Quilt

Meanwhile, despite all the tragedy and disappointment around us, Quilt have finally released the video for their Song-of-the-Year contender, Eliot Street from their fine album, Plaza.

Mutual Benefit and Quilt at The Earl, Atlanta, September 10, 2016

The Japanese expression jijuyō-zanmai suggests the state of natural balance that we experience when making effort without an intentional aim.  It is like the flowering of trees in the spring, which do not intend to produce beautiful blossoms, or the trail of birds in the sky, which do not intend on suggesting graceful arcs.  Passing clouds do not intend to cast their reflection on a pond.  But while the actions of all sentient beings are volitional and deliberate, the results of our actions do not have to be intentional.

I bring this up because Atlanta singer-songwriter Connor Burnett, who performs under the name Pleasance House, plays atmospheric, ambient folk that he describes as "music created with no intention."  Last night, he volitionally kicked off a great night of music with his opening set at The Earl. 

Performing solo, and for his first time at The Earl, Pleasance House produced lovely sounds using just his guitar and his voice, weaving intricate melodies on the strings and singing, both with and without words.  I, or anyone else, cannot know Connor's mind or speak to his intentions or lack thereof, but an artist can create a work of art just for the sake of creation, without intention of how it is to be received or perceived.  You can hear his music for yourself on his Bandcamp page, but if you ever do get a chance to hear him perform live, you really should reward yourself and go listen.  

Jordan Lee, who performs as Mutual Benefit, took the stage next and after playing his opening song, commented on how impressed he was by Pleasance House, and pondered aloud the possibilities of creating music without intention.  And then, intentionally or not, Mutual Benefit proceeded to keep the spell started by Pleasance House going, playing a soothing and uplifting set of hypnotic acoustical ambience for nearly an hour.

The music was spell-binding, and getting lost in the flow of the tunes felt to these listeners like drifting down a river on an inner tube on a summer afternoon, although we're sure was not Mutual Benefit's intention.



Jordan noted that this was his third time playing at The Earl, and like many things in life, the third time seemed to be the charm.  The audience, although few in number, were enraptured, and so quiet were they between songs, Jordan actually led a "scream-along" at one point just to break the spell (if I may be so bold as to assume his intention).

At various times, guitars, banjos, basses, and flutes were employed in creating the heavenly music.

Mutual Benefit's best known song, Advanced Falconry, was played about three-fourths of the way into the set.

During the set, several Pokemons spawned on stage, apparently attracted, like us, by Mutual Benefit's dreamy music.

A evening of music by Pleasance House and Mutual Benefit would have been more than satisfying in and of itself, but we still had headliner Quilt on tap.  Mutual Benefit and Quilt are on a co-headliner tour, which just started Friday night in Athens, and while we would have headed out just to see Mutual Benefit, or for that matter Pleasance House now that we've been introduced, Quilt is one of those can't-miss bands and the twin billing of the two bands is a must-see show.

We saw Quilt at The Earl earlier this year, after having missed them at 529 back in 2014, and I've gone on record calling their latest album, Plaza, one of the best releases of 2016.  

Quilt played several songs off of Plaza, opening, as I recall, with Passerby, followed by Hissing My Plea.  I didn't snag a set list and didn't even see one on stage, so I'm not sure of the exact sequence of songs, but during their set they played several other of their more-popular songs, including Eliot Street, Roller and Arctic Shark, but what stood out to me were the several long instrumental passages of psychedelic guitar exploration.  I wouldn't call Quilt a "jam band" at this point by any stretch of the imagination, but with their extended grooves they easily eschewed any "pop band" categorization. Listen to album-closer Own Ways from Plaza (which also closed last night's set) for a taste of the Haight-Ashbury-influenced psych rock that seems on its way to becoming a larger part of Quilt's repertoire, or better yet, their 2014 Quilt in Marfa EP.

The Earl did an exceptional job with the sound, and the mix was perfectly balanced so that one could hear everything clearly, particularly the fine harmonies between singers Anna Rochinski and Shane Butler.  

Speaking of The Earl, Quilt posted the picture below on their Facebook of a ghost, apparently, working The Earl's merch table.

Quilt apparently have a thing about covering themselves with sheets (but not in a Klanish way), as evidenced by the cover of the Held In Splendor album and their video for Arctic Shark.

It was, intentionally or not, a delightful evening of terrific music by three fine bands.  We're now past the half-way mark in our five-day stretch of shows (Rocktober in September, or Septober Energy), having completed Car Seat Headrest (Thursday) and Angel Olsen (Friday) at Terminal West, and with Joanna Newsom tonight at Buckhead Theater and then The Album Leaf back at Terminal West on Monday.

Here We Go

Here we go, sports (and music) fans.  Rocktober arrives a full month early:

Sept. 8 - Car Seat Headrest (Terminal West)

Sept. 9 - Angel Olsen and (just announced) Julianna Barwick (Terminal West)

Sept. 10 - Quilt and Mutual Benefit (The Earl)

Sept. 11 - Joanna Newsom (Buckhead Theater)

Sept. 12 - The Album Leaf (Terminal West)

Sept. 21 - Okkervil River, Landlady (Terminal West)

Sept. 27 - Little Tybee, Hello Ocho (Mammal Gallery)

Mutual Benefit

Mutual Benefit at Shaky Knees, May 10, 2014

Mutual Benefit will be opening for Quilt at The Earl on Saturday, September 10.  

Mutual Benefit is Jordan Lee and has been described as "a one-man-band or a sprawling collective, depending on where he is and who is around that day."   We saw Mutual Benefit as a four-person outfit at Shaky Knees back in 2014 when they were the first band to perform at the festival; they played probably the shortest and quietest set of the day.  Since they, Lee has released a new album Skip A Sinking Stone, featuring the song Lost Dreamers.

As I have been saying. Mutual Benefit's September 10 set at The Earl will be the night after Angel Olsen performs at Terminal West and the night before Joanna Newsom and Alela Diane appear at The Buckhead Theater.  The Quilt/Mutual Benefit tour starts in Athens the night before The Earl gig and uncharacteristically for most tours nowadays, actually focuses on the American South, with dates in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and Kentucky, before moving on to some off-the-beaten-path destinations in the Northeast (Buffalo and Kingston, New York and Toronto, Canada) and thence to points beyond.

Quilt

Quilt at The Earl, March 8, 2016

Quilt will be returning to The Earl on September 10, the night after Angel Olsen performs at Terminal West and the night before Joanna Newsom and Alela Diane appear at The Buckhead Theater.  

Preview

What we all knew is now official - July 2016 was the hottest month ever recorded in the history of recording hottest months.  So far, August hasn't been much cooler.

It's also been one of the driest, at least as far as shows go.  I haven't heard live music since Swans' July 22 show at Terminal West (although part of the ringing still in my ears is continuing to hear them  now).

As hard as it is to believe today, there's just a little over a month from the autumnal equinox.  We're two weeks out from football season starting again.  Ten weeks to Halloween, twelve to the end of this insufferable Presidential election season.

But my point is this - after a drought of biblical proportions, live music will soon be returning to the ATL. As you can see from the Upcoming Shows gadget over to the right, September will bring an insane amount of good music to town, starting with Car Seat Headrest at Terminal West on Thursday, September 8.   

The next evening, Angel Olsen plays Terminal West and the night after that, Saturday, Quilt and Mutual Benefit will be at The Earl.  

On Sunday, September 11, Joanna Newsom plays The Buckhead Theater and on Monday, September 12, The Album Leaf  will be at Terminal West.

And that five-show/five-night run isn't even all of it for September.  On Wednesday, September 21, Okkervil River and Landlady will take the Terminal West stage, and to close the month, Portland's Ages & Ages will be at Vinyl on September 30.

I'm not likely to make all of the shows (work, travel, old age, etc.), but there's not one show in that list that I want to miss.

Economics 102

Faced with fewer bands touring through the American South, club owners appear to have re-evaluated their own profit margins and the sources of their income.  Why pay some band from New York a big fee to perform, when a local band can fill the room or at the very least cover the costs for the night at little or no money?  

Local music is an important part of any city's music scene and part of the joy of living in a city with a thriving local music scene like Atlanta is watching our local favorites grow and mature as artists.  But when the club owners no longer can pack the room with fans of the latest buzz band, they have to figure out how they can afford to keep the doors open with fewer customers, so with lower volume, they have to reduce their costs by paying the locals less and less, and before too long the music fan is faced with enduring whatever band the club can scrape together to play for free that night and with putting up with fewer and fewer comforts (AC, clean toilets) in the club itself.

In a perfect world, our fine local bands would rise to the occasion and fill the empty stages left by the touring bands that refuse to venture too far from home, but in the imperfect world in which we live, there's a downward spiral as owners realize they can make greater profits by paying the bands less, or even nothing at all, and the quality of the music on stage suffers as a result.

So, yes, I've been to fewer shows this year, partly because there's been fewer shows this year, in my humble opinion, worth seeing.

But then, suddenly, an oasis appears in the desert.  Over the next week, Atlanta will get to experience Swans (Friday), Fear of Men (Monday), Marissa Nadler (Tuesday), and Boogarins (Wednesday), and then almost nothing for the month of August.  But then, just as dramatically, we'll get another overload of shows on September 8, 9, 10, and 11, with  Car Seat Headrest, (8th), Angel Olsen (9th), Quilt and Mutual Benefit (10th), and Joanna Newsom (11th).  

So don't lose hope, Atlanta, there's still good music to be heard out there, and in the meantime we can support our local artists like Little Tybee at Terminal West on August 5, Takenobu at Eddie's Attic on August 13, and Hello Ocho and Jeffrey Bützer at The Earl on August 29 and September 3, respectively.    

Padova

We never need much of an excuse to listen to (or post) any cuts from Quilt's fine LP Plaza, and we would probably have posted this video of the song Padova anyway, but the truth of the matter is we actually do like this video and can only envy those for whom this vid in an introduction to the band.  For us, it was Arctic Shark, which isn't a bad way to start with Quilt either.

The Case For Plaza

Quilt at The Earl, March 8, 2016

Radiohead's excellent Moon Shaped Pool may have just bumped Quilt's Plaza off of our Top Ten Albums of 2016 (So Far), but we have a feeling that Quilt will return and by the end of the year both albums will be on our Top 10.

Here's Quilt at KEXP making the case for Plaza's return.

Quilt & Dungen at The Earl, Atlanta, March 8, 2016

Never mind that Dungen were the headliners and the clear favorite of most of the audience, I was there to see Quilt and I enjoyed their set more than that of the Swedes at The Earl.

More about the Swedes later.  Even casual readers of this blog should realize by now that I have a real affinity for the band Quilt and consider their new LP Plaza a strong contender for Album of the Year.  I've been looking forward to this performance for a while now, and Quilt did not disappoint.  

The sound mix was perfect, allowing their harmonies to rise above the instruments, and the band played flawlessly.  I don't know what else to say other than if you like the sound of this band, you'd have loved their performance last night.  

Dungen (Swedish for "the grove") is a Stockholm-based psychedelic prog-rock band, equally influenced by folk music, classic rock, garage rock and alternative rock.  The band is fronted by singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Gustav Ejstes, who writes all the music and played piano, electronic keyboard, electric and acoustic guitars, and flute during the course of the show.

The set was full of psych rock, with touches of jazz, especially in the drumming, and instrumental ambience.  I was reminded at times of any number of '60s and '70s prog-rock bands, from Euro bands like Focus and Gong to all of those Haight-Ashbury summer-of-love bands whose names I can't even remember.

They're very inventive and no two songs sounded alike, but my only complaint, and I know how this sounds, is that their set was so long.  They took the stage around 10:30, and well after midnight they were encouraging the audience to keep hanging in there, they weren't through yet.  Most of the audience were clearly fans and couldn't get enough, but I, unfamiliar with most of their work as I am, started to find it all exhausting and left before the encore break.  

Anyway, I guess my points are 1) Quilt are the real thing and as good as I had hoped, 2) it turns out that you can get too much of a good thing, and 3) neither band would have sounded out of place of the stage of the Fillmore East in 1971.  

This Week's Shows (3/7 - 3/13)

The 29th annual SXSW festival takes place in Texas on March 11 to 20, so after a slow, even agonizingly slow, start to this year's music schedule here in Atlanta, we're finally starting to see the annual migration of bands from points north, from Montreal, Boston, Brooklyn, Baltimore and points between, down the East Coast and across to Austin.  There's even a separate festival in Savannah, the Stopover Festival on March 10 to 12, specifically designed to showcase some of  those bands passing through, and artists who perform at that festival will also be passing through Atlanta on their way to their final destination.

Not that the few good shows that we did have so far weren't great, but after such a slow start to the year, we now are faced with a week so chock-full of terrific shows that one unfortunately will have to make some difficult choices.  Yes, I'm looking at you, Saturday night.  One could almost make a full-blown festival out of the bands performing this Saturday night alone, what with shows by Yuck and Big Thief at Aisle 5, and Prince Rama at The Earl, and Teen at The Drunken Unicorn, and Guerilla Toss at 529, and Hiss Golden Messenger at Eddie's Attic, and Shilpa Ray at the Mammal Gallery. Not to mention Freakwater, Banners, Pop Etc., Hoodie Allen, The Slackers, and even the goddamn Moody Blues on the same night.  Not to mention the second night of the 12-band Hammerhead Festival at the Star Bar.

The Mammal Gallery has really stepped up this week, too, offering Madrid's Hinds on Sunday night following their Shilpa Ray show, and a few good shows earlier in the week (Daniel Bachman on Wednesday night and a Friday-night showcase of four bands).

So, with the possible exception of the Shaky Knees weekend, this may be the best week for music in Atlanta this year  Proof may be that after all of the above, I haven't even yet mentioned one of the shows I'm most excited about, namely Dungen and Quilt at The Earl on Tuesday night, or Miike Snow, Migos, and Ra Ra Riot at three different venues on Friday night. It's a great, great week for music here in Atlanta, kids.

As always, please keep in mind that musicians and night-club proprietors lead complicated lives and I'm prone to errors, mistakes, typos, and fubars; it's advisable to confirm any of the information below on your own before making plans. 

MONDAY, MARCH 7

Wolfmother, Deap Vally (Center Stage)

As Wolfmother, vocalist/guitarist Andrew Stockdale strikes “a balance between meaty vintage metal and crisp, stoner-rock melodies” (Pitchfork).   The female indie duo Deep Vally mix hard rock and greasy blues riffs, much like the White Stripes and the Black Keys, into their primal sound.

Dux, Magicicada, Skull Buddha (529)

Dux is an experiment in improvised cello and analog synthesizers by Chelsea Dunn and Casey Battaglino; they recently opened the Ladyfest 2016 benefit here at 529 but now they get the headliner's spot.  Magicicada is Christopher White, an Atlanta musician and artist who creates mystical sound collages and evocative, organic drones from a arsenal of folk instruments, found objects, samplers, and field recordings. Skull Buddha is Atlanta electronic musicians Gage Gilmore and  Eric Grantham of deadCAT.

Andrea Colburn, Urban Pioneers, Nathan Nelson (The Earl)

Andrea Colburn is a singer-songwriter out of North Georgia with a dark twist on country music, featuring haunting songs of revenge and the occasional, slightly romantic double homicide.   String band Urban Pioneers hammers out a variety of original songs that encompass old time hillbilly music, western swing, rockabilly, and even a few gypsy-type songs for good measure. Opener Nathan Nelson  plays old-time roots blues, folk, and country.

Sustenance, Debris, Hanging Moon, Palardy, Conduit (Purgatory at Masquerade)

Sustenance is a four-piece experimental hardcore band from Kennesaw using groove-oriented guitar riffs, ambient leads, hard hitting vocals, and thunderous drums.  The other bands, I'm sure, are somewhat similar.

Roger Clyne, Nobody's Darlings (Music Room at Smith's Olde Bar) 

Roger Clyne, formerly the front man for The Refreshments, will perform The Refreshments' breakout album Fizzy Fuzzy Big and Buzzy in its entirety.   There will be $125 tables available for old white people with money to spare.

JD Eicher & The Goodnights, Kyle Cox, Kurt Scobie (Atlanta Room at Smith's Olde Bar)

Singer-songwriters.

TUESDAY, MARCH 8

★★Dungen, Quilt (The Earl)

Primordial Sounds once said that the Boston band Quilt sounds like kids from the 80s dreaming about people from the 60s thinking about life in the future.  Their new LP Plaza is one of my favorite albums so far in this young year and a strong contender for album of the year.  Brooklyn Vegan notes the album is "absolutely jam-packed with memorable melodies, clever arrangements, ace performances, swoony strings and harmonies, and great little touches you might not notice till the fifth or sixth listen through."  Sweden's Dungen ("Doon-yen," listen to Cheryl Waters pronounce it correctly below) are simply one of the best and most consistently inventive psych rock bands in the world, boasting a blend of '60s-styled psychedelic rock, free jazz, Swedish folk, and instrumental ambience. 

Witchaven, Steel Bearing Hand, Dismemberment, Paradox (529)

D-beat is a style of hardcore punk that initially developed in the early 1980s by imitators of the band Discharge; the term also applies to a drum beat characteristic of this subgenre that Discharge may have inherited from Motörhead.  D-beat is closely associated with crust punk, which is a heavier, more complex variation that was particularly popular in Sweden.  While the style initially developed in the early 1980s, the subgenre endures with bands such as LA's Witchaven, who will performtheir D-beat music here along with black metal and thrash.  Also on the bill are Dallas' Steel Bearing Hand, who plays blackened thrash metal, and Dismemberment, a metal band from southern Ohio. Opener Paradox is an Atlanta crust punk and D-beat hardcore punk band.

Drowning Pool, Violent New Breed, Poynte, Conquer The Distance (Hell at Masquerade)
Drowning Pool are a nu metal band from Dallas who've had many changes in vocalist over the years. Their song Bodies was constantly played by the military at Guantanamo Bay over a 10-day period as a form of "enhanced interrogation" (i.e., torture) of the captives.  Now, that's street cred.  There's other bands on the bill, too, but there's too much else going on this week to talk about them here.

Frameworks, Donovan Wolfington, Fox Wound, Michael Cera Palin (Purgatory at Masquerade)
Frameworks are a melodic hardcore band from Gainesville that incorporate elements of post-hardcore and screamo/skramz.

Stephen, Eyrn Allen Kane, Old Sea Brigade, Jimmy Real (Music Room at Smith's Olde Bar)
A showcase for indie promoters Communion Atlanta.  Communion was formed in 2006 at London’s Notting Hill Arts Club by Ben Lovett (Mumford and Sons), Kev Jones (Bear's Den), and producer Ian Grimble, and quickly grew into a flourishing community of musicians and fans, providing a first independent platform for the best young artists.

Old Sea Brigade opening for Julien Baker at Aisle 5, January 29, 2016

Gabe Dixon (Eddie's Attic)
First of a two-night stand at Eddie's by the Nashville singer-songwriter/pianist.

Adam Lambert (The Tabernacle)
American Idol's Adam Lambert at The Tabernacle.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9

White Reaper, Acid Dad, A Drug Called Tradition (The Earl)

White Reaper is a garage punk band based in Louisville, Kentucky. Brooklyn’s Acid Dad released their debut EP, Let’s Plan A Robbery, on February 26; Stereogum called the debut track “a kaleidoscopic, rebellious tune, capturing the buoyant feeling of city shenanigans.”  A Drug Called Tradition features members of Abby Gogo and Tikka, and a sound ranging from the laid back vibe of Kurt Vile to the guitar stylings of Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth, with elements of Krautrock and the prog psych of early Pink Floyd.

Flogging Molly, Beans On Toast (The Tabernacle)
Here's a fitting follow-up to last Saturday's Dropkick Murphys' show at The Tabernacle and a reminder that St; Patrick's Day is approaching.  Flogging Molly, a seven-piece Celtic punk band from LA led by Irish vocalist Dave King, have been blending punk attitude with traditional Celtic forms since 1997, complete with rousing choruses and bittersweet tales of drunken nights.  Beans On Toast is the stage name of British folk singer Jay McAllister from Braintree, Essex, who rose out of the UK folk scene in 2005. His songwriting openly deals with the topics of politics, drugs and love. Beans on Toast has released seven studio albums, traditionally releasing a new record each year on December 1, McAllister's birthday.

Daniel Bachman, Peter Webb, Ben Price (Mammal Galley)
Daniel Bachman is a six-string and lap-steel guitar player now based in North Carolina who grew up steeped in the traditional music of Virginia, drawing from and expanding on it in his own fingerstyle guitar albums.  According to Creative Loafing, Peter Webb’s Liminal Space "is a sublime exercise in meditation, bearing fruit through repeat listens and as background music to conversations with friends."  Producer/engineer Ben Price helped launch the recent Book of Colors LP, but will be bringing his own sounds to the Mammal Gallery.

Leggy, Sharkmuffin, Pet Sun, Deadly Lo-Fi (Purgatory at Masquerade)
Cincinnati trio Leggy play dreamy bubblegum punk. Brooklyn garage trio Sharkmuffin crafts adorable pop music with jagged edges. Pet Sun is a garage rock band from Toronto, and Atlanta's Deadly Lo-Fi performs both as a one-man band show with Rev. T (Travis) and also as a duo with Mr. Skeleton Man (Seth Moody), when available.

The Dirty Magazines, Jerkagram, Cinema Novo, Twin Trances (The Drunken Unicorn)
The Dirty Magazines are a stoner-rock band from Atlanta. LA's Jerkagram is a fraternal twin duo influenced by free jazz, heavy punk, kraut/psych rock, noise and pop. Atlanta-based Cinema Novo blends progressive punk, latin rhythms, math rock, and psychedelic ambience to form an intricate sonic mutiny.  Twin Trances are guitarist/singer Chris Strawn and drummer Chris Brooks playing "doom pop for the family fun zone."

Tank, Demetria McKinney (Center Stage)
Since his 2001 debut Force of Nature, contemporary R&B singer Tank has recorded solo albums sporadically, becoming increasingly busy behind the scenes as a songwriter, musician, and producer. After singing in church choirs, contemporary R&B singer Demetria McKinney earned a vocal scholarship and studied theater and dance and eventually found herself on Real Housewives of Atlanta.  This show is sold out.

Jared & The Mill (Vinyl)

Phoenix, Arizona's Jared & the Mill are a six-piece indie folk outfit led by singer/songwriter Jared Kolesar with a lush acoustic-based sound that sets big-hearted Lumineers-style folk-rock against the wide, dusty backdrop of their native Southwest.

Gabe Dixon (Eddie's Attic)
Second of the two-night stand at Eddie's by the Nashville singer-songwriter/pianist.

The Gordon Vernick Quartet (Red Light Cafe)
Every Wednesday night, The Gordon Vernick Quartet performs a few numbers and then invites other musicians and singers to join them on stage for a jam session. The quartet features Kevin Bales on keyboard, Marlon Patton on drums, Craig Shaw on bass, and Dr. Gordon Vernick on trumpet. There's no cover charge and plenty of free parking. Whether you're a professional or amateur musician, you're welcome to sit in; everyone who wants to perform will be given a chance to play.

Battalion Of Saints, Forsaken Profits, Above Repute (Hell at Masquerade)
Hardcore punk and thrash.

Moontower (Atlanta Room at Smith's Olde Bar)
Cover band.

The Howling Tongues, Sunghosts, John Pagano Band (Music Room at Smith's Olde Bar)
Garage rock.

Marlatov Cocktail Swingers (Steve's Live Music)
Swing.

THURSDAY, MARCH 10

The-Dream (The Loft)

R&B singer The-Dream recently announced a new album and a tour, both called Genesis, which for some reason (it's complicated) had to cancel last week's planned show at Vinyl and instead now includes this make-up date at The Loft.  The-Dream has written many hit pop songs, including Me Against the Music for Britney Spears, Umbrella for Rihanna, Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) for Beyoncé and Baby for Justin Bieber.  He also recently released a digital EP of Sam Cooke covers called IAMSAM, recorded during the making of Beyonce's 4, which makes sense given that album's strong R&B influence.  

★Capital Arms, Sister Helen, Flower (The Drunken Unicorn)

We missed Capital Arm's recent (January 22) show at the Unicorn, but we've seen them before at an enjoyable day show during the 2014 Hopscotch Festival and look forward to hearing more from them.  Brooklyn's Sister Helen play rock music inspired by progressive bands of the 70s and the 2000s.  Flower's frontman Jack Fowler is the vocalist for Atlanta's exwhy who turned his attention to showcasing his more vulnerable side as Flower, pouring his heart and soul into brutally honest and surprisingly emotional songs.

Capital Arms at  Hopscotch, 2014

Pony League, New Junk City, Blue Blood, Jeremy Ray (The Earl)
Pony League, formerly known as Cute Boots, are longtime staples of Atlanta's indie americana scene. Realizing that they were falling just short of something truer to themselves, they took some time to double down on their craft, and are back with a much stronger sense of identity. New Junk City are a garage punk band that recorded their debut LP at the Cottage in Atlanta.  Blue Blood began as a solo project for Hunter Morris after the dissolution of his prior band Gift Horse but, after making demos in solitude and trying to find a new voice for his songs, what emerged, ironically, was an album's worth of psychedelic pop songs worthy of a full band.  Former Anchor Bends frontman Jeremy Ray blends his punk rock roots and love for storytelling into a surprisingly energetic stage show for just one guy and a guitar. 

Satisfiers of Alpha Blue, Little Rituals, Sad Fish (529)

A set with three Atlanta bands, headlined by Satisfiers of Alpha Blue, an  experimental psychedelic pop group, backed by Little Rituals, an alt/psych-country band.  Sad Fish will open with a set of their Brazilian freak surf rock.

No BS! Brass Band, Lucy Dacus (Aisle 5)
No BS! Brass, based in Richmond, Virginia, takes the New Orleans brass band sound into uncharted territory, fearlessly combining elements of James Brown, John Coltrane, Michael Jackson, and Led Zeppelin into their fiercely original sound.  Richmond's Lucy Dacus is joining them on this tour.

Guantanamo Baywatch, Gooch Palms, The Mondellos (Star Community Bar) 
Portland's Guantanamo Baywatch conjure up a swampy fusion of surf, garage rock, and rockabilly that suggests the Cramps hitting the beach midway through a drunken bender.  Australians The Gooch Palms are a party band that wear colorful, kitschy outfits and sing bubblegum-flavored garage rock songs.  Florida's The Mondellos open with their own twist, stomp and slop.

Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas (Eddie's Attic)

An acoustic set by the duo of Alasdair Fraser, long regarded as Scotland's premier fiddle ambassador, and the talented young California cellist Natalie Haas. 

Further Seems Forever, Kids, Civilian, Gordan (Hell at Masquerade)

Further Seem Forever is a Christian indie rock/emo band formed in 1998 in Pompano Beach. Over its initial eight-year run, the band experienced several lineup changes, resulting in a different lead vocalist performing on each of their first three studio albums. The band broke up in 2006 but reunited four years later and released their fourth studio album in 2012.

blessthefall, Miss May I, The Plot In You, Sirens and Sailors, A War Within (Heaven at Masquerade)

Question: Does it matter to Christian rock bands at the Masquerade who gets to play in Heaven and who has to play in Hell, and if so, who decides?  Phoenix's blessthefall is a Christian-oriented screamo quintet with some hip-hop and nu metal influences, and will be playing up on the Heaven stage while fellow Christian rockers Further Seems Forever play downstairs in Hell.

MartyParty, Mirror Style (Terminal West)
South African EDM.

Piano, The Travelin' Kine, The Night Shift (Music Room at Smith's Olde Bar)
Power rock.

Hadar Noiberg Trio (Steve's Live Music)
Part of the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival.

The Ain't Sisters, She Returns From War, Brian Robert, Jason Waller (Red Light Cafe)
Americana

FRIDAY, MARCH 11

★Miike Snow (Buckhead Theater)

Miike Snow is an indie electro-pop trio that comprises Stockholm-based writer/producers Christian Karlsson andPontus Winnberg, and Brooklyn-based Andrew Wyatt.  Karlsson and Winnberg are also known as the production duo Bloodshy & Avant and have worked with Britney Spears, Madonna, and Kylie Minogue, including their production of Spears' 2004 hit Toxic.  Wyatt is a writer/producer who's collaborated with Joan Wasser (Joan As Police Woman) and is an in-house producer for Downtown Records.  The trio is superb with ghostly, distorted art-rock vocals and perky electro-psychedelic harmonics, and their debut 2009 single Animal was met with much acclaim on the blogosphere. They founded the indie label Ingrid with Dungen (see Tuesday night), Lykke Li, and Peter Bjorn and John, and just released their third LP, iii. This show is sold out.

Migos (Center Stage)

Another Sold-out show.  According to the New York Times, "This young rap collective from Atlanta is rising fast, and their debut album, Yung Rich Nation, makes no bones about how much they're enjoying success. In a review for The New York Times, Jon Caramanica noted, 'They're feeling the flush of fame, and its pressures, too,' but added, 'the musical exuberance that marked their best early work isn't there.'"   

★Ra Ra Riot, Sun Club, PWR BTTM (Aisle 5)

New York's Ra Ra Riot combine indie rock with chamber pop flourishes courtesy of a small string section, creating an eclectic sound.  Sure, the band's best songwriting days may be behind them, but their early songs hold up well. Baltimore indie poppers Sun Club put a colorful, punk-edged spin on sunshiny pop. It’s worth getting there early to catch PWR BTTM, the queer punk duo of Liv Bruce and Ben Hopkins.

Ra Ra Riot at The Earl, October 29, 2011 (Halloween Show)

The Gotobeds, Motherfucker, Shepherds (529)

The Gotobeds are a punk band from Pittsburgh.  Motherfucker is an all-female hardcore trio from Athens who just opened for Creepoid at The Earl March 6. Atlanta post-punk noise/soul outfit Shepherds will open.

Shepherds performing at Artlantis 2013

X Ambassadors, Seinabo Sey (The Tabernacle)

Brooklyn-based alt-rock ensemble X Ambassadors make passionate, dark, and literate music that mixes acoustic, electric, and electronic sounds. Opener Seinabo Sey is a Swedish musician and songwriter performing in the soul pop and electro-pop genres.

The Merry Go Rounds, King Guru, The Organ Machines, Ian & The Economy (The Drunken Unicorn)

A nice showcase of Atlanta indie bands.  The Merry Go Rounds (not to be confused with 60's psychedelic rock band The Merry Go Round) and an indie pop-rock collective that adds sax and violin to the usual rock-band instrumentation.  King Guru is an indie-rock band that blends rock, jazz, blues, soul, and latin influences. The Organ Machines is a three-person band which plays a mix of ambient, progressive, and surf rock.  Ian & The Economy open.

Sea Ghost, Zuli, Sons of an Illustrious Father, GAHM (Mammal Gallery)
Another interesting showcase.  Sea Ghost is an Atlanta garage pop-rock band, while Zuli play melodic psychedelic pop. Sons of an Illustrious Father are three Brooklyn-based songwriters-singers-instrumentalists who merge selflessly into one artistic continuum. Atlanta's GAHM will open with a glitchy, electronic sound he calls "rhythm & creep."

Lazyeyes, Beverly, Lights After Dark (Purgatory at Masquerade)

Lazyeyes is a three-piece from Brooklyn playing "a muscular, riff-happy brand of guitar-based dream-pop” (StereoGum).  Brooklyn-based Beverly combines raw pop, post-punk and dreamy melodies and is led by vocalist and guitarist Drew Citron.  Lights After Dark are a punk pop band who played the Purgatory stage back on February 25. 

Trixie Whitley (The Earl) Cancelled

It's complicated . . .

Uncle Van & The Buzzards of Fuzz, Zruda, Spore Lord, The Stir (The Earl)

With Trixie Whitley leaving an open stage at The Earl on a Friday night, Triple D Production went ahead and booked Uncle Van and the Buzzards of Fuzz to bring their gritty, lo-fi aesthetic and fuzzed-out psychedelic tunes to fill the slot.  Zruda includes members of Atlanta bands Gaylord and Lazer/Wulf into a single, mechanical, doom-funk shred-wraith. Spore Lord are a metal trio, and The Stir are a psychedelic hard-rock band.

★Alexa Dexa, Emily Marie Palmer & Jeffrey Butzer, Ben Trickey, Amy O'Dell (Vinyl Lounge at Star Community Bar) 

I once said that January 14th's Bowie In Sweats show was going to be a one-of-a-kind event and it was, but here we are not two months later with that show's openers Alexa Dexa and Jeffrey Butzer, plus a whole lot more.   NY's Alexa Dexa plays a unique "toychestral electronic pop." Like-minded Atlanta musical chameleon Jeffrey Butzer debuting his new project with Emily Marie Palmer here at the Star Bar last month, and will be here again for this show.   Singer-songwriter Ben Trickey "strums and sings about the dark, emotional side of life as an imperfect man." Amy O'Dell is a London singer-songwriter who performs with guitarist Adam Brennan.

Hammerhead Fest - Day One (Star Community Bar)

First of a two-day garage-rock and punk festival featuring The Goddamn Gallows (Michigan), Bigfoot, The Vaginas, SheHeHe, Duell (Texas), and Frick. 

Randall Bramblett, Hannah Thomas (Steve's Live Music)

Randall Bramblett was the principal songwriter and vocalist for the jazz-rock band Sea Level, and went on to work as a session man playing sax and keys for Traffic, Steve Winwood, Levon Helm and Bonnie Raitt.  

Farrar vs. Tweedy Cover Night (Eddie's Attic)

A set of covers of seminal alt-country band Uncle Tupelo, as well as their offsprings Son Volt and Wilco, featuring Atlanta bands Connor Christian & The Southern Gothic, Eliot Bronson, City Mouse, Quaildogs, Jared & Amber, Slow Parade, Chris Stalcup & The Grange, Kristen Englenz, Mike Killeen, and Spencer Smith  & The Invisible Swordsman.

Get The Led Out (Fox Theater)

Led Zeppelin tribute band.

Runaway Gin (Music Room at Smith's Olde Bar)

Phish tribute

Snails, Mantis, Mcbeezy (Terminal West)

Montreal-based EDM producer headlining a show of local EDM acts.  Sold out.

Tonight Alive, Set It Off, The Ready Set, SayWeCAnFly (Hell at The Masquerade)

Punk pop.  Sold out.

Hank and Cupcakes, Cousin Dan, Tomboi, The Hernies (Atlanta Room at Smith's Olde Bar)  

Funk

Nolatet (Red Light Cafe)

Album release show for the jazz band's new Dogs CD.

SATURDAY, MARCH 12

Okay, take a deep breath and tighten your seat belts, because here we go:

★Yuck, Sunflower Bean, Big Thief (Aisle 5)

Yuck have made no bones about their love of '90s indie rock, but their new album Stranger Things, recorded at their London home on a shoestring budget, marks a shift in influences, Archers Of Loaf and Superchunk swapped out for Teenage Fanclub and Real Estate, as NPR recently described it.  "Stranger Things." NPR notes, "marks that moment where the band stops playing to the room and starts speaking directly to listeners." The new album leaps out of the blocks with the fuzzed-out bass of Hold Me Closer followed by the playful Cannonball, but by the time the group gets to the title track, you can almost sense the new Yuck snapping into place.  Also on the bill are New York trio Sunflower Bean, who find their magic at the intersection of dreamy modern psychedelica and urgent fuzzed-out bliss. We last saw opener Big Thief back in November at The Earl opening for Here We Go Magic.  Big Thief's singer and guitarist Adrianne Lenker merges lilting narratives and twisted, fuzzy guitars to surround the heart of their songs, and says the title of their new album Masterpiece alludes to "the masterpiece of our very existence - life - and the struggle of an existence where everything folds back into itself."

★Prince Rama, Avi Jacob, Mans Trash (The Earl)

Prince Rama’s Xtreme Now is the inaugural entry into what the band have coined as the “Extreme Sports Genre.” The new songs take on a more powerful, confident, fierce, infectious, all-encompassing, and accessible dance-club feeling than any other Prince Rama record—a fearless, visionary pop tour de force for the ghost-modern era that celebrates the ephemerality of life, dancing just at the edge of death’s gilded smile. The band’s often unpredictable live shows, which have been described as “hypnotic and mesmerizing—the feeling of a stadium concert on acid,” incorporate elements of performance art, dance-club initiation rites, and vintage VH-1 hair-metal-bravado, and will likely contrast with the Americana of Avi Jacobs, who expresses the old soul of east coast America, twisting melodies from its' pitfalls and triumphs. Opener Mans Trash from Athens manages to evoke Philadelphia soul, video game chiptunes, jangle pop, and freak folk, often in the course of one song.

★Teen, Mercury Girls, Gold-Bears, Slang (The Drunken Unicorn)

Speaking of Here We Go Magic (see write-up for Big Thief at Aisle 5 above), keyboardist Teeny Lieberson left HWGM to start the band Teen with her sisters, going the opposite direction of most musicians who start off in a family band and then later join a nationally-recognized band.  But Teen deserve their own recognition and we've seen them provide killer sets in the past at The Earl and at 529.  Here at the Unicorn, they'll be supported by Philadelphia indie rockers Mercury Girls and Atlanta's Gold-Bears. The theatrical Slang, who kicked off their tour at 529 back on January 14, open.   

★Guerilla Toss, Muuy Biien, Bambara, Bataille (529)

Boston's Guerilla Toss, everyone’s favorite mosh-funk, shit-wave noise band, combine elements of jazz, noise, no wave, psychedelia, punk, and funk in alternately calming and chaotic (but mostly chaotic) ways, and in the past two years has stripped down naked, toured relentlessly, and released a slew of genre-bending vinyls, tapes, and CDs, all while consciously avoiding any traditional harmonic and melodic songwriting aesthetics. Guerrilla Toss will be sharing the bill with Muuy Biien, a scrappy punk-rock band from Athens, and Brooklyn-by-way-of-Athens trio Bambara, whose amplifiers are usually set to "tinnitus." We saw Bambara open at Terminal West for Algiers with their swaggering, pitch-black, howling rock in the mould of Swans, The Birthday Party and The Gun Club. Bataille, formerly the Georges Bataille Battle Cry, opens.

Bambara opening for Algiers at Terminal West, September 22, 2015

★Shilpa Ray, Wey, Really Sorry, Vita and the Wolf (Mammal Gallery)

The Mammal Galley is rightfully calling this show "Saturday Nite Freaky Femmes." The headliner will be Brooklyn's Shilpa Ray, formerly front-woman for her band the Happy Hookers.  Ray has a blues punk sound that's been compared to Blondie and The Cramps flavored with the "Goth burlesque" of the Dresden Dolls, and her singing has been compared to the style of Patti Smith, Nick Cave, and even Ella Fitzgerald. Ray is notable for combining an Indian harmonium with a "big-voiced blues-rock howler" vocal approach.  Opener Vita and the Woolf is the musical project of Philadelphia's Jennifer Prague.

★Hiss Golden Messenger (Eddie's Attic) 

Hiss Golden Messenger is North Carolina-based musician M. C. Taylor playing a fusion of classic rock, folk-pop, and sparse blues in various guises that has led to comparisons to the likes of lo-fi legends Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Bill Callahan.  Taylor has also been a college lecturer specializing in folklore, is responsible for the blog The Old Straight Track, and has helped edit a music education curriculum for Quincy Jones.  This will be a late show for Eddie's (doors at 9:00).

The Moody Blues (Fox Theater)
With founding member Denny Laine playing Eddie's Attic last Sunday, this is a good week for Moody Blues' fans in Atlanta.  Although The Moody Blues are best known today for their bombastic psychedelic-era albums, I find it hard to totally dismiss them, perhaps because during my junior year in high school, their album On The Threshold Of A Dream was played every day during my first-period art class.  For an entire year, first thing in the morning, over the smell of paints and clay, still coming down from whatever chemically-induced experience a high-school junior in the early 70s was likely to be going through, I'd hear the songs Lovely To See You and Lazy Day, and all of the pseudo-profound mysticism on the rest of the album.  You'd think that would make me hate them, but all of that over-reaching for meaning and profundity is exactly what it's like to be a high-school junior in art class in the 70s.  Anyway, that's just me; your experience was probably different (if you're even old enough to have experienced it at all). Expect to see a lot of aging boomers in the audience, and on the stage too for that matter.

Freakwater, Jaye Jayle, Drunken Prayer (Eddie's Attic)

Freakwater is the duo of singers/guitarists/songwriters Janet Beveridge Bean and Catherine Ann Irwin, who mix original material and traditional covers in a spare, acoustic country-folk style with close vocal harmonies. Their instrumentation often features string-band staples like steel guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and Dobro, and the strong Appalachian overtones that result have often drawn comparisons to the Carter Family.  Jaye Jayle is actually frontman Evan Patterson of Louisville's Young Widows.  Drunken Prayer is a mini-orchestra from the twin poles of Portland, Oregon and Asheville, North Carolina, and play "druggy spirituals, reluctant pop, laid-back as fuck country."

Banners, The Moth & the Flame, Pop Etc (Terminal West)

The sponsored Sirius AltNation Advance Placement Tour comes to Atlanta, headlined by Liverpool songwriter Mike Nelson, who performs as Banners.  Utah's The Moth and the Flame have been creating earnest and heady alternative indie-rock since 2011. Pop Etc. is the band formerly known as The Morning Benders (you probably know their song Excuses from a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial) before they decided to go full-on pop.

Pop Etc. opening for Dirty Projectors at Variety Playhouse, August 9, 2012

The Slackers, The Duppies, Eddie Rascal (Hell at The Masquerade)

The Slackers are one of the most notable bands to emerge out of the New York ska-revival scene of the 1990s. After beginning their career in 1991 playing rocksteady and ska in the 2-Tone vein, the Slackers moved toward a more traditional style, even adding a horn section in 1994.  The Duppies are a high-powered seven-piece rocksteady ska band from Gainesville, Florida.  Opener Eddie Rascal is a garage-punk band from Atlanta.

Hoodie Allen, Superduperkyle, Blackbear (The Tabernacle)
Long Island's Hoodie Allen is a frat-rap/pop-rap star who leans more toward the pop end of the spectrum than most of his contemporaries.  Superduperkyle is apparently a rapper named Kyle from Ventura, California, and LA's Blackbear is Matthew Musto, who was a fledgling, rock-leaning singer/songwriter until he co-wrote Justin Bieber's Boyfriend and reinvented himself as a rapper and more R&B-oriented singer.

Owel, Sleep Weather, Sleep Dance, Wyland (Purgatory at Masquerade)

Owel is a five-piece band from New Jersey that incorporates orchestral strings and glockenspiel over traditional guitar, drums, and bass. Sleep Weather and Sleep Dance are both indie bands from Atlanta.  Opener Wyland is from New Jersey. 

A Great Big World, Secret Weapons (The Loft)

Melodic singer/songwriter duo A Great Big World features Ian Axel and Chad King, who met while they were music business students at New York University.  In 2013, their song This Is the New Year was covered on the TV show Glee and used on various other shows.  Brooklyn's Secret Weapons open.

Buddy O'Reilly Band (Eddie's Attic)

An early afternoon show at Eddie's (doors open at noon) featuring this long-standing  Irish and American roots music band.

Mac Sabbath (Vinyl)

Mac Sabbath is a parody heavy-metal tribute band from Los Angeles. The self-appointed founders of "Drive Thru Metal", the band is primarily a parody of English heavy metal group Black Sabbath, utilizing lyricism and imagery centered on fast food and performing dressed like Juggalo clowns. Remember Macaulay Culkin and The Pizza Underground?  It's basically the same thing, but just not as good.

Hammerhead Fest - Day Two (Star Community Bar)

Second of the two-day festival featuring Ramming Speed (VA), Sadistic Ritual, Dusty Booze and the Baby Haters, Death of Kings, Invasion, and Old Thrones (featuring members of The Vaginas and Ron Mexico).

Jerome Newton and the Band Who Fell to Earth, Lingua Franca, Musée du Coeur (Red Light Cafe)
A celebration of David Bowie's life and legacy,

Derailed, Stephen Dennis (Early Show at Atlanta Room a Smith's Olde Bar) 
Country rock.

Highbeams, Third Sound, Tarnation (Late Show at Atlanta Room at Smith's Olde Bar)
Folk and alternative rock

David T. & Friends (Early Show at Music Room at Smith's Olde Bar) 
Soul, rhythm & blues and rock.

Votive, Righteous Love, Revel In Romance (Late Show at Music Room at Smith's Olde Bar) 
Pop and rock

The Imposeurs (Steve's Live Music)
REM tribute band

SUNDAY, MARCH 13

★Hinds, Goodbye Honolulu (Mammal Gallery)

Hinds are a four-piece garage pop band based in Madrid, Spain. Hinds have been compared to bands such as Velvet Underground and The Pastels, contemporary garage rock, and 1960s groups with a poppier sound, although they have mentioned Black Lips, Ty Segall, The Parrots, The Strokes, The Vaccines, and Mac DeMarco as their main influences.  their debut album, Leave Me Alone, has been called an appealing batch of garage rock pop sing-a-longs. Opener Goodbye Honolulu are a garage rock band from Toronto.

★Nap Eyes, Cian Nugent (The Earl)

Nova Scotia’s Nap Eyes debut LP, Whine of the Mystic, is a small-batch brew of crooked, literate guitar pop refracted through the gray Halifax rain. Recorded live to tape with no overdubs, it’s equal parts shambling and sophisticated, with one eye on the dirt and one trained on the starry firmament, inhabiting a skewed world where odes to NASA and the Earth’s magnetic field coexist easily with songs about insomnia and drinking too much. Cian Nugent is a guitar player and composer from Dublin, Ireland who combines personal passions, such as suburban/coastal blues, traditional musics, late 1960s & '70s singer-songwriters, jazz ambitions, 20th century composition and the Takoma school into a deeply personal style. His music boasts an orchestrated and fully instrumented sound that is playful and eerie at the same time.  

DMA's, Blank Range, Spines (Aisle 5)
Sydney, Australia-based indie trio DMA's have a sound that throws back to early-'90s Brit-pop bands, with particular likenesses to Oasis, Primal Scream, and Happy Mondays.  Nashville's Blank Range play a “magical combination of dissonant, Pavement-esque and pavement-ready garage rock & roll" (Rolling Stone).  Atlanta post-punk noise-rock band Spines opens.

Conan, Serial Hawk, Order of the Owl (The Drunken Unicorn)

An evening of doom metal with an international cast of bands.  UK's Conan call their music "caveman battle doom" and Seattle's Serial Hawk play loud, sludgy doom.  Openers Order Of The Owl are Atlanta purveyors of doom, stoner doom, metal, sludge, rock, and dark rock; they headlined 529 back on February 2.

Wildhoney, Expert Alterations, Femignome (Purgatory at The Masquerade)
Baltimore-based indie quintet Wildhoney play a mix of textured shoegaze and noise pop with influences ranging from '60s girl groups to '80s post-punk.  Their debut LP, Sleep Through It, was produced by Chris Freeland (Wye Oak, Lower Dens). Baltimore indie-pop trio Expert Alterations and Atlanta lo-fi, bedroom-pop female duo Femignome open.

Atreyu, From Ashes To New, Cane Hill (Heaven at The Masquerade)
Rap/alternative metal.

I The Breather, Forevermore, My Enemies & I (Hell at The Masquerade)

Another Christian metalcore band in Hell (see Thursday night).

Altan (Eddie's Attic)
Traditional Irish music.

Rad-Isaurus Rex, J & The 9's, Madre Padre, Leotards (Atlanta Room at Smith's Olde Bar)
Garage/punk

Joe Robinson, Liz Brasher (Music Room at Smith's Olde Bar)
Instrumental rock (Robinson) and singer-songwriter (Brasher)

The Waymores, The Vaudevillains, Ellis Dyson & The Shambles (Red Light Cafe)
Americana

Album Review: Quilt - "Plaza"

Boston psych-folks Quilt will release their third full-length album, Plaza, the follow up to Held In Splendor, on February 26.  The new album has been reported to be a culmination of thoughts and ideas from the band’s time spent on the road in 2014, which all came together for them during a few weeks they spent in Georgia. While they were touring North America, the band captured fragments of songs on voice memos and reel-to-reel tapes along the way. In Oregon, Quilt crossed paths with Matt Arnett, the man behind the “Quilts Of Gee’s Bend” traveling exhibit of quilts created by a group of women and their ancestors who live or have lived in the isolated African-American hamlet of Gee's Bend along the Alabama River.  It's natural that a band named "Quilt" would want to see an exhibit of quilts when given the chance. 

What's surprising is that Arnett is also an indie music enthusiast and that he invited the band to Grant Park to record at his Grocery On Home, a tiny, nontraditional music venue that I for one had never heard of before but is apparently located in a former grocery store and that curates and hosts intimate performances of independent singer-songwriters.  Attendance is limited and most events are posted on Facebook; RSVPs are required.  Anyway, it was there that Quilt reworked those voice memos and traveling songs into the new album, Plaza. 

Plaza opens with Eastern-sounding lines from a sitar or a highly treated guitar to introduce the first song Passerby. The psychedelic flourish evokes the 60s pop of George Harrison Beatles' songs and the psych-folk of The Incredible String Band, and is a fitting intro for the mood and ambience of the rest of the LP.  The sound of this record would not have been out of place drifting out from the bay windows of a Haight-Ashbury Victorian during the Summer of Love, and one can hear traces of early Byrds and Surrealistic Pillow-era Jefferson Airplane.  The mood is maintained in Passerby by singer Anna Fox Rochinski's breathy vocals over unobtrusive, subtle flute lines before the song seemingly dissolves into a lovely guitar/sitar jam and then brings us back to Earth again with Rochinski's closing vocals.   

The second song, Roller, features a discordant but pleasant backdrop for Rochinski’s venting of frustrations about trying to maintain a relationship even while being a wanderer by nature. "I wrote it at my cottage in upstate NY, where I live alone," Rochinski told The Fader. "During the winter of 2015, which was long and snowy and often fell below zero degrees. Feeling stuck, frustrated with a partner or any kind of relationship, or just other people in general. Being a 'roller' to me is a sensation that lies somewhere between claiming strength for yourself and hiding to protect yourself from the human bullshit of the world. Ultimately, it's a rumination on seeking peace through isolation." You can feel her slip away as she sings, “Honey, I’m a roller underneath the coals that hide me when it’s raining/ How can you believe that everyone you meet is just here to entertain you?” The slightly surreal video for the song is full of bizarre imagery and includes choreographed dancing and a big bowl of Jell-O that hits the floor in slow-motion, and everybody in the band looks pleasantly buzzed.

The delicately arranged Eliot St. is the first single from Plaza.  Guitarist Shane Butler handles the vocals for this one, and the strum of Quilt's guitars and flowing strings romanticize his rueful lyrics about how we elude commitment so easily as the song meanders along at its own pleasingly languid pace.  Butler told NPR that the song is about his memories walking that Jamaica Plain street and calling his mother "to confess my troubles, triumphs and questions in life." 

"The first part of the song was written over a period of time in which I found myself isolated from the city I had lived in for years, entered an emotionally rocky relationship which slowly disintegrated, and experienced my mother's death. The choruses hover around the pain felt in moments of unknowing, feeling adrift and always 'one-step-away-from' the person or thing we wish to be close to. The bridge of the song serves as a devil's advocate of sorts; a wake-up call in the midst of despair. And the song's coda takes strength from the intention of the bridge to suggest a renewal, a 'second-wind', for a love once-lost."

Hissing My Plea features a funky groove and start-and-stop rhythm that reminds the listener that Plaza isn't a 60s nostalgia album but a modern work of art by modern artists.   Those voice-memo song fragments must have been documenting the entire 50-year history of psychedelic folk-rock from the harmonies of Gram Parsons and of David Crosby up to the freak-folk of early Animal Collective.

Album closer Own Ways may be one of the most fun songs on the album and one I'm really anticipating hearing performed live. Shane Butler's vocals ride over reverb-heavy guitar lines sounding more like Velvet Underground than the West Coast/Laurel Canyon touchstones throughout much of the LP.  The guitars are more aggressively electric than before and the song adds layer on layer as it builds to a loud and satisfyingly hard-rocking climax, a near-perfect ending to a fine album.  It would make a great way to end a set.

Quilt will be performing with Sweden's Dungen at The Earl on March 8.