DeVotchKa

DeVotchKa: Gypsy-Fusion Quartet Hits the Big Time

Achieving public familiarity through featured songs in Little Miss Sunshine, DeVotchKa has worked hard to make a name for itself. Its Gypsy-influenced sound employs a wide variety of styles and instrumentation, celebrating a genre that has been around for hundreds of years.

Karlsson & Winnberg

Contest: Tickets to Miike Snow DJ set for Lollapalooza after-party

Assuming that you still have enough left in your tank after a weekend full of hot Lollapalooza action, you can get your groove on Sunday night at the official after-party at The Mid. We’re giving away four pairs of tickets to what promises to be a dance-party extravaganza.

The lineup comprises a worldly bunch. Swedes Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg of Miike Snow will be playing a headlining DJ set, with support from Australian house duo Bag Raiders, UK-based DJ Jackmaster, California-based The M Machine, and Chicago’s own DJ Trentino.

Dead Rider

Q&A: Dead Rider

Dead Rider: The Raw DentsDead Rider: The Raw Dents (Tizona, 5/23/11)

Dead Rider: “Mother’s Meat”

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In 2009, Chicago-based rock group D. Rider released its debut album, Mother of Curses, on Tizona Records. Since then, the former three-piece (Todd Rittman, Andrea Faught, and Noah Tabakin) evolved into a four-piece, with Matt Espy on drums (who replaced the originally recruited drummer, Theo Katasaounis), and changed its truncated name to Dead Rider. The newly christened band’s rapport fostered more elaborate multi-instrumentation and collaborative composing, allowing Rittman, Dead Rider’s founder and former member of US Maple and Singer, to produce his rhythmic grooves on a more complex scale.

Dead Rider’s sophomore album, The Raw Dents, signifies the band’s newfound dynamics, with layered guitar/bass/drum, trumpet and saxophone blows, and the occasional interlude of supplementary sound. Rittman’s voice, which could be considered an instrument in itself, is distinct, versatile, and unavoidably haunting at times, adding to the album’s texture, as it adjusts with the intended mood of each track. The Raw Dents maximizes the fundamental elements of rock and balances psychedelia, noise, and synths with Dead Rider’s hard-driving sound.

We spoke with Rittman about the progression of Dead Rider’s lineup, its influence on the band’s music, and its latest record.

What did you hope to accomplish with D. Rider that you didn’t/couldn’t with US Maple?

Mostly to keep making music. The music for both bands functions on its own natural evolution and doesn’t prescribe to some set agenda. I would say, though, looking at Dead Rider’s evolution, we seem to be concerned with groove and space a little more. This band has a few more options for the creation of both groove and space, considering the multi-instrumental skills of the band. Also, everyone in the group has learned the all-important skill of restraint—something we exploit a great deal.

How did you originally choose D. Rider’s partners in crime, and how have their inclusions affected your songwriting dynamics?

Andrea and I met while playing with Cheer-Accident together. Then we started jamming a little on the side in a goofy cover band of sorts. We actually met Noah when he was rehearsing at a club where we were waiting to do a soundcheck.  He was really going for it at the rehearsal, and it made quite an impression on me. We met Matt at a D. Rider gig. His band, Avagami, was opening, and his drumming blew me away.

Harm's Way

The Metal Examiner: Harm’s Way’s Isolation

Every Friday, The Metal Examiner delves metal’s endless depths to present the genre’s most important and exciting albums.

Harm's Way: IsolationHarm’s Way: Isolation (Closed Casket Activities, 7/5/11)

Harm’s Way: “New Beginnings”

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Though ostensibly affiliated with the hardcore scene, Harm’s Way has moved into the primitive, mid-paced territory of death-metal bands like Bolt Thrower and Asphyx. Originally formed in 2005 as a power-violence band in the vein of Crossed Out and Infest, Harm’s Way has become slower and more metallic with each of its releases. Isolation, its second full-length recording, is a definitive statement for the band, cementing its vision of the possibilities in heavy music.

Hardcore and metal have fed off of each other for decades. In the early and mid-1980s, Metallica, Celtic Frost, and other pioneering bands cited not only the new wave of British heavy metal as an influence, but also hardcore bands like Discharge. Since then, there has been a two-way street between the metal and hardcore communities, with New York-based hardcore bands like the Cro-Mags and Madball clearly borrowing ideas on heaviness from death-metal bands, and a band like Obituary claiming Merauder as an influence.

Washed Out

Pop Addict: Washed Out’s Within and Without

Every Thursday, Pop Addict presents infectious tunes from contemporary musicians across indie rock, pop, folk, electronica, and more.

Washed Out: Within and WithoutWashed Out: Within and Without (Sub Pop, 7/12/11)

Washed Out: “Amor Fati”

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In 2009, indie-electronica novice Ernest Greene appeared on the scene under the moniker Washed Out, offering an accessible and diverse dose of new wave with the impressive Life of Leisure EP. The debut recording delved into a re-imagined electronica sound, taking cues from mid-’80s synth heavyweights and incorporating a modern twist. It was a very bright start, but it was only a matter of time before Greene’s fresh, revitalized “chillwave” sound was put to the test on a full-length effort.

Two years later, Washed Out has returned with a proper LP — Within and Without — that expands on that initial, unique sound. Employing a glut of synths and electronic beats, Washed Out has taken new wave to a whole new level, modernizing the sound and legitimizing the genre. Mixing slowed dance beats with synth-heavy arrangements and various electronica ornamentations, Washed Out has put together a solid, unified offering.

Within and Without’s soothing soundscapes stem from the standout opener, “Eyes Be Closed.” Integrating waves of synth with steady drumming and atmospheric strings, the track moves fluidly, fluctuating between Washed Out’s subtle yet complex inner workings. There are a lot of things going on musically, with ocean-like soundscapes pulling in and out, shoring up with spastic, spaced-out keys and a sea of, well, “washed out” and reverberated vocals that submerge into the rest of the song, becoming musical textures within themselves.

Seymour Chwast: Divine Comedy

Zine Scene: Divine Comedy

Seymour Chwast: Divine ComedySeymour Chwast: Divine Comedy (Bloomsbury, 9/2010)

What happens when you drop a noir hero into a 14th Century Italian epic?  Seymour Chwast’s stylish and intriguing graphic-novel version of Dante‘s Divine Comedy provides an answer. Chwast combines dynamic illustration and easily understandable prose to give the epic a fresh new look and an unlikely appeal for non-academic readers. Those of us uninterested in centuries-old religious poetry will be delighted, but readers familiar with the original will find even more to love.

Chwast’s story closely follows Dante’s original epic, in some respects more than others. His Dante, imagined here as a noir detective, joins guide Virgil to discover the perils of the underworld, the meaning of God’s justice, and, in this case, lots of flappers. The author, now sporting a trenchcoat and smoking an ever-present pipe, regards the horrors of hell with all the hard-boiled eyes of a Dashiell Hammett hero, explaining away punishments with all of the original Dante’s stoic resolve.