For “Khafif Khafif” (English: “Softly Softly”) Nancy Mounir tapped into the recorded catalog of famed early Twentieth Century Egyptian singer Saleh Abdel Hay and mixed it in with her own vocals and ambient treatments in the mix. This borrowing archival recordings of popular music from another era and recontextualizing it for the present Mounir employed throughout her debut album Nozhet El Nofous (English: Promenade of the Souls) set for release June 3, 2022 on Simara Records. The effect is like the restoration of an old, lost film with an aesthetic that resonates now but has the greatest signifiers for those familiar with its proper context. It brings with it to the uninitiated an air of mystery and when it sinks in these arrangements and the production that helps to enhance the sound wouldn’t have been possible, say, ninety years ago (though Hay lived until 1962). But Mounir’s attention to sonic detail doesn’t reveal a hint of modern treatments until the end of the song where even then the grainy quality of the vocals and instrumentation is applied to the more subtle, electronic elements that takes us from a trip to the past through a hazy yet illuminated sonic corridor back to the present. Listen to “Khafif Khafif” on YouTube and connect with Mounir at the links provided.
Small Island Big Song is not a conventional musical project in any usual sense. It is a a multimedia (music, film, performance) collective including over a hundred musicians across 16 island nations of the Pacific and Indian Oceans that serves to create a contemporary musical statement from the perspective of the regions that are facing cultural and environmental challenges which clearly has an urgent relevance today. All of the works are written, recorded and overdubbed in nature at the place of the various artists’ custodial land. All of the works out of this project are a co-production of Taiwan and Australia. For the single “Listwar Zanset” (“the story of our ancestors”) Mauritian singer, songwriter and dancer Emlyn and Taiwanese singer Putad (of the Amis people) collaborate with vocals over an interlinking flow of percussion with backing vocals and later stringed instruments. Their voices are strong and lively to match the instrumentation and one need not understand Creole or Amis to be impacted and certainly not the message in English of threatened cultures and people toward the end of the track. The song operates beyond language and its message of liberation and the preservation of memory and culture can be felt in its fortifying and confident tone. On the world stage the indigenous and those not wielding the greatest economic, political and military power are often overrun and neglected when history bears out that the fate of these people becomes the fate of all in the end and it’s best to listen now when it’s not too late for everyone. Watch the video for “Listwar Zanset” on YouTube and connect with Small Island Big Song at the links below to hear more from this unique project whose music exists outside a narrow conception of existing genres.
It seems only appropriate that Savage Republic’s video for the lead single “Stingray” from its new album Meteora (it’s first since 2014’s Aegean) looks like it was filmed on VHS on the seashore. The almost entirely instrumental track showcases the more playful yet edgy side of the band and an example of how it threaded together surf rock with menacing post-punk and non-Western rhythm schemes. It sounds fairly straightforward until it sinks in that it’s probably not in 4/4 time. As an introduction to the band’s respectable body of work it’s a pretty accessible and energetic short slice of the band’s eclectic aesthetic. Other tracks on the album including “Nothing at All” linked below demonstrate how Savage Republic has always been deft at injecting pointed post-punk with almost tribal rhythms and raw industrial beats. The new album also has tastes of the band’s nuanced yet direct political lyrics. From its 1982 debut album Tragic Figures (the song “Real Men” appeared in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs) through the albums the group has released since it got back together in 2002, Savage Republic has been explicitly anti-authoritarian and on Meteora making no bones about being anti-fascist. All while having some creative fun with making darkly cathartic soundscapes alongside its more international musical roots in crafting arresting songs that make it seem exciting to be on the right side of history without getting didactic about it all. Watch the videos for “Stingray” and “Nothing At All” on YouTube and connect with this influential cult post-punk band at the links below.
Former TÜLIPS frontperson Taleen Kali’s latest single “Flower of Life” simmers and then blazes with an irresistible momentum. Since her former band’s split in 2016 Kali has been on different sonic trajectories than the inspired fusion of garage rock, psychedelia and riot grrrl-esque punk of TÜLIPS. This song has a focused urgency in the pace and rhythm that borders on the motorik and is hypnotic in the sense that you get swept up in its headlong energy and Kali’s commanding vocals, perhaps the only element that doesn’t distort with an incandescent heat. Immediate comparisons aren’t easy to make to give the potential listener an idea of what they’re in for other than something like Milemarker but with sonics more akin to The Beths. The cover art for the single (a portion above) looks like something out of a mysterious movie about radical politics by Olivier Assayas and that just adds to appealing aesthetic of the single. Listen to “Flower Of Life” on YouTube and follow the musically multi-faceted Taleen Kali at the links provided and perchance order the limited edition 7” lathe cut on transparent cherry red vinyl on Bandcamp which also includes the B-side “Crusher.”
The music video for Bottled Up’s “Italo Love” hits some surreal notes and not just in the music. The members of the band are depicted performing on the beach and frolicking in a beach town. And the lyrics make references to Los Angeles with houses that look like something you might see in Encinitas, California. Maybe it was filmed there or on a beach area nearer to the group’s home town of Washington, DC. The smooth jazz, funk and pop aesthetics blended together effortlessly in the song certainly gives the impression of something that might come from a band celebrating the good times and nostalgia of the laid back pace and energy of one of the California beach towns including Long Beach. When Nikhil Rao sings the line “I was born from memories of the drives through Beverly” one wonders if he had a connection to the Los Angeles area or fantasized about it from images on television and film and identifying with the vibe. The song and what has been release of the new Bottled Up album Grand Bizarre (due out May 27, 2022) has that quality of being outside usual time and geography while genre mashing in a way similar to that of King Krule and all the more interesting because of it. Fans of that final Abe Vigoda album Crush (2010) and its lush pop interpretation of glam rock will greatly appreciate this track and what Bottled Up has been going for throughout its career to date. Watch the video for “Italo Love” on YouTube and connect with Bottled Up at the links below.
When you hear Spencer Jones’s (Big Babies, Upstart Crow) character mutter something about a “twat” taking up both parking spaces as he comes back to his flat in the music video for “Blue Bones” you might be excused for thinking Billy Nomates’ lively indie rock single is about camaraderie in a relationship facing challenges. And to some extent it is. The upbeat guitar line and smoothly dynamic arrangements of the song are reminiscent of a mid-80s Talking Heads tune but the clever couplets and the resigned acceptance that the relationship is not just in trouble but has essentially faded away. When Nomates sings lines like “You just don’t turn me on like you used to” and how the bond over being miserable and downtrodden in life now simply lacks the sparkle with “Maybe we were both born blue but it just doesn’t turn me on like it used to,” the songwriter recalls some of Dolly Parton’s finer, more pointed yet somehow still classy moments. And touches like the coins on Jones’ eyes near the beginning of the interview speak to director Tia Salisbury’s gift for sprinkling scenes with poetic detail even as she depicts working class angst with such color and clarity. Watch the video for “Blue Bones” on YouTube and follow Nomates on Spotify.
“Sustain” begins with a simple guitar riff with the intimate physicality of pick on strings left intact. This textural element in this song by Denver’s State Fair grounds it even as the vocals come in hushed and the suggestion of a dreamlike atmospherics flow in the open spaces of the song. But as the song enters the last quarter, bombastic, distorted riffs burn through the comforting haze like a purging of the melancholic flavor and sentiments that informed what preceded. It hits the ears like a dream pop that picked up some strains of influence from classic indiepop and the more post-rock of the early 2000s posthardcore bands pairing an appealing delicacy with emotional heft. Listen to “Sustain” on Spotify, look for State Fair’s EP due out later in 2022 and connect with the band on Instagram.
Pity+Fear (a travesty) is the latest original work from Grapefruit Lab the performance group that brought us the fantastic production 2018 JANE/EYRE, a queer interpretation of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel. This new performance piece is, according to the Grapefruit Lab press release, “an intimate and darkly-comedic modern Greek tragedy, exploring what it means to be alive, to tell the truth, and to change over time. It was written by founding Grapefruit Lab member Miriam Suzanne (of JANE/EYRE and 10 Myths on the Proper Application of Beauty Products) who will also perform with live music by Josie Cool (An Antiquated Bluff, The Better Selfs). You will see Suzanne and Cool tell the story through three “incompatible myths of a Greek princess Agraulos” with personal stories from the performers. As with JANE/EYRE the performance promises to be utterly unique and imbued with meaning, humor and of course the tragedy one would expect given the genre vehicle of what you’ll witness on stage. But rather than summarize the Grapefruit Lab’s excellent synopsis of the performance and the ideas informing it, here’s is a bit more of what the group has to say about this current production:
“I’ve been trying to write about Agraulos since I first encountered her myths in 2010,” says Miriam Suzanne. The character has become a sort of worry stone for Suzanne, according to director and Grapefruit Lab collaborator Julie Rada. “This piece wrestles with both the mythical character and also Miriam’s ongoing obsession with her three lives and three deaths.” Those stories are framed by the two performers, who use the myths as a starting point to reflect on their own lives as queer and trans women through song and direct address.
Pity+Fear premiers on Friday, May 13, at Buntport Theater (717 Lipan St) in Denver, and runs for three weekends with shows every Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm. In order to make this production accessible, regardless of ability to pay, tickets are all name-your-price. “Buntport has been kind enough to lend us the space, and we want to pass along that generosity, especially as we’re still in the middle of a pandemic,” says Kenny Storms, the third member of Grapefruit Lab.
Grapefruit Lab is a performance company founded by long-term collaborators Suzanne and Rada, along with Kenny Storms, a sound designer for theaters around Denver. The three met in 2009, working on a LIDA Project production. Since then, they’ve collaborated under various names — finally forming Grapefruit Lab with a vision for mixed-media shows that engage the community. “We want to make art without assumptions,” Rada says, “Art that humanizes, and entertains, and challenges, and brings you into conversation.”
WHEN: Friday, May 13, 2022 7:30pm Saturday, May 14, 2022 7:30pm Friday, May 20, 2022 7:30pm Saturday, May 21, 2022 7:30pm Friday, May 27, 2022 7:30pm Saturday, May 28, 2022 7:30pm All tickets are name-your-own-price.
WHERE: Buntport Theater 717 Lipan St Denver, CO 80204
ADULT. at Larimer Lounge 10/13/18, photo by Tom Murphy
ADULT. is an electronic duo from Detroit that has been evolving its blend of dark techno, noise and post-punk since forming in 1998. Early releases displayed the project’s affinity for early techno and around the time of its 2007 fourth album Why Bother? you could hear the experiments in production and soundscapes with beats that yielded fascinating results on the 2005 album Gimme Trouble turn into almost set pieces in an album with an almost cinematic aesthetic, like dynamic visual design translated directly into sound design and songwriting. Since then ADULT.’s releases have been more overtly political and commenting on aspects of culture and society that have been corrosive to human culture and civilization in an accelerating way that has also more or less made cataclysmic climate disaster in our lifetimes a foregone conclusion. Since signing with Dais, the hip experimental music imprint, ADULT.’s output has seemed even more intentional and focused in its critique starting with 2018’s This Behavior, to the 2020 album Perception is/as/of Deception and now to the 2022 album Becoming Undone. Nicola Kuperus and and Adam Lee Miller both have a background in the visual arts and punk and both come through in striking visuals for the album covers and promotional material as well as the composition of the music and certainly in the band’s confrontational live performances. With the current underground popularity of what is called darkwave ADULT. seems to have enjoyed a bit of a renaissance after spending more than a decade pioneering some of the modern style of the more electronic wing of that loose movement while also showing what the music can do when there is a unity of aesthetic vision brought to bear with strong concepts and creative commentary on important issues of the day and personal impact of things like the commodification of all areas of life, misogyny, environmental destruction, societal complacency in the face of rising fascism in what were once some of the most democratic nations on Earth. Though the music is accessible it is also challenging and the opposite of dissociation in a time of global crises. In this interview we discuss the band’s early days and its development, its visual elements and the ways in which the new record has delved in novel sonic areas for the project in line with what the title would suggest as the world as we know it seems to be coming apart or certain in a state of perilous flux.
Waxahatchee at Ogden Theatre 4/22/2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Waxahatchee’s most recent album Saint Cloud released two weeks into the first phase of the global pandemic in 2020 so fans didn’t get the full force of the songs in the live setting for many months and perhaps not until this 2022 tour. But that setback didn’t seem to diminish Katie Crutchfield’s enthusiasm and spirit for the music and this performance at the Ogden Theatre in Denver showcased the record in almost its entirety with some choice cuts from earlier records. But Saint Cloud was the focus of the generous nineteen song set.
Madi Diaz at Ogden Theatre 4/22/2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Opening the proceedings was Madi Diaz. The prolific singer-songwriter stood on the large Ogden state with her drummer Adam Popick and held your attention with her luminous and strong vocals accompanied by her spare yet expressive guitar work that conveyed a distinctive yet grainy tone. It was an effect that set her apart from many other artists operating with a similar palette of sounds. Diaz hadn’t spent a lot of time live performing for two years either and expressed a great deal of gratitude for people taking the time to give her 2021 album History Of A Feeling a listen. Her songs about the pitfalls of relationships hit with a wit and nuance of understanding that provided both a clarity and an embrace of the messy emotions that can flood your brain when you’re in the moment. “New Person, Old Place” was especially poetic and vivid in its imagery but her whole set felt very intimate and strikingly honest but not cruel and a good fit as an opener for Waxahatchee.
Waxahatchee at Ogden Theatre 4/22/2022, photo by Tom Murphy
One of the recent times Waxahatchee performed in Denver was also at the Ogden on September 30, 2018 opening for Courtney Barnett and accompanied by an electric guitar player to her acoustic and no one else. Of course the songs were good and Katie Crutchfield’s vocals strong and her lyrics personally incisive. But this time out, headlining her own show, Crutchfield had a bass player, two electric guitarists that also played keyboards and a full kit drummer. Yet with this expanded line-up the singer lost none of that intimate feel and air of vulnerability bolstered by confidence and a fluidity in the transitions between songs throughout the show.
Waxahatchee at Ogden Theatre 4/22/2022, photo by Tom Murphy
The aesthetic was reminiscent of an old country concert with Crutchfield in what might be described as a minimalist ball gown. And that little bit of theater gave the show a slightly different quality than if Crutchfield was dressed up in something less formal. The vibe seemed Memphis that combined the rustic with a touch of glamour reinforced before anyone took stage by “The Ballad of El Goodo” by Big Star playing over the sound system as the introductory music. The effect made the Waxahatchee songs seem more intimate and impactful. It also helped to bring in focus Crutchfield’s lyrics which always seem so direct in tone whether singing to someone in the song or addressing herself, a quality that gives the sense that she’s singing directly you about something you’ve experienced in your own life. The wordplay seemed even more effective as with the playful and clever couplets of “Hell.” Perhaps less obvious was the way all three guitarists, if one includes Crutchfield, synced together to create truly elegant and subtly intricate guitar melodies that created a nuanced atmosphere within which Crutchfield’s commanding voice and presence could stand out and stand clear.
Waxahatchee at Ogden Theatre 4/22/2022, photo by Tom Murphy
“Lilacs” was dedicated to Madi Diaz whose own songs of romantic mishap had a similarly poignant resonance and Crutchfield told us that “This song is a breakup song so if anybody needs that, this is before you” before performing “Never Been Wrong.” The set took us through a broad range of human emotions but always with great creativity and nuanced insight. The self-deprecating, melancholic insecurity of “Singer’s No Star,” struggles with one’s own shortcomings on several songs but definitely on “War” and existential uncertainty and coming to terms with not necessarily knowing which is the best path forward as on “St. Cloud.” Waxahatchee covered a lot of emotional territory without trying to put a try hard polish of positivity on anything with the underlying suggestion that despite how deeply you feel that you’ve got nothing left and things seem like too much to bear that you can find some thread of a reason to at least keep struggling and enjoy momentary joys and strong feelings that burn through the mundane haze of every day life now and then. So it seemed entirely appropriate that the set proper ended on the song “Fire” from Saint Cloud after beginning the show with “Oxbow” to suggest some heavy work ahead. And if that isn’t impressive set order planning it’s hard to say what would be.
Waxahatchee at Ogden Theatre 4/22/2022, photo by Tom MurphyWaxahatchee at Ogden Theatre 4/22/2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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