Little Chief @ Solly's

I live for those serendipitous moments where the perfect song plays during the perfect moment. Back in November, while commuting down to rural Virginia for work, I streamed one playlist during that twice-weekly, four-hour commute. I first heard North Carolina by Little Chief the minute as I exited I-95 to I-295. At this junction, the choices were Durham or Rocky Mount. Either way, the Tar Heel state was within reach.

North Carolina and I have this strange relationship, comprised of mostly heartbreak, failed relationships and a blissful weekend at a beach. Two and a half years ago, in the fall of 2012, when my east coast move was full of naivety and new opportunities, Little Chief's North Carolina could be my mantra: "take me to North Carolina, where my baby lives. I won't be there by tomorrow but heaven knows I'm on my way." At the present moment, North Carolina is simply another state on the east coast, one I've visited a handful of times. However, when I listen to the harmonies given on this track, I want the state to mean more to me.

After streaming Little Chief's debut LP, Lion's Den, over and over again since March, I was anticipating their tour and hoping for a date in DC. With any luck, they stopped in DC for a show at Solly's Tavern last Friday. I wear my love for Solly's on my sleeve. The last show I caught there was Charlie Patton's War. Considering they're now opening for PUSA, I always feel that Solly's attracts bands we can all believe in.

The band introduced themselves to the crowd - consisting of a girl taking photos in the corner and the group I had brought. As with the album, Mountain Song was the opening choice. With over two-minutes of instrumental build up and a bang of an ending, I've always thought this was a fantastic choice to hook people on Lion's Den early.

Over the course of the evening, Little Chief did a pretty comprehensive span of their album, including Gold In The Morning, Lion's Den, Shiloh, North Carolina and Brothers. While sitting and listening to Shiloh in person, I realized just how reflective and at-peace I feel when that song streams. Brothers is the song I can't stop playing now and I never figured the last track on an album would be so catchy. In addition to the Lion's Den material, the band covered The Head and The Heart's Rivers and Roads and absolutely did the song justice.

By the end of the show, the crowd at least doubled and every single friend I brought with me to the show loved the band. If you have a chance to catch Little Chief on tour, I highly recommend. I couldn't think of a better way to enjoy a laid-back Friday night.

You can listen to and buy Lion's Den on bandcamp. Currently, the album is also available on Noisetrade as a free download.

The Colourist (Self-Titled)

There are moments where I wonder if I have equal passion for both folk and pop. These moments, usually prompted by a brilliant or catchy pop release, are fleeting. Pop over folk? Folk over pop? In the end, it doesn't matter. I, luckily, do not have to sell my soul out to either genre. But yet, the reason folk does capture a large part of my soul is the solid, passionate, thoughtful music the artists release. I can listen to a folk album and have a general expectation the album will be, for the most part, exceptional. I'm often not disappointed, even with such high expectations.

I have the opposite hopes for indie pop albums. I generally expect one fantastic song, that I can stream over and over again, until it is beaten to death by mainstream radio play and friends roll their eyes at me when I "act all hipster" about it. There is nothing rewarding for me when I am passionate about pop.

The Colourist is my current exception.

Their debut, self-titled album, tricks my brain into believing it's summer (it's not), believing it's warm enough to have my sunroof open (no, not really), and believing my morning and/or evening commutes are not terrible (they are). I'm not sure what sort of magical land my brain is now a citizen of, but I can't get enough of this album and the emotions it forces me to feel.

A few weeks ago, I saw a "hipster bro" on U Street carrying a vinyl copy of the album. I hadn't listened to it yet, but I had an idea of what to expect, based on what "hipster bros" skew towards. As far as pop goes, there's nothing new about The Colourist. I may be harsh, but their indie-pop, teetering on electronica, sound is not profound or revolutionary.

Their execution of this album, however, is.

Grouplove is an obsession people apparently have. As in, the band selling out three nights at 9:30 Club actually happened? Tongue Tied was everyone's anthem of Summer 2011, 2012 or 2013, depending on the platform they used for musical discovery. It's arguably one of the greatest songs of this decade, or even the millennium. But, the rest of Grouplove's work? It falls entirely flat on its own and especially in comparison to Tongue Tied. I'm not sure how the success of one song carries this band to such fame and every time I contemplate the phenomenon, I am fascinated.

I'm picking on Grouplove but the indie-pop circuit is full of albums consisting of one song, inspirational enough to be escalated to the mainstream airwaves, and mediocrity otherwise. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following that are guilty of this cookie-cutter formula: The Naked and Famous, Atlas Genius, Gold Fields, The Neighborhood, and Wild Cub, with the recent exceptions being CHVRCHES, Foster the People and Bastille.

Give The Colourist three months. In three months, during the height of summer, if this band isn't on the playlists for rooftop happy hours, beach trips, or various other activities, I will feel personally betrayed and once again, let down by the pop genre. The Colourist's self-titled is an anomaly that deserves to be worshiped by hipster bros, music snobs and tweens alike.

Little Games, the first track and first single, may be the Tongue Tied of Summer 2014, 2015 and 2016. It's about as flirty but with a more challenging dynamic, that will rouse those in "it's complicated" scenarios. "Am I your hit and run?" is the best one-phrase summation of what this song is trying to evoke.

Wishing Wells should be the mantra of this city for the next few months, "I'm sick of hearing what if, what if, just follow what you feel". At this point, at least 80% of the city has heard this sentiment, as I routinely belt the hook while driving through the streets of downtown (with my sunroof open, of course).

A few songs in and I figured the descent into mediocrity would begin. However, We Won't Go Home and Yes Yes bring their own unique jams to the table and could equally stand out as young adult anthems. We Won't Go Home is such a fantastic example of how both lead vocalists, Adam Castilla and Maya Tuttle, provoke each other to shine. In most bands with female and male lead vocalists, I feel one normally stands out over the other and that doesn't happen here. Yes Yes, as poppy and trite as it sounds, offers this piece of strikingly insightful wisdom: "you've been down for days and days but searching for another won't fix a thing." It's a reminder of where I've been lately and I can't help but agree wholeheartedly.

After five upbeat songs, Stray Away showcases the style range of Castilla and Tuttle. An acoustic offering, with soothing harmonies and bittersweet lyrics, it's the right time to take a break and come down from the high of the first half.

The ninth track, Fix This is the peak of not just The Colourist but of all indie pop to be released this year. The drama, the desperation and the determination are intrinsically woven with a cheery sound but remain obvious. The song is another example of The Colourist singing to lessons needing to be learned in our young adult years, "I thought love was a fight, you could tear each other down, then come back to life. I guess I don't always live." As much as Tuttle almost gives up, she's a rock in the chorus, stubbornly refusing to let her love go. If I royally fuck things up with my boyfriend, this song will be an olive branch - it's that fitting and that genuine.

Put The Fire Out does not work as an ending song, if only because I'm pumped up enough to expect more. On the upside, I can always re-stream the album and often find myself doing just that.

Listen to The Colourist's self-titled album on Spotify and purchase it on Amazon. A few tracks from the album are also available on Soundcloud.

san telmo by yesper

Almost a year ago, I stumbled upon some gorgeous, quiet folk music, courtesy of yesper and some midnight searching on bandcamp. This was one of those phases of my life where I wondered if I had made the right decision in the spring of 2011 to move from Seattle, Washington to Williamsburg, Virginia, to start adult life in Silver Spring, Maryland and to eventually make it into Washington, DC. Music was and always will be there for me in weird ways I can never adequately describe.

yesper's cannibal king was one of those discoveries, last June, that inspired insomnia, between the song itself and the story behind it. yesper had a flipped background to mine: he, apparently, is from Norfolk, Virginia and ended up in Seattle. I remember reading his bandcamp profile, feeling more connected to his music and reminiscing, because I miss Seattle from time to time too. He is an artist who remains such a shadowy-type character, an enigma even, recording songs in empty storefronts in Seattle and purposefully keeping a low profile. cannibal king was written on a farm in Chile and that adds to the intrigue, as I can hear the South American influences on some of these tracks. I don't think yesper can remain hidden for long. As time goes on, I believe my friends in Seattle will have no choice but to notice his (albeit quiet) presence in the local scene.


A few hours ago, yesper posted the video for the song, san telmo. I thought back to how I felt almost a year ago and experienced relief and astonishment that life can change so swiftly and drastically. I also felt a twinge of guilt over how much I've wanted to but haven't shared words yet on yesper's music. san telmo is a minimalist song but with worldly references and stunning character observations, set in the oldest neighborhood og Buenos Aires, Argentina. It's not necessarily the prettiest picture, but these details make me yearn to cross another South American country off my list, even so soon after my trip to Colombia.

Listen to san telmo below, on vimeo. You can also listen to and download both EPs, cannibal king and cables, on bandcamp. I'm really hoping this year or next is the year we'll finally see a full-length release.

san telmo by yesper from David Chen on Vimeo.

[Local] Noon EP by The Sun Kite

Back in July, I was enamored with The Sun Kite's Morning EP, a project by musician and songwriter, Michael Frommack. As part of a three-release conceptual project, spanning all phases of the day, I couldn't wait to hear what would be in store for Noon and Night. Morning had soft songs, provoking inner-peace, that I couldn't help but to play some mornings, just upon waking. Before dressing in business casual, before the stressful commute, before that first sip of coffee, the four-track EP was short enough to meditate to before the hectic days begun.

Noon and Night were released back in early February, one week apart. In continuing with and playing into the theme, I first streamed Noon during a quiet afternoon where I was working from home. The opening track, Light Motes, immediately feels warmer. The lyrics evoke picturesque scenes of the light coming from the sun and interacting with those on earth. The motes seem to dance while the trees grow, people sing and children love. It's truly beautiful.

In Pebble, the sun is more antagonistic, beating down upon those on earth. We're introduced to the characters acting, "hard and dry like the pebble". This notion of staying hard and dry, embodying the spirit of a rock, becomes necessary. It's not just the sun who is causing problems. The moon appears next and takes an indirect approach with scorn: he is reflective, hard, cold and contemplative. While generally hidden behind the "gatekeeper" clouds, the stars shine and taunt. Despite these threats, the celestial beings do not successfully crack or deteriorate the characters into rubble.

The Flora & Fauna are bigger than the credit they're given. At the end of the day, they're part of "a bigger picture, a bigger setting, a bigger story, a longer telling of our lives and our thriving". In the same vein, "we're all just mirrors, reflections of a greater light". I'm construing these thoughts to mean the flora and the fauna grow and ever persist, while we're just the end creations of a higher being. Like the previous two tracks on this EP, the attention is drawn to the nature and the universe.

By the end of the EP, I can't figure out if the world Frommack has presented is a reflection of the past or a window to the future. In this modern day and age, these observations and appreciations of nature and life simply do not exist. I can imagine the past, with no technology, more community and less structure. However, if society had to rebuild in the future, Noon would be predictive of some of the challenges and interactions nature would pose to humanity.

Frommack continues to astound me with his lyrics and unique take on quiet folk. I am looking forward to critically listening to Night and discovering its subtleties and metaphors. You can listen to and purchase Noon on bandcamp.

[Guest Post] Authenticity of Modern Pop Music - Words by Issac Purton of EmpireXL

I know things have been quiet lately. I'm currently in Colombia taking a much needed trip away from DC life. As much as I love this city, the pressure to escape has been escalating. Because I'll be gone for a week and work has kept me extra busy, I've reached out to a few friends to see if they'd like to guest post here. 

My undergrad friend and former roommate, Issac Purton, was happy to oblige. His blog, EmpireXL, is an exploration of music and creativity. His guest post is a critical and clever reflection of the authenticity of modern pop and the implications on music now and in the future. Enjoy! 

***

If there’s a problem with modern pop (and that’s a big if, mind you) it’s not that no one writes their own songs anymore. The idea of authenticity, and the lack thereof, gets batted around by people in thick-framed eyeglasses as the determinant of what makes a song great. One’s experiences, the theory goes, fuels one’s writing, and makes the final product superior by virtue of it being ‘real’. This is why people dismissed Lana Del Rey when they found out her name was Elizabeth Grant, and why people, faces hazed by smoke, still listen to Robert Johnson’s 31 songs on vinyl. This ignores, of course, the fact that Ms. Grant probably wrote more of her material than Mr. Johnson did.

Authenticity is an artifact of delivery, not origin. Presidents aren’t hailed as great orators because of how well they write their speeches; I don’t think a single President in the last half-century has written a single word they’ve spoken in front of an audience. Similarly, the singers we respect most, Elvis & Sinatra, for example, never wrote a word or note of their own material. Hell, Paul Anka, of all people, is the one who wrote “My Way”, a song that people seem to hold as Sinatra’s spoken motto.

Most pop songs are written with the universal in mind. This is why so many of them revolve around love, be it young, puppy, or on sight: it’s a fair bet that everyone has been in love at least once, and that’s exactly who the target audience of pop music is: everyone. Pop music, in the corporate sense, is designed to appeal to the broadest group of people possible, which is why artifacts of music that organically (more-or-less) gained popularity get assimilated into it. It’s important to remember that Auto-Tune, as an audible effect, only got popular because an engineer screwed up the effects on a Cher song.

The thing about music being written about universals like love (or death/murder (country), heartbreak (blues, jazz), depression (blues), etc, etc) is that you don’t need to have written it to relate to and express it. Frank Sinatra didn’t need to write a whole album’s worth of songs about being miserable: instead, he could draw from a whole catalog of standards to construct the definitive heartbreak album, In The Wee Small Hours (an album beloved by Tom Waits, a hipster idol if there ever was one). The question of who wrote a song like “What Is This Thing Called Love?” is an issue for trivia enthusiasts and accountants only; it has no relevance whatsoever on the quality of the piece itself.

This applies to music in a broader sense as well. If a song is truly well written and able to communicate its emotion or sensation of choice, it follows that someone else can pick it up and make it their own. The content of the song can trump the performer (as is often the case with “Hallelujah”, which sounds beautiful in almost any context) or the performer can change a song completely, and bring something new out of it. A performer can elevate a song, and a song can elevate the performer. This doesn’t have anything to do with authenticity: it has to do with what’s written and who’s speaking.

My go to for this point is to look at the music of The Band. I can’t stand most of their performances (due mainly to the obnoxious production), but performances like this one prove that there’s something there, beyond the production and, maybe, even the performance itself. A song can have a life of its own, and in that context it doesn’t matter what its origin was, or whether the original writer was heartbroken, half-in-the-bag, bleeding out from the chest, or whatever. What matters is what’s written.

In the consideration of modern pop, the problem is not that modern stars aren’t writing their own material, or even that they aren’t making it their own. Quite simply, it’s that the singers aren’t really the focus any more. They’re the performers, sure, but the publicity that surrounds them is usually more significant than their concerts. The real stars these days are the producers. They’re the core musicians, and they’re the source of the main divide between singer and audience in modern pop: Auto-Tune.

Auto-Tune was the unstated dream of every producer, manager, and engineer in the world before its invention, and now that it exists you’ll never hear a truly human voice in the Pop Top 10 ever again. The brilliant producers labels have at their disposal have achieved the dream of turning even the human voice into a synthesizable instrument, something that doesn’t rely on the caprice of a performer and whether they’re on the right combination of uppers and downers for the day. It’s a fantasy world where the singer only has to be in the studio for half-an-hour, at most, before the work of finalizing one’s masterpiece can begin. If vocoders weren’t so comical I’m sure labels would have washed their hands of pop stars decades ago (Casablanca probably tried).

A lack of authenticity, of a certain tragic origin story, isn’t the problem with modern pop. That’s been the state of affairs since pop music got its start in the 1950s and things were doing just fine. The problem we’re facing now is a lack of humanity, where the worst part of electronica (the vocals) got mixed with hip-hop’s emphasis on the producer/DJ as a major part of a performance.

This is not to say that Auto-Tune can’t be used well; it can, and can even, like a guitar pedal, express emotion in a way that’s unfamiliar and exciting. As an audible effect it’s no more horrific than something like ADT. The problem is when it’s used to smooth a vocal performance into an uncanny territory that’s almost, but not quite, entirely inhuman. The problem is when it gets used in country music, basically.

This is, of course, assuming there’s a problem with modern pop music at all. It’s not like previous decades of music didn’t see plenty of chaff rise into the Top 10 of the charts. The difference between then and now, quite possibly, is simple perspective. The bad music was forgotten, and the good lived forever. The same will likely be true 20 years from now, with the mediocre being cast into the margins of history and the brilliant living on in our classic rock radio stations (or Spotify playlists, whatever).

Or maybe the next wave of music will be so bizarrely alien to us that we’ll rush to Miley Cyrus’s side, apology in hand and tears in our eyes. If you thought Imagine Dragons was irritating, imagine what your children will be showing you.

Carousel by Miner

Around these parts, I'm not sure to what length I've discussed last summer. It was one of those beautiful times where despite feeling emotionally broken in every way, I pushed out of my comfort zone and accomplished more than I had ever hoped to. One of my favorite songs, going along with these moments, was courtesy of Miner. Hey Love was that warm, happy jam that wouldn't fail to make me grin or roll down my windows. At that point, Hey Love had been around for almost a year. With only one other released track at the time, Golden Ocean, that was all we had of Miner, until now.

Carousel, to be frank, is a relief. I'd come to expect more tracks heavily laced with the banjo and mandolin, upbeat and campfire-worthy, emulating that Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes vibe. On one hand, I find Miner almost more accessible than other bands it could be genre-lumped into with. This is catchy, from the soul, makes you want to fall in love, music and all of their released tracks thus far are solid. I can only hope their debut album will have twelve noteworthy songs.

With a year and a half from initial release to the debut album, husband and wife, Kate and Justin Miner had the time to build a band with Justin's brother Jeremy and other family and friends. It's a familial affair and an environment that can cultivate a grand work of art. Deriving inspiration from travels through Central and South America, with bedroom recording roots, I can guarantee this will be an album worth spending time with.

Miner releases their debut, Into The Morning, on February 25th. Preview the album by listening to Carousel and Hey Love on Soundcloud and by reading the lyrics on their website.

[Weekend Video] Atlantic City and In Spite of Ourselves by Kyle & Danielle

A few days ago, my friend Katie posted a video on my facebook timeline. After both of us being in musical ruts and discussing such sadness at our friend's house party, I shared with her a few of my favorite music bloggers. In return, she drew my attention to this cover of Bruce Springsteen's Atlantic City by Kyle Morton of Typhoon and Danielle Sullivan of Wild Ones. Despite being around for over three years, I had never seen the video and was immediately swooning over the duo's rendition.

Lucky for me, I didn't have to wait long for the next Kyle and Danielle collaboration. In what may be my favorite release of the day, this cover of In Spite of Ourselves by John Prine is really hitting the right spot. While the lyrics are sometimes crass and almost entirely crude, the portrayal of real love is what matters. Is there anything more perfect for Valentine's Day? I didn't think so. 

You can listen to and download the In Spite of Ourselves cover on Typhoon's bandcamp page. It might be that perfect, last-minute addition to a gifted Valentine's Day mix. Catch Wild Ones as one of the opening acts on Typhoon's latest tour.