The Bowery Presents

Music Hall of Williamsburg upcoming shows

Asobi Seksu

Cymbals Eat Guitars / Elika

Part of the Northside Festival
Venue:
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Date:
Sat 6/13
Notes:
18+
Doors: 8:30 PM / Show: 9:30 PM
$14 advance / $16 day of show (festival badges available at www.northsidefestival.com)
Tickets
Asobi Seksu
official website
myspace
While Asobi Seksu's creative core explored music at an early age (lead vocalist/keyboardist Yuki Chikudate got standing ovations at child prodigy recitals when she was just 8; guitarist/vocalist James Hanna bounced between sludgy hardcore and Mogwai-schooled post-rock in his teens), their potential 'career' wasn't put into perspective until a stint at the Manhattan School of Music. And by put into perspective, we mean finding out what they didn't want to do.

"It was a miracle I graduated at all," adds Chikudate. "I love playing the piano, but three hours of it—breaking it down, measure by measure, note by note—makes my mind go numb."

Soon after escaping the world of sheet music and classical composition, Hanna began tackling dreamy-but-disorienting soundscapes for the first time. He quickly shifted his focus from singing to starry-eyed chords, however, with Chikudate falling into the frontwoman position without missing a beat.

Asobi Seksu released its self-titled, learn-as-we-go-along debut in 2004. The record was essentially a demo recording and was received much better than they expected.
In 2006 they released their critically-acclaimed breakthrough, Citrus, and came into their own as songwriters and live performers. For two years Asobi Seksu toured the globe and further honed its sound.

For the making of Hush, the group's third LP and Polyvinyl debut., the band enlisted producer Chris Zane (Passion Pit, Les Savy Fav), who had also produced Citrus. “Hush was written while we felt destroyed," explains Hanna, quite simply. Which is funny, because the entire record has a phoenix rising vibe to it—a clear sense of shimmering, dew-draped riffs and spiral staircase melodies that are occasionally blurred by bits of guitar violence and sputtering drums (see the firework finale climax of "Me and Mary" and the liftoff portions of "Sing Tomorrows Praise" and "Glacially").

"We knew we didn't want to do 7,000 reverb guitars this time," says Hanna, "So we stripped the sound down and built it back up from there."
Another thing Asobi Seksu's avoided is sheer shoegaze-pop revivalism. While they listen to a lot of into-the-ether music—hence their tickets to both of My Bloody Valentine's reunion gigs—Hanna and Chikudate are too obsessed with the expansive possibilities of sound to explore one well-treaded path.

"Every shoegaze song is the same rhythmically," says Hanna, explaining that he'd be terribly bored if he followed that template.

"Their parts don't propel into other parts," adds Chikudate. "Us, we meander a little more, so it's not just one big wall of noise."
Wall of noise? "Layers," for one, is downright gorgeous, suggesting an afternoon spent in a gently-shaken snow globe. And then there are the clusters of ambient Eno effects that close Hush's Technicolor curtain. That's what happens when you learn how to use space and dynamics to your advantage, skirting what some might refer to as "Kevin Shields syndrome."
"I've realized that while something might sound awesome in my head," explains Hanna, "Adding 50 layers to it might make it sound like shit because you lose a lot of the details. Some parts have only one guitar this time.
He pauses and adds with a smile, "We agonized over that guitar, though."
Cymbals Eat Guitars
myspace
“We were at Barnes & Noble today and I was so excited to see Maximum Rock’n’Roll’s still publishing,” says Cymbals Eat Guitars bassist Neil Berenholz, his eyes widening at the very thought. “Joe was just like, ‘What’s that?’”

Welcome to one of the many contradictions that have shaped Cymbals since the spring of 2008. First, there’s that age thing, with 32-year-old Berenholz hailing from the golden age of bedroom recordings, screen-printed T-shirts and Kinko’d zines, and the rest of the group reared on genre-jumping iPods and Web sites that can propel or pulverize an artist’s entire career with a single review. As frontman Joseph D’Agostino—the band’s co-founder along with drummer Matthew Miller—is quick to admit, “I’ve been reading Pitchfork since I was in ninth grade.” Which was also when he discovered “Shady Lane” and started shedding the alt-rock influences that informed the cover songs he and Miller hammered out in high school.

The duo’s in college now, so it seems rather fitting that their full circle moment didn’t involve a capsule review in a print magazine; it happened when Pitchfork bestowed the band’s DIY debut, Why There Are Mountains, with a “Best New Music” stamp soon after its soft release. And we do mean soft. While many buzz-minded new artists dive straight into Brooklyn’s bustling music scene, Cymbals Eat Guitars were happy fine-tuning tracks from the outside, looking in—first in elaborate demos with the Wrens’ Charles Bissel (starting way back in the summer of 2007, before the group even had a name), and finally in a proper studio with Kyle “Slick” Johnson (Modest Mouse, The Hives). Like many other early fans, Johnson inadvertently discovered Cymbals Eat Guitars on New York’s Lower East Side circuit, playing the kind of early sets that come with being spread between Staten Island, Manhattan and Queens.
“We didn’t know anybody in the beginning,” says D’Agostino, “So it was hard to get any shows.”

“And since no one was pursuing us,” continues Berenholz, “We had to pursue opportunities ourselves.”

On a practical level, this has led the band to physically call the country’s most popular record shops and ask them to carry Mountains’ initial pressings. Lucky for them, the record sold itself, generating interest as far away as the UK’s influential Rough Trade shop and the NME, who wrote, "Why There Are Mountains may be one of the best 'indie' (the album is self-released, so, y'know, actually 'indie') albums of the year. And with the major label skyline being obliterated like something out of Independence Day, it's time to batten down the hatches."

Hype-raking reviews aside, there’s this important detail: Why There Are Mountains is a real album, a ‘grower’ that dishes out simple pleasures with every spin. Aside from obvious recurring elements (D’Agostino’s restless yelp and sinuous riffs, Miller’s Wire-y rhythms paired with Berenholz’s melodic bass style, and the orchestral layers of keyboard), there are shades of shoegaze (the patient, feedback-bathed passages of “Share”), Motown (the buoyant bass lines of “Cold Spring”), and Technicolor-tinged pop (the breezy horns and schizo synths of “Indiana”). Not to mention pure chaos, as explored in the gate-crashing “…And the Hazy Sea,” the tension-ratcheting “Like Blood Does,” and the final, throat-tearing moments of “Wind Phoenix (Proper Name).”
As for what’s next, well, one new song already has a “lazy guitar line” that’s indebted to indie pop, floating over a disco inspired rhythm section.
“You guys are laughing,” says Berenholz (and they are), “but that’s what I’m talking about here—people bringing different influences to the table, until my chocolate’s clearly in your peanut butter.”
“We aren’t shying away from the dance beats,” adds D’Agostino.
“Sometimes,” says Miller, smiling, “they are appropriate.”
Elika
official website
myspace
Northside Festival
L Magazine presents the inaugural Northside Festival
June 11-14, 2009, in the Williamsburg & Greenpoint neighborhoods of Brooklyn, NY
4 days, 30+ venues, dozens of galleries, tons of showcases, hundreds of bands
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