-Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty’s documentary series that captures live performances of favorite (in this case, Benjamin Gibbard’s – Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service) local Seattle bands in a unique and intimate setting – a house that is on the verge of being demolished.
Hey, LB here. I thought I’d try something different and offer a glimpse of what’s been getting recent significant play in my CD player. I call it “No, YOU Listen!” and hopefully I’ll find enough gumption to make it a continual thing. The title must be said (somewhat) vehemently—emphasis on the ‘you’—while pointing your index finger at the tip of someone’s nose. Don’t say it if you’re not going to do it. Enough jibber-jabber.
I picked up the debut from Seattle’s Fleet Foxes a few weeks ago, a 5-track EP entitled Sun Giant. Needless to say, I’m really pleased with it. The quintet has garnered a lot of attention in recent months, most notably for their union with Sub Pop (guilty) and subsequent tour supporting Blitzen Trapper. Late last week, bandleader and avid scarf-wearer Robin Pecknold wrote a blog on the band’s myspace page apologizing for all the press they’ve received of late. But since he didn’t explicitly refer to anything in particular, it’s difficult to know what he was talking about (or if he was simply being facetious). Well, I’m here to say: Good for them. No, not for getting annoyed with the inevitable exposure enjoyable music will bring a fledgling band in this here technological age; but for warranting such added recognition.
Maybe the consternation—feigned or otherwise—has something to do with the fact that innumerous writers/bloggers across the internet have incorrectly and frivolously lumped them “into the My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses genre.” It sure irks me—they sound like neither. Jim James and Ben Bridwell are understandably comparable due to their similar vocal ranges. As well, the layered multi-person harmonizing that Fleet Foxes employs is generally absent from the music of either of their bands. Both MMJ and BoH are proud of their southern rock, country-tinged roots, but you’ll find no such basis when listening to the Foxes. BoH and MMJ are inclined to elongated guitar and drum jams, like any good Neil Young pupil would be, but you’d be hard pressed to find any evidence that FF is anything close to a jam-band. In a word, Fleet Foxes are a folk group, plain and simple.
I say plain and simple, of course, but I mean intricate and vibrant. Sun Giant begins with its title track, a song mostly devoid of instrumentation until its final stages. “So,” you ask, “is it like Rockapella or something?” Good god, no; but it does, as is the case with most of their songs, make use of the band’s myriad vocal talents to sway the listener towards the fantastical bliss to follow (yes, I just said ‘fantastical bliss’). The hymn-like tune closes out with a trail of plucky mandolin. The record continues with “Drops in the River”, a baroque-pop venture that may remind some listeners of the band Beirut, without the Eastern European influence. Pecknold’s ethereal reflections, accompanied by mandolin, tambourine, and Nicholas Peterson’s kick drum, swell to an inspiring crescendo. They are eventually met with a flourish of jangly guitars and choral texture, leading into an arresting pause in harmony, and finishing with another sonic upsurge. It’s a testament to legendary producer Phil Ek that the song comes off as beautiful as it does. The man should be cast and bronzed in a square somewhere.
“English House” continues the trend of luminous, pastoral imagery in Pecknold’s lyrics, crooning his refrain with all the fervor of a 70s AM radio star. The string players here —Skye Skjelset, Casey Westcott, Christian Wargo— hold the weight, chanting along with their kinsfolk, painting a lush musical landscape, while Peterson drums his way through the countryside. The fourth track, “Mykonos,” is my favorite. It moves a bit faster than the others, has a bit more rock for its roll, and clearly flaunts the band’s ability to successfully arrange a song. The listener is transported to a sun-drenched and peaceful imaginary backdrop, beginning with Pecknold’s enchanting lyric: “And you will go to Mykonos \ with a vision of a general cause \ and a sun to maybe dissipate \ shadows of the mess you made.” If any cut on their self-titled LP—to be released June 3rd of this year—is half as moving, half as dazzling, and half as impressive, it will be an irrefutable success.
Wed March 12
w/opener YANN NOVAK
$12 7:30
I’ve only just began to get into Tiny Vipers. I just bought their first EP as a memento of the Fremont Sonic Boom and love it through and through.
Lead, Jesy Fortino, has done her time in coffee shops and on mismatched bills. Her style is not folk, not alternative, but something different and wonderfully better. Tiny vipers is backing up their latest release (and first full legnth) Hands Across the Void