Monthly Archives: April 2012

Sixteen years after the release of her breakthrough debut album Tidal, Fiona Apple is back on tour for her fourth studio album The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, more commonly known as simply The Idler Wheel…, set for release on June 19th.

She’s coming to the Warner Theatre on Tuesday, June 26th, and tickets go on sale this Friday at 10am, but we have a pair of tickets for one lucky winner to win before they even go on sale.

The defiant, piano-playing chanteuse was catapulted to fame in the late ’90s with the release of the Grammy-winning “Criminal,” the most successful single from Tidal. When the album was released in 1996, Apple was a mere 19 years old, but the provocatively sexual, confessional album earned her critical acclaim for its naughty, brooding, sophisticated work.

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Since 1991, The Magnetic Fields, have been charming the pants off everyone found along the highway strip and beyond, with their rich blend of genre-crossed indie/noise/synth pop filling the 9:30 Club on a Monday night.

The heart of the band is predicated by Steve Merritt’s lyrical genius and backed by Claudia Gonson’s instrumental talent. “We’re here to play songs off of our new album, Love at the Bottom of the Sea,” Merritt asserted very early on in the show, but the performance actualize was a delightful mix of old and new songs, lots of heckling fans, and enough stage banter to keep hardcore fans beaming for days after.

The Quartet Devotchka opened for The Magnetic Fields with with a sound that is usually likened to gypsy or circus music, but I liked the last couple of songs that I heard, which were a bit darker and more burlesque than I had anticipated they might sound.

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There’s something so oddly comforting about Nada Surf. Like that cool friend you have, the one you often stay up all night with talking, spinning records, and drinking whiskey, the records that the Surf has put out over their 20-year tenure are solid, engaging, and always have you coming back for more.

The band came to the 9:30 Club on Tuesday in support of their latest release, The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy, this time with two extra members in tow, guitarist Doug Gillard (Guided by Voices) and instrumentalist Martin Wenk (Calexico), which filled out the live sound quite nicely.

Lead singer/guitarist Matthew Caws has that effortless voice, one that beckons the heart, and writes lyrics that appeal to the brain, while bassist Daniel Lorca and drummer Ira Elliot put forth a backbeat underneath it all. Together, its a package that creates emotional songs that rock your face off.

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It’s like a secret garden of sound, and D.C’s own Hume hold the key to a dreamy soundscape so labyrinthine you’ll never want to be found. 

Fans of Tame Impala, Toro Y Moi, or with any artistic sensibility at all will be captivated by Hume’s DIY experimentation consisting of dual drummers, vocals, electric bass, and electric guitar, often decontextualized and redefined through otherworldly stereo processing.

Hume are the perfect opener for Captured Tracks’ Widowspeak and Slumberland Records’ Crystal Stilts on 4/14 at The Rock and Roll Hotel. Tickets are still available and it’s just $12 to see three amazing bands. Doors open at 8pm.

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Is it just me or has DC been getting a little moody lately?

I’m not talking about the palpable, election year angst in our nation’s capital or any gloom related to the city’s draconian budget cuts. I’m referring to an emerging strain of fiercely independent, DC-area bands with a predilection for darker sounds and emotions, not to mention a propensity for spindly guitar arpeggios and plenty of volume.

Silo Halo is one of the newer bands in this growing scene, which to my mind, also includes Buildings, Lenorable, Sansyou, Washerwoman, and the John Carpenter-obsessed, synth-noise deviants known as Screen Vinyl Image (by the way, more evidence that something is definitely afoot: Slumberland heroes Lorelei have reformed and are prepping a new album.)

But while the members of Silo Halo clearly have more than a passing interest in effects pedals, the band’s obvious affection for the late 80s/early 90s U.K. shoegaze scene is just one of their musical reference points. In seeing a recent Silo Halo live show, I was struck by the realization that the band probably owe just as much to the doomed romanticism of Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave as they do to early Ride and Lush.

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You’re forgiven if, as a DC native, you’re a bit surprised to see the influx of the dynamic arts working its way into the historic Uniontown neighborhood of Anacostia. Yet, this underappreciated portion of DC proper is playing host to LUMEN8Anacostia, a “noon to midnight festival of light, art, music and fun” which is set to upend a few common misperceptions of the often troubled neighborhood. 

LUMEN8Anacostia is free and open to the general public—and there’s even something in store for you vinyl obsessives tomorrow as well.

From their website, “LUMEN8Anacostia will inaugurate a series of creative spaces in the commercial corridor of Historic Anacostia from noon to midnight Saturday, April 14. The corridor will come alive with illuminated storefronts, landmarks, and murals.”

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