Woods
Widowspeak, Purling Hiss
Sat, November 3, 2012
Doors: 7:30 pm / Show: 8:30 pm
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn, NY
$12 advance / $14 day of show
Tickets
This event is 18 and over
http://www.musichallofwilliamsburg.com/event/160567/
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Woods
Woods
The foundations of Brooklyn’s Woods lie in the small rear-house apartment bedroom of Jeremy Earl, who took to recording his eerily somber acoustic songs in 2005 as little more than a humble personal outlet. After two early albums and several singles which saw Earl still honing his sound, Woods released “Songs of Shame” in 2009 to widespread critical acclaim and offered the band a chance to develop their live sound on the back of a massive touring schedule. During this period, the live line-up solidified with the inclusion of multi-instrumentalist Jarvis Taveniere, bassist Kevin Morby and cassette-collage maestro G. Lucas Crane. While the band’s early recordings had mixed haunting folk and distorted sound-scape journeys, their new live show offered Kraut-rock inspired fugues and Crazy Horse-style romps, infusing Earl’s dirges with an off-kilter energy and a sense of looming chaos.
With their live sound now in place, the band released the equally lauded follow-up albums “At Echo Lake” and “Sun and Shade”, which continued to explore their signature mix of sun soaked pop and psychedelic meditations. All were released on Earl’s Woodsist label which, in addition to being the band’s home, has achieved an influential status in its own right, releasing records from Real Estate, White Fence and Kurt Vile, to name a few.
While creating their newest record, “Bend Beyond”, the band abandoned their usual recording process, which favored immediacy above all – some songs were recorded just mere minutes after their creation – and instead sought to capture elements of their dynamic live sound. To this end, Taveniere joined Earl in his upstate home in the Fall of 2011 and the pair produced the twelve song album, which features the epic title song, a recent centerpiece to the band’s live set.
While the core sound of Woods will always be Earl’s strikingly pure falsetto voice spilling dark secrets and twisted images, the group has never been content to coast on established formulas or sonic habits. With the recent addition of Aaron Neveu on drums to the live band, freeing up Taveniere to focus solely on guitar, the ever-evolving group has extensive touring plans for the Fall of 2012 to coincide with the release of Bend Beyond.
- Justin Sullivan
The foundations of Brooklyn’s Woods lie in the small rear-house apartment bedroom of Jeremy Earl, who took to recording his eerily somber acoustic songs in 2005 as little more than a humble personal outlet. After two early albums and several singles which saw Earl still honing his sound, Woods released “Songs of Shame” in 2009 to widespread critical acclaim and offered the band a chance to develop their live sound on the back of a massive touring schedule. During this period, the live line-up solidified with the inclusion of multi-instrumentalist Jarvis Taveniere, bassist Kevin Morby and cassette-collage maestro G. Lucas Crane. While the band’s early recordings had mixed haunting folk and distorted sound-scape journeys, their new live show offered Kraut-rock inspired fugues and Crazy Horse-style romps, infusing Earl’s dirges with an off-kilter energy and a sense of looming chaos.
With their live sound now in place, the band released the equally lauded follow-up albums “At Echo Lake” and “Sun and Shade”, which continued to explore their signature mix of sun soaked pop and psychedelic meditations. All were released on Earl’s Woodsist label which, in addition to being the band’s home, has achieved an influential status in its own right, releasing records from Real Estate, White Fence and Kurt Vile, to name a few.
While creating their newest record, “Bend Beyond”, the band abandoned their usual recording process, which favored immediacy above all – some songs were recorded just mere minutes after their creation – and instead sought to capture elements of their dynamic live sound. To this end, Taveniere joined Earl in his upstate home in the Fall of 2011 and the pair produced the twelve song album, which features the epic title song, a recent centerpiece to the band’s live set.
While the core sound of Woods will always be Earl’s strikingly pure falsetto voice spilling dark secrets and twisted images, the group has never been content to coast on established formulas or sonic habits. With the recent addition of Aaron Neveu on drums to the live band, freeing up Taveniere to focus solely on guitar, the ever-evolving group has extensive touring plans for the Fall of 2012 to coincide with the release of Bend Beyond.
- Justin Sullivan
Widowspeak
Widowspeak is an American band comprised of Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas, known for its dreamy, western-tinged take on rock and roll. The outfit formed in 2010 and released two singles in 2011 (Harsh Realm,
Gun Shy) followed by a debut album (self-titled) in the summer of that year, all on Brooklyn label Captured Tracks. Widowspeak was praised for its reverential spaciousness, Hamilton's haunting voice, and Thomas's spindly, Morricone-esque guitar lines; both drawing on 1950's pop ballads and 1970's psych, creating languid call-and response melodies. The band then toured extensively, wearing in their warm, nostalgic sound.
Widowspeak began to write what would become their second record, Almanac, at the start of 2012, as popular fears of the apocalypse became imminently close to realization. Though not totally convinced of catastrophic disaster coinciding with the year's conclusion, Hamilton nevertheless began writing lyrics seeped in doomsday imagery, darkness and dread, inspired by the idea of such a universal experience of the end. The two started making demos in their practice space. Thomas shaped the ideas into songs, experimenting with denser arrangements and grander gestures. Black and white became Kodachrome, subdued became saturated. Widowspeak explored Appalachian melodies and desert rhythms, Saharan to the Southwest, as well as incorporated acoustic instruments and slide guitar, stemming from a shared love of Neil Young.
As the compositions were brought to life, they became something new, something unlike the fatalistic seeds from whence they'd grown. These songs were no longer concerned with the end of the Earth, but with the life and death of seasons, youth, love, and the cyclical nature of all
things. The band chose the name 'Almanac' in tribute to those annual tomes which have eternally provided predictions of weather patterns, lunar and solar movement, and astronomical phenomena. But the songs are also about the changing times we find ourselves in: "the good old days" at odds with the hyperactive present, and the sense of loss, but also adventure, which that provides.
The album was recorded by Kevin McMahon (Swans, Real Estate) in a hundred year old barn in the Hudson River Valley of New York State during the transition from summer to fall. Producing with McMahon, Thomas expanded on the band's demos, crafting layers of guitar, Rhodes piano, organ and harmonium.
Almanac will be released by Captured Tracks on January 22, 2013.
If Widowspeak's first record serves as a collection of postcards, sent from destinations traveled to in that first transformative year, then their second is the guidebook written after they'd found their sonic home and inhabited
it fully.
Gun Shy) followed by a debut album (self-titled) in the summer of that year, all on Brooklyn label Captured Tracks. Widowspeak was praised for its reverential spaciousness, Hamilton's haunting voice, and Thomas's spindly, Morricone-esque guitar lines; both drawing on 1950's pop ballads and 1970's psych, creating languid call-and response melodies. The band then toured extensively, wearing in their warm, nostalgic sound.
Widowspeak began to write what would become their second record, Almanac, at the start of 2012, as popular fears of the apocalypse became imminently close to realization. Though not totally convinced of catastrophic disaster coinciding with the year's conclusion, Hamilton nevertheless began writing lyrics seeped in doomsday imagery, darkness and dread, inspired by the idea of such a universal experience of the end. The two started making demos in their practice space. Thomas shaped the ideas into songs, experimenting with denser arrangements and grander gestures. Black and white became Kodachrome, subdued became saturated. Widowspeak explored Appalachian melodies and desert rhythms, Saharan to the Southwest, as well as incorporated acoustic instruments and slide guitar, stemming from a shared love of Neil Young.
As the compositions were brought to life, they became something new, something unlike the fatalistic seeds from whence they'd grown. These songs were no longer concerned with the end of the Earth, but with the life and death of seasons, youth, love, and the cyclical nature of all
things. The band chose the name 'Almanac' in tribute to those annual tomes which have eternally provided predictions of weather patterns, lunar and solar movement, and astronomical phenomena. But the songs are also about the changing times we find ourselves in: "the good old days" at odds with the hyperactive present, and the sense of loss, but also adventure, which that provides.
The album was recorded by Kevin McMahon (Swans, Real Estate) in a hundred year old barn in the Hudson River Valley of New York State during the transition from summer to fall. Producing with McMahon, Thomas expanded on the band's demos, crafting layers of guitar, Rhodes piano, organ and harmonium.
Almanac will be released by Captured Tracks on January 22, 2013.
If Widowspeak's first record serves as a collection of postcards, sent from destinations traveled to in that first transformative year, then their second is the guidebook written after they'd found their sonic home and inhabited
it fully.
Purling Hiss
AKA Michael Polizze of Birds of Maya but this solo album has clicked with me even more than his main group already has; its guitar-heavy mix and hypnotizing riffs tap into a primeval feeling of rock and roll abandon and it feels like a living fossil from a time when Blue Cheer and the Stooges were punk kids shaking things up.
Venue Information:
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 North 6th St
Brooklyn, NY, 11211
http://www.musichallofwilliamsburg.com/
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 North 6th St
Brooklyn, NY, 11211
http://www.musichallofwilliamsburg.com/
