Music Hall of Williamsburg upcoming shows
BrooklynVegan Showcase
Fanfarlo / The Antlers / Laura Marling / Nathaniel Rateliff & The Wheel / Walter Schreifels Band / Think About Life
Hosted By Dave Hill
- Venue:
-
Music Hall of Williamsburg
- Date:
- Tue 10/20
- Notes:
- 18+
- Doors: 6:00 PM / Show: 7:00 PM
- $15 advance / $15 day of show
- Fanfarlo
- official website
- myspace
- "The first 16 years of my life I spent a lot of time around lakes. You see... I get quite passionate about things for a time, like reservoirs."
The passion, the obsession, the dissolution of intellectual rigour; heart and longing colliding with mind and matter; these are the recurrent themes of Fanfarlo. As aging instruments are brought back to life with a creaking aching beauty, a bizarre collection of characters join our midst, each an accidental Fanfarlo metaphor - the irrational pursuit of an otherwise intellectual mind. Case in point: Howard Hughes' decent into madness in "I'm A Pilot;" the delusion of Pellegrino Ernetti in "The Walls Are Coming Down" and the absurd writing career of "Harold T. Wilkins," all sweep from sweet murmuring melodia to orchestral pop.
Again and again the UK five-piece find ways to mirror the impotent fury of the words. Members Cathy Lucas (violin, keyboard, vox), Justin Finch (bass) and Amos Memon (drums) and Leon Beckenham (trumpet, keyboard) all conspire to ensure that Fanfarlo eschew a defining format. Reaching for less than obvious conclusions to musical conundrums: saws, clarinets, cellos, mandolins, ukuleles, melodicas, hands clapping and feet stomping.
There is no doubt that all of Fanfarlo are clever, bookish coves, but when they come together to make music, they function on a gut level. For a band that comes from all over - frontman Simon Balthazar (vocals) is himself from Gothenburg - there is that restless, furtive artistry. A keenness to avoid the constraints of home, battling with the longing of the heart, the distant locations of a burning house "Fire Escape;" a drowning village "Ghosts;" and the uneasy sensations of urban sprawl, "Luna."
Trapped and spiraling guitars, an insistently hammered piano chord, or an ominous stomp, the fervour with which they play is stirring and infectious... Fanfarlo Baudelaire's fictional dancer, impossibly desirable, an inescapable object of obsession.
"I always try to write accessible lyrics that people will get and understand, but it always ends up impenetrable," explains Fanfarlo frontman Simon Balthazar, "then I attempt to write deep, serious and difficult music, and somehow it keeps coming out as pop."
It is a nice problem to have and Fanfarlo benefit greatly. The wonderfully bewildering array of characters and scenes on Reservoir, comes laden with memorable hooks. Recorded over a month and a half with Peter Katis (The National, Interpol) at his home studio in Bridgeport, Connecticut, it is has been a formative process for the band.
Fanfarlo's early singles, combined with winning live performances had proved a sensation in the blogosphere, both in Europe and in the US. But as good as those singles first seemed; Talking Backwards (Fortuna Pop), You Are One Of The Few Outsiders Who Really Understands Us (Fandango), Fire Escape (White Heat) and Harold T.Wilkins (Felt Tip), it was as nought to the leaps and bounds made in those few shorts weeks in New England.
Working with Peter was the first opportunity to properly explore what this full band could achieve. Cathy Lucas - the bearer of Fanfarlo's distinctive accompanying vocals - is convinced of the new ground the band has occupied, "Peter would find the right sound straight away and I started thinking that it could become much more than just a series of songs..."
"I always thought big with this band" enthuses Simon. "Wanting to make music that everyone would love, which always seemed like a realistic expectation, given the response we got to our live performances... it's an amazing relief to be able to say, yes, this is what it should sound like."
- The Antlers
- official website
- myspace
- Sometimes you have to put yourself first, no matter how difficult that notion seems; no matter how much time and effort you’ve already put into this one person—the person who’s reduced your very being to its absolute core. Just ask Peter Silberman, the string-pulling founder of The Antlers, a solo project that suddenly went widescreen on the self-released Hospice LP (now receiving a proper widespread pressing through Frenchkiss). The first Antlers effort to feature two key permanent players—powerhouse drummer Michael Lerner and the layer-lathering multi-instrumentalist Darby Cicci—it’s an album with a sound that’s actually as ambitious as its concept.
“Hospice came from the idea of caring for a terminal patient who’s mentally abusive to you,” says Silberman. “You don’t have the right to argue with them, either, because they’re the one who’s dying here; they’re the one that’s been dealt a wrong hand. So you take it, but you can only take so much. Eventually, you realize that this person is just destroying you.”
Appropriately enough, Hospice’s 10 distinct chapters resonate on debilitating sonic and lyrical levels, from the hypnotic harp and tension-ratcheting build of “Two” to the sing-or-sink choruses of “Bear” and the speaker-rattling peaks of “Sylvia,” easily one of the year’s most immediate epics. It’s here, amidst contrasting shards of ambient noise, sweeping strings and smoky horns, where The Antlers truly transcend Silberman’s singer-songwriter beginnings—a striking escalation of expectations first hinted at on 2008’s New York Hospitals EP. The progression doesn’t end there, either. In a move that could be taken as the riff-raking extension of his thorough guitar training (from the age of 6 ‘til right before college), “Atrophy” and “Wake” delve into sheets of distortion, subtle shades of soul, cicada-like effects and enough movements to fill an entire EP.
“We were going for something that’d be dense but not too complicated,” explains Silberman. “I hate the word ‘lush,’ but I guess that’s the best way of describing it. The structures are like pop songs—verse/chorus, verse/chorus—but the sound is a little more shoegaze-y or post-rocky.”
It’s about to get even more complicated, too, as The Antlers’ Technicolor-tinged trio take all of Hospice’s songs—and three previous releases—in a completely different direction, jettisoning a note-for-note rendition of the record for “a massive sound” doused in delay, reverb and unrehearsed chaos. And to think Cicci was a stage actor with a desire to drop it all for music just a few years ago.
“Hospice was the clear indication that this isn’t a singer-songwriter thing at all,” says Silberman. “Whatever we record next is going to define the three of us as a ‘band.’
He continues, “I always figured I’d be the ‘shredder’ in a group…But things somehow ended up this way.”
We wouldn’t have it any other way, either.
- Laura Marling
- official website
- myspace
- 'Alas I Cannot Swim' Laura's debut album, is produced by Noah And The Whale mainman Charlie Fink, and besides its warm, sweet arrangements for guitar, trumpet, brushed drums and even a male choir, the album is infused with a real intimacy.
You'll notice that this album doesn't just appear in a 'normal' format - the music is part of a 'Song Box', designed by Laura, which contains postcards, trinkets and stories - plus a concert ticket to her shows in March. 'The idea came of a conversation I had with a guy who owned the studio I was recording in,' says Marling. 'He said he was depressed with the way music's going, because nobody buys records any more and people are listening to MP3s on bad headphones, using music for wallpaper.' So, she designed the chart-ineligible, beautifully printed 'Song Box': 'I want people to *love music,' she says, 'I want people to treasure it, not just my songs, but treasure music.
- Nathaniel Rateliff & The Wheel
- official website
- myspace
- Combining the endearing swagger of Jacques Brel, the moody mysticism of Leonard Cohen and the pastoral plucking of Nick Drake, Rateliff’s potent songs and rich voice grabbed the audience by the heart and the throat.
- Walter Schreifels Band
- myspace
- Walter Schreifels (born March 10, 1969) is a rock musician and producer from New York City currently living in Berlin.
In the late 80s, he played in many New York hardcore bands, most notably Youth of Today and Gorilla Biscuits (where he also acted as the songwriter). After Gorilla Biscuits broke up, he formed the short lived Moondog. Moondog would transition into the more metal oriented post-hardcore band Quicksand. He also collaborated with his former Gorilla Biscuits bandmates in the pop-punk band CIV. Later, he helped create the melodic indie rock-styled band Rival Schools. Walking Concert, his most recent project, is heavily influenced by classic British such as Elvis Costello, The Kinks, and The Smiths. A new solo acoustic LP is in the pipeline.
As a producer, he has worked with such hardcore-related bands as Hot Water Music, and The First Step. Recently, he produced the EP Dear Strutter, the first from UK band Cars as Weapons. He is also part owner of the record label Some Records.
- Think About Life
- official website
- myspace
- Think About Life have been causing panic on Montreal dance floors since just a little before they were personally invited by Wolf Parade (Sub Pop) to be their support act during last year’s North American autumn tour. Montreal’s best-kept secret is now coming out… on record.
“Think About Life builds a bridge from swiriling chaos to kindly pop, but the bridge is a shaky beast that tends to collapse into the sea and capsize any onlooking vessel. Shows can meltdown to oblivion or soar to ecstacy or implode after one song with police intervention. The sounds range from manic to troubled to tender to silly, exploding every emotion at once into a thousand pieces at the bottom of a canyon. TAL reassembles this raw material into a worldview rooted in thunder-storms, roller-coasters, clowns, sea-beasts, romance, fireworks, massive sphinxes, basketball championships, chivalric knighthoods, snowmen, children, videos, hamlets, sunglasses, and YOU.”
Think About Life is the lovechild of Graham Van Pelt, a multi-instrumentalist, recording studio proprietor and co-director of Montreal’s adored all-ages alternative space, the Friendship Cove. The band’s primary vocal organ is Martin Cesar, the genius of the Donkey Heart quartet that squinty, pimply West Montreal kids swear by as “the little band that could…” Matt Shane is the name of the band’s drum machine.
OTHER UPCOMING SHOWS FROM THE BOWERY PRESENTS
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