Braids

Braids at 529, October 2015

Montreal's Braids is one of my favorite bands.  After seeing them open for Purity Ring at the Buckhead Theater in May 2015, I wrote, "We weren't prepared for how great Braids were.  Front-woman Raphaelle Standell-Preston's vocals soared at times, startled at others, and had my complete attention throughout.   They have a new album, Deep In The Iris. out but even the outstanding cuts from the record don't match the immediacy and range of Raphaelle's live vocals.  By all means, if you have a chance to catch this band, do."

High praise indeed.  I was similarly impressed when they opened for Wye Oak at Terminal West in May 2014, the very first time I had either heard or seen them, and when they headlined at 529 in October 2015.  The show at the tiny 529 club was particularly memorable, as I was standing barely ten feet from Standell-Preston and her personality really lit up and filled the room.

After a 5-year gap, Braids are finally back with a new album, Shadow Offering, to be released April 24 and produced by Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie.  The band has released a new single, Young Buck, as well as an accompanying video.

In a statement, Standell-Preston spoke about the intention behind the track:

“We wrote this song to capture the nervous anticipation of desire, the delicate chase of seduction, the highs and lows of obsession, and the humor in between. To want to possess someone, make them desire you, fall for you, only to learn that to lust is not to love.”

The accompanying music video contains choreographed dances moves like so many pop music videos, as well as imaginative sequences and suggestive writhing, and many male and female bodies. At first, this felt like a departure for Braids, especially with Standell-Preston's new look.  But then we remembered the NSFW video they released for Deep In the Iris cut Taste, which featured naked bodies of all shapes, sizes, and ages, and the confrontational lyrics of their song Miniskirt.

Young Buck explores desire from the feminine viewpoint ("Young buck, 22 year old who treats me badly, The blaring example of what I am drawn towards and should strongly move away from") and the video inverts convention by objectifying male instead of female bodies.  This band has long explored the intersections of desire, feminism and sensuality - that's their turf - and Young Buck and its video are merely the latest expression of that exploration.

Braids

Braids at Terminal West, May 21, 2014

Oh look, Montreal's Braids, one of our favorite bands, have a new song out, featuring another standout vocal performance by Raphaelle Standell-Preston over a glitchy-sounding synth beat.

Raphaelle recently wrote a must-read editorial on surviving sexual abuse and how the song-writing and creative process has helped her deal with the issue.  It's a powerful piece, and far to important for me to summarize or try to mansplain in this space.

Braids on the Radiohead

Braids at Terminal West, May 21, 2014

It simply astounds me that more people don't realize what a terrific singer Raphaelle Standell-Preston of Braids actually is, and what a great, capable band Braids themselves are.

Also, on an unrelated note, new Radiohead:

My Mistakes

Despite my frequent announcements and hyping of the show, The Mynabirds will NOT be performing at Aisle 5 tonight - the show was actually last month, September 29, not October, and like an idiot I've been touting a show the last few weeks that's already passed.

I posted several times how excited I was that Braids was going to be opening up for Pure Bathing Culture at the Drunken Unicorn, but it was actually The Wild Ones opening for PBC, and Braids was a separate show on a separate night at a separate venue.

And I've totally confused the local Atlanta bands Book Club and Book of Colors, and it's almost random which band I'm referring to when I use either name - it's apparently a 50-50 toss-up.

And those are the mistakes I'm aware of - I shudder to think how many I've made that I've not yet realized, not to mention all of those too-numerous-to-count typos and spelling errors.

I'm an old man.  I really have to seriously consider the possibility of age-related dementia at this point.

But YOU, dear reader, I've got a bone to pick with YOU.  None of you have pointed any of these errors out to me, which suggests one of three possibilities:

1. Nobody's actually reading this blog, so there's no one to correct my errors.
2. Folks notice the errors, but no one cares enough to bother pointing them out.
3. People read and believe the errors and this blog has become a source of misinformation and confusion to unseen others.  

Any one of these three possibilities lead to the conclusion that I should just discontinue this blog. Why post if no one's reading?   Why post if no one cares?  Why post if I'm only confusion people?

But I don't want to sound plaintive or like I'm pleading for someone to tell me to keep going, and to be honest the force of sheer stubborn habit will probably keep me posting even if this blog is nothing more than my own record of shows I've been to and shows (I think) I'm going to see.  And if anyone has shown up at a venue only to find the band that I talked about wasn't playing there, I offer you my deepest apologies.  

My bad.

Braids at 529 Atlanta, October 16, 2015

In a truly inspired pairing of two Canadian bands, Montreal's Braids is touring with Toronto's Tasseomancy, and last night that tour brought them to the 529 in Atlanta. 

Tasseomancy is the band of twin sisters Sari and Romy Lightman, who we've seen a few times before as Austra's backing singers (we've also seen Austra perform without the Lightmans).  Their music is a psychedelic form of folk rock with both sisters singing and one also playing mandolin, guitar, and keypads.  They're backed by a keyboardist and drummer.   

Their music was hypnotic and gently trippy, and their stage banter revealed the sisters to be open and engaging persons.  Tasseomancy hits a perfect groove somewhere between laid-back but dark folk rock and electro-pop, sort of like a less dance-oriented Prince Rama or a tranced-out Joanna Newsom. They can seamlessly trade vocal lines during a song, like two twins completing each others' thoughts, and vocalize like two hearts beating as one.  Good stuff, and a great start to the evening. 

Braids, as always, put on a great show, playing everything from near-ambient electronica to electro-pop to soulful ballads to anthemic rock, without once falling completely into any classifiable genre. Singer Raphaelle Standell-Preston is a more than capable bandleader and frontperson, at times charming the audience with her songs and personality and at other times scolding some noisy patrons for talking too loudly in the back of the club.  And just like  their lead singer, the band never settled in one place or one mood for long before taking a sharp turn to some new and wholly unexpected direction.  

We've seen Braids twice before, once opening for Wye Oak at Terminal West and once opening for Purity Ring at Buckhead Theater, and both times they blew us away.  At Terminal West, we were impressed by the band's genre-transcending songwriting, balanced as they are between experimentalism and popularism, and at Buckhead Theater, we were particularly struck by Standell-Preston's impressive singing abilities.  Last night, we got a good chance to see the whole band interacting and contributing to the sound, and we were impressed by all three of the members, particularly their powerful but artful drummer (who also contributed on keypads and vocals).      

We've come to appreciate Braids through their live performances.  We hadn't heard them before we saw them open for Wye Oak, when they made quite an impression, and we almost forgot them before we saw them again when they totally blew us away opening for Purity Ring.  We strongly encourage you to see this band perform if you ever get the chance. As great as their recordings sound, they're even better live - more powerful and more dynamic -  and they're fast becoming one of our favorite bands.  We can't wait to hear what they come up with next.

Braids

Braids at Terminal West, May 2014

Montreal's Braids, who will be playing 529 this Friday night, have released a new video for their song Taste, which features singer Raphaelle Standell standing in the middle of a pack of dancers or alone in the woods, intercut with still or nearly still images of naked bodies of all shapes, sizes, and ages in their own homes.

Director Kevan Funk wrote, "I see it as these scenes that would almost feel like portraiture, these images that have a mixture of being beautiful and in someways haunting." 

Funk also wrote, "I like the idea of the viewer projecting this idea on to the individuals, that refrain of ‘we experience the love that we think we deserve’ somehow leading us to assume the type of life these people have had, who and how they love and have been loved." 

So it is all about love after all, but in case you haven't gathered by now, the video is probably what some people would call NSFW.  

Tasseomancy

Tasseomancy performing with Austra, The Earl, Rocktober 2011

In the good-things-just-keep-getting-better department, it has been learned that Tasseomancy will be opening for Braids at 529 on Friday, October 16. 

Tasseomancy is the musical project of sisters Sari and Romy Lightman. Influenced by the likes of Robbie Basho, Broadcast, Mary Margaret O'Hara, and Alice Coltrane's Turiya Sings, the band has developed a unique sound that combines the lyrical and vocal traditions of folk music with the experimental attitudes of psychedelia, new wave, and new age music. In 2011, they released Ulalume, a collaborative record with Timber Timbre, while also joining the electronic queer group, Austra. They've since left that band to focus on their own project, and in May 2015 are set to release Palm Wine Revisited.

Purity Ring at Buckhead Theater, Atlanta, May 27, 2015

"Who's kids are these?" I wondered at one point during last night's show at the Buckhead Theater.  I could have been asking about the young audience at the all-ages show, but in fact I was wondering about the opener, Alberta's Born Gold.  

I did not care for their set.  The sound was all muddled together with the bass way too loud, the synthesized rhythm sounded like a pair of sneakers in a clothes dryer, and the band seemed more interested in choreographed dance moves than playing music.  Worse, they played most of their set on a dark stage except for the lights from their keyboards, with occasional bursts of light (I caught one for the picture below), usually to capture their dance moves.  They weren't hurt-your-ears bad or I'll-never-unhear-this bad, just these-guys-need-to-practice-playing-their-instruments-more bad.  It was hard for me to understand how a band of that caliber could have earned the a spot on a national tour with Braids and Purity Ring, and I figured that they must have been somebody's kids - thus, "Who's kids are these?"

I learned the answer today - Born Gold is the band that used to go by the name Gobble Gobble and used to contain Corin Roddick, now of Purity Ring.  They're the guys he left behind, so in a sense, they got the gig because they're Purity Rings's kids.  Anyway, their set was a mercifully short 30 minutes, so enough about them - I don't like being negative and subscribe to the "if you don't have anything nice to say" philosophy of blogging, but this was just too much to not comment on.

  

Next up were Montreal's Braids, who were absolutely fantastic.  We saw Braids once before when they opened for Wye Oak, and we were totally blown away then.  Oddly, that performance brought Purity Ring to mind, and now, almost exactly a year later, here that are again, now opening for Purity Ring themselves.

Still, we weren't prepared for how great Braids were.  Front-woman Raphaelle Standell-Preston's vocals soared at times, startled at others, and had my complete attention throughout.   They have a new album, Deep In The Iris. out, but even the outstanding cuts from the record don't match the immediacy and range of Raphaelle's live vocals.  By all means, if you have a chance to catch this band, do.

I don't know if the show had sold out or not, but the Buckhead Theater was packed.  I got there a few minutes after the doors had opened, but there were already at least ten rows of people at the front of the stage.  I fell back a little and watched the show from the front row of the elevated portion of the floor, still close enough to see well, but also high enough to see over the heads of the crowd. Unfortunately, the young audience around me were not talking to one another throughout the set, they were shouting at one another throughout the set.  Totally oblivious to the great music on the stage, they were both preventing others from hearing it and also interfering with the atmosphere the band was attempting to create.  "Who's kids are these?"

They finally did shut up for Purity Ring, or Purity Ring managed to drown them out, but after all, Purity Ring was the band they had come to see, not some band called "Braids."

We've seen Purity Ring twice before, first during MFNW (RIP) 2012 and then again at Variety Playhouse.  Since those performances, Purity Ring's stagecraft has gotten even more visually compelling, even if their songs have not changed much.  Their latest album, Another Eternity, has a glossier, more commercial sound than their debut, but live the songs sound more evenly matched.

Singer Megan James has a limited range, and after a while, she sounds like she's squeaking her way through every one of the songs, while instrumentalist Corin Roddick, formerly of Gobble Gobble, keeps the booming, bass-heavy beats going behind the vocals.  It's a formula that works, and the audience reacted favorably throughout the set, arm-pumping and phone-waving the whole time.

Megan announced near the end of Purity Ring's set that for some reason there would be no encore, and true to her words, as soon as the last song was over right at 11:00 pm, the lights came on and the house music started.  A few people called for "One more!," but no one ever came back on stage.

I don't know if I need to go to another Purity Ring show again unless they start to come up with something new, but the evening was still totally worth it for Braids' fine performance, even if it did mean enduring Born Gold's set.  

Wye Oak at Terminal West, Atlanta, May 21, 2014

Wye Oak performed last night at Terminal West.  Montreal's Braids opened.

Braids were a revelation. I had heard of them before, but I'm not sure that I had ever actually heard them before, and didn't know what to expect. 

I'm not sure I can describe what it was that I heard -  they're a little hard to pigeon-hole.  You can classify them as "experimental rock," but that description doesn't really tell you anything.  The closest comparison I can think of is Purity Ring, but with more of an ambient backsound than Purity's thumping back-beats, and not that their terrific drummer didn't throw down some wicked beats of his own from time to time.

So that was like super-cool, and the audience expressed some real affection for the band.  After a short break, Baltimore's Wye Oak took the stage.  Last night was the last night of their current tour and they're now on a brief rest from touring before starting a European tour later this month.   

Wye Oak, of course, are guitarist and singer Jenn Wasner and simultaneous-drummer-and-keyboardist Andy Stack.   We've seen Wye Oak before, opening for Explosions in the Sky at The Tabernacle.  We've also seen Wasner's side project, Flock of Dimes, at The Earl, opening for Sharon Van Etten.

Both Wye Oak and Braids before them spoke enthusiastically and emotionally about how much they each had enjoyed the other's company on tour together.  They both seem like sincere and generous people - $2 of each ticket sold went to charity, an item mentioned on the venue's web site but never once by either band from the stage - although musically they're quite different.

Photo by Wye Oak

Overall, Wye Oak's sound was a little more confined to traditional song structure and lacked the generous dollops of noise that they included in their 2011 set at The Tabernacle, but they still sounded great and commanded everyone's attention throughout their 75-minute set.  

Wye Oak played mostly songs from their new album, Shriek, with some older songs thrown in too, although they didn't get around to I Hope You Die.  However, they closed the night with a great encore consisting of a cover of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill and their stand-out song Civilian, followed by a Wasner solo version of Doubt.