Generationals at Red 7 Patio, SXSW 2011

I just returned from my first SXSW.  I saw somewhere in the neighborhood of 30+ acts, including American Music Club, Austra, Capsula, Decades, The Dodos, DOM, Generationals, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, Gift Horse, Grass Widow, Grimes, Hooray for Earth, Intimate Stranger, Lower Dens, Now Now, Pujol, Secret Colours, Some Community, The Strange Boys, Sundress, Telekinesis, Times New Viking, tUnE-yArDs, Twin Tigers, Valleys, Veronica Falls, Versus, We Barbarians, Weekend, Wild Flag, and Wye Oak.  I brought back a couple of t-shirts, some CDS, a tote bag, some weird bruises, a sunburn, a cough, about 4000 pictures (just guessing), and some stories…  I’m embarking on the serious photo editing now.  The pictures in this post are just a tiny preview.

The Scene at Red 7 Patio for Weekend, SXSW 2011

In the lead-up to SXSW, I launched terriwise.com, a little online portal for terri wise photography and any associated ventures.  Big thanks to Ez for helping make that happen.

Shortly before SXSW, I interviewed the totally fabulous Jessie Stein of the Luyas (see below for more on them).  I thoroughly enjoyed our chat.  It helps that I am genuinely interested in and enthusiastic about what they do.  Check out the interview here.

I have been pondering the future of this here blog.  Do I focus it more on music and post more frequently?  It’s a thought.  Stay tuned and see what happens.

The Luyas

I find that a lot of the bands I’m discovering and liking lately feature female vocalists. Some, like The Luyas’ Jessie Stein and Some Community’s Juliana Vacaro, sing in charmingly off-key, bird-like voices. Sometimes–more often with Stein–there’s a child-like quality to the vocals, and at other times–more often with Vacaro–there’s an underlying jaded melancholy.

I first discovered The Luyas when they opened for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at The Paradise in October. [Check out my pictures from the show at QRO.] I went to the show for Pains, but I left thinking about The Luyas. I was struck by Stein’s voice and by the frequent and clever use of syncopated rhythms. The physical embodiment of their music for me is probably the Moodswinger (The Hoopsucker! The Hudswinger!… No no no… Coen Brothers tangent…), a copy of a 12-string electric zither originally designed for Liars.

Jessie playing the Moodswinger in 2008

The Luyas released their first album, Faker Death, in 2007. Their new album, Too Beautiful to Work, is due in February.

The Luyas - Too Beautiful To Work

The Luyas - Spherical Mattress

Brazil’s Some Community accompany Juliana Vacaro’s voice with guitars, keyboards, percussion, casiotones, and melodicas. Their current ep, RinoRino, is a little quirky, and at the same time, there’s something faintly and pleasantly familiar about songs like “Two Colours” and the beautiful “Tereza.” Has this band picked up on some element of popular songs I listened to as a kid in the 80s? Yeah, I think maybe they have. I can’t put my finger on what that is. It’s not something obvious–not a reference or a style. That’s good, because it means they’re doing something new.

Some Community-Young and Fresh

Some Community-Tereza

Two of Stereogum’s top 20 overlooked albums of 2010, from Buke and Gass and Crocodiles, were in my (premature) best of 2010 list.  I came to new music kind of late in 2010, and a lot of good music came out last year, so I give myself a pass for missing a lot of things.  If I were to revise my list today, I’d keep those records on it, and the Buke and Gass album would keep its high spot on the list.

One album I didn’t hear in full until after posting my best of 2010 list is Lower Dens’ Twin Hand Movement.  This is an album that definitely belongs among my favorites for the year.

Their press sheet describes Lower Dens as a Baltimore band, led by weird-fi frontwoman Jana Hunter, that plays post-punk drone pop.  Okay, I guess somewhere in that description I start to get a hazy picture of what they really sound like.

I first discovered Lower Dens when I happened upon their 9-21-2010 Daytrotter Session, so that’s where I direct you first.  In the session, they play some of my favorites, including “Tea Lights” (love that beautiful, lilting guitar line, and the tone on the album version is especially lovely) and the fabulously titled “Two Cocks Waving Wildly at Each Other Across a Vast Open Space, A Dark Icy Tundra.”  After that teaser, you have to hear the whole album, on which you’ll be treated to gems like the glimmering, infectious “Hospice Gates,” and “Holy Water,” one of the first songs I’ve ever heard that I can compare with The Smiths’ “Oscillate Wildly” in that it’s so good that I didn’t notice on the first few listens that it’s an instrumental.

Twin Hand Movement was released in July of 2010, and Lower Dens have just released a new single, “Batman.”  They’re currently playing a handful of support dates in the Southeast with The Walkmen, and they hit SXSW this March.  They’re at the top of my list of bands to catch.

Lower Dens-“Tea Lights”

Lower Dens-“Hospice Gates”

Lower Dens-“Batman”

1. School of Seven Bells-Disconnect from Desire

2. Autolux-Transit Transit

3. Buke and Gass-Riposte

4. Land of Talk-Cloak and Cipher

5. Male Bonding-Nothing Hurts

6. Dum Dum Girls-I Will Be

7. Dom-Sun Bronzed Greek Gods

8. Twin Tigers-Gray Waves

9. Crocodiles-Sleep Forever

10. Interpol-Interpol

11. Warpaint-The Fool

12. No Age-Everything in Between

13. Wild Nothing-Gemini

14. Suuns-Zeroes QC

15. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti-Before Today

There are probably a bunch of great albums that came out in 2010 that I haven’t even heard.  Recommend some.