Showing posts with label Yeasayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yeasayer. Show all posts

Monday, February 8, 2010

yeasayer, tonight and tomorrow night.

Yeasayer, one of Brooklyn's most innovative acts, is playing tonight and tomorrow night at the Bowery Ballroom and Music Hall of Williamsburg respectively.  If you haven't already checked out Yeasayer I highly suggest you do so.  Yeasayer is formed of vocalist/keyboardist Chris Keating, vocalist/guitarist Anand Wilder, bassist Ira Wolf Tuton and drummer Luke Fasano.  Keating and Wilder played together in high school in Sic Transit and a barbershop quartet, honing their musicianship on multiple fronts.  After splitting for college, the two reunited in Brooklyn in 2006 with drummer and bassist.  Since then, they have steadily risen to critical acclaim in the blog and zine world.    Their first album, All Hour Cymbals, is an eclectic journey through genres and tenses, exploring many instrumental combinations.  Yeasayer does not limit their arrangements on All Hour Cymbals to any single instrumentation utilizing synthesizers, guitars, a double bass, horns, violins, marimbas, an accordion, involved vocal harmonies and all sorts of percussion instruments, accumulating an amalgamation of subtle and profound sounds that will compliment your brain completely.

Yeasayer's latest release was a preface EP to the Odd Blood LP, slated for release on February 9.  The Odd Blood LP, according to Yeasayer in an interview with Rolling Stone, was partially based on an intense acid trip in New Zealand and incorporates Ray Kurzweil's theory that computer intelligence will eventually supersede the human mind.  The Odd Blood EP contains the first single off the Odd Blood LP, entitled "Ambling Alp," as well as another catchy track, "O.N.E."

Opening for Yeasayer at Music Hall of Williamsburg is Javelin and Class Actress.  This will be the first and only US show that Javelin and Yeasayer will be playing together on a February UK tour.  I had the opportunity to catch Javelin at House of Yes a couple weeks ago who, despite some crippling technical difficulties, kept the energy and subsequently the crowd alive.  They are definitely worth seeing and I'm sure that Music Hall of Williamsburg will do a better job of managing their high-power rig (Javelin plays out of a stack of boom boxes, seriously).

Monday, February 1, 2010

show of the week, song of the week.

My pick for this week is being hosted by my alma mater, NYU.  On Thursday the 4th Atlas Sound, Neon Indian and Sisters are playing at the Kimmel Center at NYU.

Atlas Sound combines shoe gaze, alt rock, and indie into a schmorgesborg of sounds that you have probably heard in songs like Walkabout and Sheila.  Their innovative use of delay and reverb has massively influenced the indie scene that is bursting at the seams in Brooklyn right now.

Neon Indian is an electronic act that will definitely have the crowd dancing.  Well known for their remixes of Grizzly Bear's Cheerleader, Neon Indian brings synthesizers and samples together in a most satisfactory harmony to create sometimes upbeat, sometimes dark recordings.  I haven't seen them live but their is not doubt in my mind that they will be a crowd pleaser; I just hope that NYU can provide lighting worthy of their set.  (that may have come off a bit cynical, but what do you want from me after 3 years there)

Doors at 7:30, $5 w/ NYU ID, $8 w/o.  [more info]

Some songs from the artists...

Atlas Sound - Quick Canal (featuring Laetitia Sadier)
Atlas Sound - Walkabout (featuring Noah Lennox)
Atlas Sound - Sheila
Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer
Neon Indian - Terminally Chill
Grizzly Bear - Cheerleader (Neon Indian sega genesis p-orridge remix)

Song of the week...Yeasayer!  When I heard this for the first time I was in instant need of new underwear.  I know you'll feel the same.

Yeasayer - O.N.E.