FRIDAY SEP 01, 2017
529 Presents:
529 & Irrelevant Music Present:
Simon Joyner & The Ghosts
David Nance Group | Jesse Nighswonger | Cuntry | Sounds for Harm Reduction | Thalmus Rasulala | + Free After-Party w/ Special Guest DJs The Cowboy Twinkles!
Simon Joyner & The Ghosts
Simon Joyner is among America’s best songwriters, so says Gillian Welch, Conor Oberst, Kevin Morby, and others. With his new double LP, Step Into The Earthquake, the songwriter strikes for the personal while acknowledging that the times they are a-changin’ around us again. In fact, things are leaning shitty right now, and the characters in Joyner’s songs experience the dissolution of comfort amid anxious concerns regarding our turbulent times. Some of this is addressed directly in his most overtly political songs since his Room Temperature days, but it's primarily the way the characters behave and the near fatalism they confront in their daily lives. We all feel it, and natural disasters aside, avoiding acknowledgement of earthquakes emanating within can cause the most damage. Joyner traverses the human predicament, in general, and the American psyche specifically, using fiction to tell difficult truths. Characters struggle through personal crises while absorbing America's currently failing experiment. “Galveston” details a couple's doomed trip to visit a loved one dying in a hospital. “Illuminations” and “Annie’s Blues” explore the difficult relationships between parents and their adult children. “I’m Feeling It Today” slowly expands from an individual level in the first verse, through a couple’s relationship problems in the second, to the systems of oppression in the third, ending with the whole country’s state of being as the song concludes, taking place on election night from an Omaha bar. The epic last song on the album, "I Dreamed I Saw Lou Reed Last Night," takes up the whole fourth side and it's part dream, part invocation. Both Lou Reed and Woody Guthrie are channeled so that Joyner may follow their lead, holding a final mirror up to America as the album concludes. At the heart of this song cycle is the desire to connect in a time of upheaval. To record, Joyner’s band, the Ghosts, holed up with longtime collaborator, Michael Krassner (Boxhead Ensemble), in Omaha's ARC Studio, developing songs from skeletal foundations (captured on the limited edition The Phoenix Demos) to full-on group efforts. Hence, each compositions’ power comes equally from the lyrics working in tandem with the subtle arrangements. Joyner’s vision may be dark but it stops short of nihilism. Where do we go from here? The best move towards answering that question is knowing where we stand right now. Joyner's expansive album offers a poet’s truthful view, however disconcerting, that to survive whatever is coming for us, we have to confront and understand it first. So, go ahead and step into the earthquake.
Simon Joyner is among America’s best songwriters, so says Gillian Welch, Conor Oberst, Kevin Morby, and others. With his new double LP, Step Into The Earthquake, the songwriter strikes for the personal while acknowledging that the times they are a-changin’ around us again. In fact, things are leaning shitty right now, and the characters in Joyner’s songs experience the dissolution of comfort amid anxious concerns regarding our turbulent times. Some of this is addressed directly in his most overtly political songs since his Room Temperature days, but it's primarily the way the characters behave and the near fatalism they confront in their daily lives. We all feel it, and natural disasters aside, avoiding acknowledgement of earthquakes emanating within can cause the most damage. Joyner traverses the human predicament, in general, and the American psyche specifically, using fiction to tell difficult truths. Characters struggle through personal crises while absorbing America's currently failing experiment. “Galveston” details a couple's doomed trip to visit a loved one dying in a hospital. “Illuminations” and “Annie’s Blues” explore the difficult relationships between parents and their adult children. “I’m Feeling It Today” slowly expands from an individual level in the first verse, through a couple’s relationship problems in the second, to the systems of oppression in the third, ending with the whole country’s state of being as the song concludes, taking place on election night from an Omaha bar. The epic last song on the album, "I Dreamed I Saw Lou Reed Last Night," takes up the whole fourth side and it's part dream, part invocation. Both Lou Reed and Woody Guthrie are channeled so that Joyner may follow their lead, holding a final mirror up to America as the album concludes. At the heart of this song cycle is the desire to connect in a time of upheaval. To record, Joyner’s band, the Ghosts, holed up with longtime collaborator, Michael Krassner (Boxhead Ensemble), in Omaha's ARC Studio, developing songs from skeletal foundations (captured on the limited edition The Phoenix Demos) to full-on group efforts. Hence, each compositions’ power comes equally from the lyrics working in tandem with the subtle arrangements. Joyner’s vision may be dark but it stops short of nihilism. Where do we go from here? The best move towards answering that question is knowing where we stand right now. Joyner's expansive album offers a poet’s truthful view, however disconcerting, that to survive whatever is coming for us, we have to confront and understand it first. So, go ahead and step into the earthquake.
David Nance Group
David Nance, Omaha veteran of warble and hiss, returns with Negative Boogie, his new concoction of chug, throb and greasy swagger. For Boogie, Nance trades in his beaten up Tascam 488 for the bullet-proof, glass walls of A.R.C. Studios. Where else can you brew the negative boogie? And what exactly is the negative boogie? Well, it's a bit like Canned Heat but with Pere Ubu's queasy rhythms and someone playing five finger fillet with Swell Maps. Ensconced in his ivory tower and soundproof rooms, Nance reached for unlikely weapons to tear down his own lofty experiment. He had his pick of rare guitars, cowbells, steel drums, vintage amps, Crazy Horse microphones, mellotron, and the restless but indefatigable rhythm section of Kevin Donahue and Tom May. They started at sunrise and recorded 15 songs by midnight. Maybe it's his Midwestern work ethic, maybe he's a sonic cheapskate. Maybe it's just the sound of negative boogie. True to habit, Nance built on scraps and scrapes as his starting point. “Some songs were unused for half a decade, some songs were changed the day before recording and some songs were recycled and reinterpreted from the last album leftovers," he says. And yet, bits and pieces, false starts and vicious jams, all came together like the cover art collage suggests, to make something he's never done before - a rock epic. These songs stab and flow into one other like a perfectly orchestrated classic. The songs are drenched with Nance’s most biting and comic lyrics to date, peaking on “D.L.A.T.U.M.F. Blues" (Don't Look At This Ugly Mother Fucker Blues). And ripping through the entire thing is the cracked power he yanks out of the guitar, a veritable The Good, The Bad and the Ugly of riffage. This is a departure for Nance. It's bigger and grander but it's far from easy music. It's his Plastic Ono Band, his For Your Pleasure, his fever dream of Rocket from the Tombs. Shredders sit with jangling rockers, manic energy spills into depressive torpor, providing the ultimate record experience: one of power, nuance and emotion. But this of course is only a press release, written by a team of robots using words programmed to seduce you. You knew that, right? Did it work? Whether you are nodding yes or shaking no, it's safe to say that we are all dancing the negative boogie.
David Nance, Omaha veteran of warble and hiss, returns with Negative Boogie, his new concoction of chug, throb and greasy swagger. For Boogie, Nance trades in his beaten up Tascam 488 for the bullet-proof, glass walls of A.R.C. Studios. Where else can you brew the negative boogie? And what exactly is the negative boogie? Well, it's a bit like Canned Heat but with Pere Ubu's queasy rhythms and someone playing five finger fillet with Swell Maps. Ensconced in his ivory tower and soundproof rooms, Nance reached for unlikely weapons to tear down his own lofty experiment. He had his pick of rare guitars, cowbells, steel drums, vintage amps, Crazy Horse microphones, mellotron, and the restless but indefatigable rhythm section of Kevin Donahue and Tom May. They started at sunrise and recorded 15 songs by midnight. Maybe it's his Midwestern work ethic, maybe he's a sonic cheapskate. Maybe it's just the sound of negative boogie. True to habit, Nance built on scraps and scrapes as his starting point. “Some songs were unused for half a decade, some songs were changed the day before recording and some songs were recycled and reinterpreted from the last album leftovers," he says. And yet, bits and pieces, false starts and vicious jams, all came together like the cover art collage suggests, to make something he's never done before - a rock epic. These songs stab and flow into one other like a perfectly orchestrated classic. The songs are drenched with Nance’s most biting and comic lyrics to date, peaking on “D.L.A.T.U.M.F. Blues" (Don't Look At This Ugly Mother Fucker Blues). And ripping through the entire thing is the cracked power he yanks out of the guitar, a veritable The Good, The Bad and the Ugly of riffage. This is a departure for Nance. It's bigger and grander but it's far from easy music. It's his Plastic Ono Band, his For Your Pleasure, his fever dream of Rocket from the Tombs. Shredders sit with jangling rockers, manic energy spills into depressive torpor, providing the ultimate record experience: one of power, nuance and emotion. But this of course is only a press release, written by a team of robots using words programmed to seduce you. You knew that, right? Did it work? Whether you are nodding yes or shaking no, it's safe to say that we are all dancing the negative boogie.
Cuntry
"Don’t be fooled by the lazy genre descriptors or the pun-y moniker, Cuntry are neither especially quiet nor tame and they certainly aren’t a joke. Songs flow in distinct movements from hushed and understated to a kind of brooding punk aggression where every note and sound is poured through a distinct Southern filter. You know those streaks of silver and black that collide when lightning cuts through a storm cloud? Think that but, you know, in song form." -Immersive Atlanta
"Don’t be fooled by the lazy genre descriptors or the pun-y moniker, Cuntry are neither especially quiet nor tame and they certainly aren’t a joke. Songs flow in distinct movements from hushed and understated to a kind of brooding punk aggression where every note and sound is poured through a distinct Southern filter. You know those streaks of silver and black that collide when lightning cuts through a storm cloud? Think that but, you know, in song form." -Immersive Atlanta
Thalmus Rasulala
"Named after his favorite blaxploitation actor, Thalmus Rasulala is a new solo project from Atlanta music mainstay Jonathan Merenivitch. Over the past few years, the multi-instrumentalist and vocalist has helped craft futuristic pop with Janelle Monáe, atmospheric dream pop for Del Venicci, and harsh art rock for Jock Gang, while still finding time to lead Shepherds, whose most recent LP, Exit Youth, managed to touch upon everything from bleak post-punk, to ambient drone and fuzzed-out rock. Now, it appears, you can add country music to his long resume of styles. According to Merenivitch, he created the project in order to reconcile his inherent desire for acceptance with his longing for solitude. “I find that country music is the most appropriate vehicle for these thoughts and ideas,” he explains via email. “The songs will cover heartbreak, police brutality, nostalgia and the general anxiety of existence. Also, never forget George Jones has soul.” On Thalmus Rasulala’s debut single, “Blame,” Merenivitch opts for airy simplicity with silky, serene guitars that bend and warp around a steady backbeat and washed-out vocals that cling like static sheets to the track’s background. Subject-wise, it’s classic country — a bittersweet ode to broken love, regret, and trying to move forward — but the recording makes it feel distant like an old, worn photograph neglected on a dusty shelf. There’s no word yet on when a record may be due, so for now just enjoy the sound of one of the scene’s most malleable artists stretching his wings and exploring new directions." -Immersive Atlanta
"Named after his favorite blaxploitation actor, Thalmus Rasulala is a new solo project from Atlanta music mainstay Jonathan Merenivitch. Over the past few years, the multi-instrumentalist and vocalist has helped craft futuristic pop with Janelle Monáe, atmospheric dream pop for Del Venicci, and harsh art rock for Jock Gang, while still finding time to lead Shepherds, whose most recent LP, Exit Youth, managed to touch upon everything from bleak post-punk, to ambient drone and fuzzed-out rock. Now, it appears, you can add country music to his long resume of styles. According to Merenivitch, he created the project in order to reconcile his inherent desire for acceptance with his longing for solitude. “I find that country music is the most appropriate vehicle for these thoughts and ideas,” he explains via email. “The songs will cover heartbreak, police brutality, nostalgia and the general anxiety of existence. Also, never forget George Jones has soul.” On Thalmus Rasulala’s debut single, “Blame,” Merenivitch opts for airy simplicity with silky, serene guitars that bend and warp around a steady backbeat and washed-out vocals that cling like static sheets to the track’s background. Subject-wise, it’s classic country — a bittersweet ode to broken love, regret, and trying to move forward — but the recording makes it feel distant like an old, worn photograph neglected on a dusty shelf. There’s no word yet on when a record may be due, so for now just enjoy the sound of one of the scene’s most malleable artists stretching his wings and exploring new directions." -Immersive Atlanta