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PERFUME GENIUS RELEASES NEW TRACK ‘EYE IN THE WALL’
Perfume Genius has released Eye in the Wall’ a new track taken from The Sun Still Burns Here, a dance and music performance collaboration with Seattle-based choreographer Kate Wallich. The evening-long piece, set to debut in October, is co-directed by Perfume Genius and Wallich and stars Perfume Genius’s Mike Hadreas alongside dance company The YC.
The nearly 9-minute ‘Eye in the Wall’ is a hypnotic swirl of propulsive percussion, celestial atmospherics and a spellbinding vocal performance that is unlike anything Hadreas has done before.
“I think of ‘Eye in the Wall’ as a cosmic peep show,” says Hadreas. “Watching, being watched, dancers unlatched from the Matrix and truly LIVING. Creating new rituals on the other side. Whole bodies braiding, spit glowing in the dark and a camera floating just above. We spent a lot of time in the studio alternating between the math of the song and the magic of it — which was very much like the process of creating the dance itself. Working with Kate Wallich and YC, really being with my body, really being with other bodies – there is control and a real formula but a portal opened up in parallel that is completely free and overwhelmingly full of feeling.”
Wallich adds: “’Eye in the Wall’ is the part of the piece where we lure you in and spit you out. A tornado of body, time, space, transformation and deterioration. It’s like pulling the Death card when you already knew what needed to end.”
For nearly a year, Perfume Genius’ Mike Hadreas and Alan Wyffels have been rehearsing with Wallich and The YC in Seattle. Not only are Hadreas and Wyffels fully integrated into the complex choreography of the piece, but the performance will also feature Hadreas performing songs he has composed for the project live, creating an exciting marriage between Perfume Genius’ epic take on popular music and the evocative nature of Wallich’s contemporary dance.
The world premiere of The Sun Still Burns Here will be held on October 4th and 5th at Seattle’s Moore Theatre, with more performances slated for New York, Minneapolis and Boston through the winter. The full list of dates can be found below.
Read an interview with Hadreas, Wallich and Wyffels on the piece in The Stranger
Efterklang Share New Song ‘Uden ansigt’
Efterklang have released a third single, ‘Uden ansigt’, from their forthcoming fifth studio album Altid Sammen, their first release in their native Danish.
‘Uden ansigt’ was written with former Efterklang member Rune Mølgaard (he left the band before the release of 2007’s Parades but has continued to co-write songs such as Magic Chair’s ‘Modern Drift’ and ‘Sedna’ from Piramida).
The song features Kjartan Sveinsson (ex-Sigur Ros) on piano, Sir Was (Joel Wästberg), Bert Cools, Indré Jurgelevičiūtė and Petur Ben.
‘Uden ansigt’ is accompanied by a striking lyric video made by Jonny Sanders. The video features both Danish lyrics and its English translation using the stunning Altid Sammen artwork created by Hvass&Hannibal and SeenCGI.
Vocalist Casper Clausen explains the inspiration behind ‘Uden ansigt’ (‘Without face’): “The lyrics are like pictures to me, based on a moment I once had when biking in Copenhagen. It was raining heavily, everybody packed away under umbrellas, hoodies, hats etc. Faceless, genderless, ageless, colourless. My vision was blurred out and those bodies were moving through the street like faceless ghosts of a Japanese Anime movie, simultaneously haunted, alone and united at the same time.”
Later today, Efterklang will host a takeover of The Lake Radio – the free-form online radio station they co-founded in 2014. They will broadcast live throughout the evening from 8pm CEST/2pm Eastern, calling up the collaborators who helped create Altid Sammen and premiering new music.
Seven years after their last album, Efterklang will release Altid Sammen (meaning “always together”) on 20 September.
Deep and sonorous, it is steeped in the sonic experimentation that has long been their trademark since Tripper, the Danes’ 2004 debut. As bold and ambitious in scope as their last collection of songs, Piramida, Casper Clausen (vocals), Mads Brauer (synths, electronics) and Rasmus Stolberg (bass) have taken another creative U-turn, this time fusing baroque instrumentation with their signature expansive sound.
“Altid Sammen’s songs are about belief and togetherness,” Clausen says. “Not in a religious way – none of us are believers of a defined religion. The words are searching for meaning in intimate relationships, in nature, in death and eternity. The bonds we create; to gather, hold hands, sing or share a moment together. We’re all connected, across nations, age, sex and gender. We come together with all of our backgrounds, and we move apart in all sorts of directions, always together.”
CELEBRATE THE BOSS’S BIRTHDAY WITH LUCY DACUS
In honour of The Boss’s birthday, Lucy Dacus has released a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing In The Dark
This is the fourth instalment of her 2019 holiday song series, following her Valentine’s Day cover of La Vie En Rose and original songs My Mother & I and Forever Half Mast celebrating Mother’s Day and Independence Day, respectively.
Lucy’s ongoing 2019 singles series will also include tracks tied to Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s, with a physical EP coming in the fall.
In “Dancing In the Dark,” Lucy pays tribute to one of her role models with an inspired Bruce Springsteen cover that foregrounds her ebullient guitar playing. She swaps out the synth line of the original tune in favour of uptempo strumming patterns that coalesce with her arresting vocals to reinvigorate an American classic. “Happy birthday to Bruce,” says Dacus, “but also happy birthday to my dad, the biggest Bruce fan I know and the reason I’ve listened to The Boss since birth. I resisted it when I was younger as a rebellion to my dad’s taste, but I have come to love his music on my own time. His lyricism is embedded in my own songwriting inextricably at this point.”
ICYMI, this past July, Lucy taped an episode of Austin City Limits TV that will air this fall on PBS. Austin American-Statesman wrote of the performance, “Dacus is making the best music of her life right now… this is the real thing.” She also published an op-ed in the New York Times as part of their Woodstock anniversary package, marking her debut as a bylined writer.
Lucy’s North American headline fall tour kicks off in Lancaster, PA on September 10. She will also grace the stages of major North American festivals this fall including Cityfolk (Ottawa), Bristol Rhythm & Roots, Corona Capital as well as stops in Montreal and Toronto.
Kim Gordon releases new single Air BnB
Kim Gordon has released Air BnB, the new single from her forthcoming debut solo album, No Home Record out October 11th on Matador Record.
A towering rocker that launches from brittle, noise-bitten verses evoking “blue towels and water bottles” and “47 inch flat TV” into an explosive, defiantly-catchy mantra – “AirBnB” is an exhilarating tour de force.
“AirBnB” follows first single Sketch Artist and its accompanying Loretta Fahrenholz-directed video, both of which were met with critical acclaim.
No Home Record tracklist also includes Gordon’s 2016 critically lauded single “Murdered Out,” about which Pitchfork noted: Murdered Out the first song she’s released under her own name, offers another vantage on the inexhaustibility of her sound. The single doesn’t just free her from old band names, it also gives Gordon new textures to work with.”
Since co-founding the legendary Sonic Youth in the early 80’s, Kim Gordon has remained at the nexus of music, fashion, art and (more recently) books and film. In the past few years alone, Gordon has debuted in the #1 spot on the NY Times Bestseller List with her 2015 memoir Girl In A Band, acted alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Jonah Hill under the direction of Gus Van Sant (in 2018’s “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot”), released music and performed as one half of Body/Head alongside Bill Nace, and opened multiple solo-exhibitions at internationally renowned museums.
Girl Band share new single ‘Salmon of Knowledge’
Girl Band share their third single Salmon of Knowledge two weeks ahead of their long awaited second album The Talkies out on Rough Trade Records on September 27th, 2019, releasing almost 4 years to the day of their critically acclaimed debut LP Holding Hands with Jamie, of which Pitchfork wrote, “it’s hard to think of another guitar-based band conjuring fear this exhilarating and volume this rapturous.”
“Salmon of Knowledge”, a story taken from Irish mythology and once a contender for album title, was recorded in a more conventional way compared to the rest of the album, but by no means would this assumption be obvious. Sandwiched between the intensity of instrumental tracks “Aibohphobia” and “Akineton”, the listener is lured into a false sense of security.
Lyrically, the song is an abstract stream of conscious rant; however, it is the physical weight of sound that brings these lyrics into existence – just as much is expressed in Dara’s yowls, screams and drones as in the words themselves.
The sound of the record mirrors the distorted realism of Dara’s lyrics. To take life’s monotony and bring it into the realm of the absurd simply by exposing it; to look at the everyday, then to look at it again/and again/and again/until it becomes swollen and distorted to the point of surrealism…
