Bombay Bicycle Club
Bombay Bicycle Club
Event on 2012-02-17 21:00:00
Supporting Acts: The Darcys, Lucy Rose
Bombay Bicycle Club
There are few things in music more exhilarating than the sound of a young band in a hurry. Velocity, hunger, surprise: these are the qualities that keep a band interesting. Bombay Bicycle Club's third album in as many years reminds you there was a time when new bands put out a record every year or so, each one expanding their territory and making listeners reassess their assumptions. As its title promises, A Different Kind of Fix is not at all what you'd expect. It is the sound of a band throwing the doors wide open and confounding all preconceptions. The band members have never wasted much time. Frontman Jack Steadman, guitarist Jamie MacColl (grandson of folk legend Ewan, nephew of the late Kirsty), bassist Ed Nash and drummer Suren de Saram formed the band at school in north London in 2006. They won a competition to play at that year's V festival, released two EPs the next year and wrote their debut album, I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose, while still at school. It came out in 2009 and went gold. This is where most new bands would take a year or so to regroup and plot their next move. Instead, Bombay Bicycle Club took a left-turn with 2010's folk-influenced Flaws, which included covers of Joanna Newsom and John Martyn. Their label was initially reluctant to release a second album so soon, and an acoustic one at that, but Flaws grazed the top 10 and was nominated for an Ivor Novello award. "I think that's what bands should do," says Jack, now 21. "I don't know how bands can make the same album over and over again. After Flaws it's all out in the open. We can do whatever we want." Signposts to their third record emerged last year in the form of Jack's low- key solo tracks on Soundcloud and MySpace, bearing the influence of J Dilla's instrumental hip hop and Flying Lotus's fidgety electronica. It was a dramatic departure from the stripped-down, organic sound of Flaws but it hadn't come out of nowhere. Jack has been making electronic music in private since he was 14, when he first discovered Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada. "With that type of music, until you become comfortable with producing it, it sounds like a 10-year-old's made it," he explains. "You can be bad at playing guitar and a song can still sound great but with electronic music you need to be a bit of a nerd. I've been trying for a long time." The band reconnected with long-time producer Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian) in London last autumn and again in Hamburg in February. They also traveled to Atlanta in April to record Shuffle, Your Eyes and Favourite Day with Ben H. Allen (Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley, M.I.A.). Tinie Tempah was in the studio next door. "He came in," says Jack. "'Oh I'm a huge fan, when are we going to collaborate?' He was charming everyone." Finally, it was mixed by Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Portishead, the Horrors). "We'd always talked about making an album in one place with one producer and we ended up with the complete opposite," says Jamie. Throughout the album, the production is intrinsic to the songwriting process rather than a final polish. Many songs started out as laptop loops or rearranged samples before blossoming into full-band pop songs. How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep, which appeared in demo form on the soundtrack to Twilight: Eclipse, opens the album with eye-widening mantric dream-pop. The first single Shuffle compresses hip hop breakbeats, highlife guitars, chopped-up piano samples and the campfire psychedelia of Animal Collective into one of the most irresistible pop songs of the summer. Lights Out, Words Gone makes common cause with chillwave via looped vocal harmonies and dewy-fresh Balearic guitar. Take the Right One's scintillating, multi-layered sound came about when Abbiss suggested recording four different versions, each one more effects-heavy than the last, and then playing them back all at once. Leave It even lifts its opening motif from a Puccini opera, recasting it as stirring guitar-pop with backing vocals from singer-songwriter Lucy Rose (who also appears on Lights Out, Words Gone). Other songs had a more traditional evolution. The legacy of Flaws is felt in Beggars, which moves from spartan folk into thrumming rock and celestial sighs, and the sonorous Fracture, a song from the Flaws tour that was filled out, recorded in a church and produced by the whole band. What You Want ("about being a pushover in relationships") builds a bridge back to the debut and, further still, to the resonant, raincoated indie-rock of the Chameleons and Kitchens of Distinction. The final, self-produced song, Still, is a falsetto piano ballad with hints of Thom Yorke, a gentle touchdown after 50 minutes of sonic adventure. Pressed about what these songs are about, Jack becomes elusive. The lyrics this time are clues and fragments rather than stories, and he feels more comfortable that way. "We were so young when we started, we weren't self-conscious at all. We didn't think anyone would listen to the songs. The reason I started making music was because I couldn't express with words what I wanted to say." Bombay Bicycle Club have always had youth on their side. Through touring and social media, they have built a fiercely loyal, tattooing-lyrics- on-their-arm kind of fanbase. "I've always thought it was because of having fans who were the same age as us who could come to talk to us after a gig and relate to us," says Jack. But A Different Kind of Fix is a giant step into adulthood: an intoxicating, enveloping record, which anchors its diverse inspirations in the warmth and dynamism of Jack's songwriting. It draws the strands of I Had the Blues, Flaws and Jack's solo instrumentals into a panoramic picture of what this band is capable of. It is a watershed for the band: not just their best record yet, but a promise of still better to come. "Bands these days get so pigeonholed by their first album, which 40 years ago was not the case, but we're constantly trying to find the kind of music we want to make," says Jamie. "And I'm not sure we've discovered that yet." Long may they continue searching.
at Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside Street
Portland, United States
Passion Pit – DJ SET
Event on 2012-02-24 21:00:00
Supporting Acts: DUKTAP
Passion Pit – DJ SET
Passion Pit is an American electronic band from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Formed in 2007, the group consists of Michael Angelakos (lead vocals/keyboards), Ian Hultquist (keyboards/guitar), Ayad Al Adhamy (synth/samples), Jeff Apruzzese (bass) and Nate Donmoyer (drums). Passion Pit formed in late 2007. Originally, Michael Angelakos had started "Passion Pit" as a project in order to write a few songs for his girlfriend as a Valentine's Day present. Angelakos lived in Buffalo, NY, where his music was first heard. The group is widely followed throughout the city, with their music appearing in local eateries, such as Elmwood Taco & Subs, in addition to the actual band's home city of Boston. In 2008, after playing only a handful of shows, they were voted Best New Act in the ''The Boston Phoenix'''s Best Music Poll. Michael Angelakos hears music in his head and knows exactly how he wants it to sound. The young composer/performer has already created two studio masterpieces — Manners and Chunk of Change — and — with his fellow musicians in Passion Pit — is taking his perfectionist pop vision to a whole new level in concert. Soulful, memorable, danceable, earnest and unabashedly pop, the music Michael Angelakos delivers on Passion Pit's debut album, Manners, reveals a complex and challenging 21st century sound and sensibility, baroque and intricate in its construction with exquisitely soaring hooks and melodies coupled with enigmatic lyrics flowing straight from the id. Launched a mere three years ago as a humble one man multi-track laptop project in Angelakos' college dorm room, Passion Pit has rapidly evolved under fire into an in-demand concert attraction, with sold out tours and a growing international reputation based on the power and immediacy of the music. Passion Pit is a two-fold entity sharing a single essence: there's in-the-studio Passion Pit, essentially comprised of Michael writing, designing, and constructing intricate cathedrals of sound, and Nathan Donmoyer handling live percussion and programming. Ian Hultquist is also featured on Manners performing guitar on songs such as "Make Light" and "Moth's Wings." And then there is the in-concert Passion Pit, a loose yet tightly calibrated ensemble who turn Angelakos' musical studio blueprints into a cathartic live experience. Angelakos was 20 years old when Passion Pit took its first hold on his psyche in the form of a multi-song "Valentine" to his then-girlfriend, recorded in his bedroom on readily available ad hoc technology including the built-in microphone on his laptop. After signing with indie label Frenchkiss, he opted to add more recordings that had been made shortly after the he self-released the collection of songs — including the signature track "Sleepyhead" — to his dorm room set, releasing it officially as the lo-fi EP Chunk of Change. Shortly thereafter, Angelakos gave the first Passion Pit performance, which consisted of himself and a laptop singing the EP's songs in front of some rear-screen projections in the basement of his school to approximately 15 of his friends. The "half-show/half-installation" caught the attention of Angelakos' friend and musical acquaintance Ian Hultquist, who approached Michael about the possibility of starting a band to play the music live. A few months later, with the help of Hultquist, Angelakos was building a full ensemble capable of realizing and producing the sounds in his head and taking them to the stage. Within mere months of forming, Passion Pit — voted the Best New Local Act of 2008 in the WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll — was opening for high profile bands like Death Cab For Cutie, Girl Talk, and Yelle, while mostly headlining their own sold-out shows. The learning curve for Passion Pit was short and steep. The pressure was unquestionably intense, especially for all shows leading up to — and even a few months of those after — the release of Manners (which often stood-in for the luxury of a proper rehearsal time). Those months of touring showcased Michael and company evolving from aesthetic chrysalis to full-fledged band, a leap that has impressed both early skeptics and die-hard fans alike. One of Angelakos' compositions/recordings that began resonating immediately with music fans is his whirling surrealistic pop paean to sophisticated dreamland, "Sleepyhead," with its other-dimensional choral hook sculpted from a mutated and cut-up sample of Celtic artist Mary O'Hara. Michael, who counts 70s folk among his many obsessions, is extremely hesitant to sample any music at all, preferring to use songs and sounds as cryptic reference points and textures rather than literal references. When he listened to Mary O'Hara's take on the classic folk tune, he immediately heard a whole new song, finding in the Gaelic phrase for 'Oh, My Little Boat,' the perfect sonic flourish for "Sleepyhead." The track began attracting attention shortly after he posted it online. Angelakos is continually writing according to his own technique. According to Michael, "Sleepyhead" just appeared in his head and was completed in less than two hours on his computer. Knowing exactly how to perform it vocally, he ran over to Hulquist's apartment for the purposes of singing the song into a better microphone, and wrote the lyrics on the spot as he recorded them. By 2009, "Sleepyhead" had reached #9 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and inspired its own core of YouTube devotees interpreting the song. Michael likes the clips with acoustic guitars, finding it intriguing how fans can take such a divisive and almost-karaoke proof vocal sound and sing along to it with such enthusiasm. To date, the official "Sleepyhead" video has accrued more than 3 million views on YouTube with many of the fan tributes accumulating hundreds of thousands of views. When it came time to record an official debut album, Angelakos went to work with producer Chris Zane for Manners, the first full-length Passion Pit collection, essentially writing and playing all music on the album with the exception of programming and drumming by Nathan Donmoyer and Ian Hultquist's guitar work on select tracks. Zane played a vital role in helping Michael realize the Passion Pit sound in the studio, eventually even developing the role of "older brother" to both Angelakos and Donmoyer during the painstaking recording process. On Manners, you can hear what someone like Angelakos does in a proper studio where he can get virtually any sound he wants. He approached the project with the intent to make an album that was "one very particular and extremely lucid snapshot of how I was feeling and existing at a particular moment." As for the lyrical material, Angelakos purposefully matched the music with oblique, impressionistic, densely layered, abstract lyrics that utilize both phrasing and performances that, according to Michael, "were not meant in any way to match the musical content or even style of music." It was Angelakos' mission to mask this emotional complexity with the immediacy and irresistible nature of plain and simple pop music. Angelakos has always carried his pop vision in his head and, now that's it's 2010, Passion Pit is bringing that vision to the world. Stepping out from behind his keyboards to become a front-man, Angelakos is more than ably supported by Ian Hultquist and Ayad Al Adhamy on keyboards/synthesizers and a pulsing throbbing dance-heavy rhythm section consisting of Jeff Apruzzese on bass/synthesizer and studio collaborator Nate Donmoyer on drums and programming. In a little more than a year, Passion Pit has evolved from a one-man dorm room project into a burgeoning band that has surged above the buzz, capable of selling out three nights at New York's Terminal 5 (January 2010) and a night at Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Passion Pit has even landed high-profile slots on a series of international festivals including Australia's Big Day Out and the UK's Glastonbury Festival as well as North American festivals including Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Coachella.
at The Crofoot
1 South Saginaw
Pontiac, United States
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Bombay Bicycle Club
Bombay Bicycle Club
Event on 2012-02-17 21:00:00
Supporting Acts: The Darcys, Lucy Rose
Bombay Bicycle Club
There are few things in music more exhilarating than the sound of a young band in a hurry. Velocity, hunger, surprise: these are the qualities that keep a band interesting. Bombay Bicycle Club's third album in as many years reminds you there was a time when new bands put out a record every year or so, each one expanding their territory and making listeners reassess their assumptions. As its title promises, A Different Kind of Fix is not at all what you'd expect. It is the sound of a band throwing the doors wide open and confounding all preconceptions. The band members have never wasted much time. Frontman Jack Steadman, guitarist Jamie MacColl (grandson of folk legend Ewan, nephew of the late Kirsty), bassist Ed Nash and drummer Suren de Saram formed the band at school in north London in 2006. They won a competition to play at that year's V festival, released two EPs the next year and wrote their debut album, I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose, while still at school. It came out in 2009 and went gold. This is where most new bands would take a year or so to regroup and plot their next move. Instead, Bombay Bicycle Club took a left-turn with 2010's folk-influenced Flaws, which included covers of Joanna Newsom and John Martyn. Their label was initially reluctant to release a second album so soon, and an acoustic one at that, but Flaws grazed the top 10 and was nominated for an Ivor Novello award. "I think that's what bands should do," says Jack, now 21. "I don't know how bands can make the same album over and over again. After Flaws it's all out in the open. We can do whatever we want." Signposts to their third record emerged last year in the form of Jack's low- key solo tracks on Soundcloud and MySpace, bearing the influence of J Dilla's instrumental hip hop and Flying Lotus's fidgety electronica. It was a dramatic departure from the stripped-down, organic sound of Flaws but it hadn't come out of nowhere. Jack has been making electronic music in private since he was 14, when he first discovered Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada. "With that type of music, until you become comfortable with producing it, it sounds like a 10-year-old's made it," he explains. "You can be bad at playing guitar and a song can still sound great but with electronic music you need to be a bit of a nerd. I've been trying for a long time." The band reconnected with long-time producer Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian) in London last autumn and again in Hamburg in February. They also traveled to Atlanta in April to record Shuffle, Your Eyes and Favourite Day with Ben H. Allen (Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley, M.I.A.). Tinie Tempah was in the studio next door. "He came in," says Jack. "'Oh I'm a huge fan, when are we going to collaborate?' He was charming everyone." Finally, it was mixed by Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Portishead, the Horrors). "We'd always talked about making an album in one place with one producer and we ended up with the complete opposite," says Jamie. Throughout the album, the production is intrinsic to the songwriting process rather than a final polish. Many songs started out as laptop loops or rearranged samples before blossoming into full-band pop songs. How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep, which appeared in demo form on the soundtrack to Twilight: Eclipse, opens the album with eye-widening mantric dream-pop. The first single Shuffle compresses hip hop breakbeats, highlife guitars, chopped-up piano samples and the campfire psychedelia of Animal Collective into one of the most irresistible pop songs of the summer. Lights Out, Words Gone makes common cause with chillwave via looped vocal harmonies and dewy-fresh Balearic guitar. Take the Right One's scintillating, multi-layered sound came about when Abbiss suggested recording four different versions, each one more effects-heavy than the last, and then playing them back all at once. Leave It even lifts its opening motif from a Puccini opera, recasting it as stirring guitar-pop with backing vocals from singer-songwriter Lucy Rose (who also appears on Lights Out, Words Gone). Other songs had a more traditional evolution. The legacy of Flaws is felt in Beggars, which moves from spartan folk into thrumming rock and celestial sighs, and the sonorous Fracture, a song from the Flaws tour that was filled out, recorded in a church and produced by the whole band. What You Want ("about being a pushover in relationships") builds a bridge back to the debut and, further still, to the resonant, raincoated indie-rock of the Chameleons and Kitchens of Distinction. The final, self-produced song, Still, is a falsetto piano ballad with hints of Thom Yorke, a gentle touchdown after 50 minutes of sonic adventure. Pressed about what these songs are about, Jack becomes elusive. The lyrics this time are clues and fragments rather than stories, and he feels more comfortable that way. "We were so young when we started, we weren't self-conscious at all. We didn't think anyone would listen to the songs. The reason I started making music was because I couldn't express with words what I wanted to say." Bombay Bicycle Club have always had youth on their side. Through touring and social media, they have built a fiercely loyal, tattooing-lyrics- on-their-arm kind of fanbase. "I've always thought it was because of having fans who were the same age as us who could come to talk to us after a gig and relate to us," says Jack. But A Different Kind of Fix is a giant step into adulthood: an intoxicating, enveloping record, which anchors its diverse inspirations in the warmth and dynamism of Jack's songwriting. It draws the strands of I Had the Blues, Flaws and Jack's solo instrumentals into a panoramic picture of what this band is capable of. It is a watershed for the band: not just their best record yet, but a promise of still better to come. "Bands these days get so pigeonholed by their first album, which 40 years ago was not the case, but we're constantly trying to find the kind of music we want to make," says Jamie. "And I'm not sure we've discovered that yet." Long may they continue searching.
at Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside Street
Portland, United States
Big Gigantic
Event on 2012-03-04 21:00:00
Advance/ Day of show – Tickets available 12/10
Facebook RSVP | Music | 1% Productions Big Gigantic, whose blend of mind-bending beats, thunderous bass, and frenetic melodies has developed a rabid following since forming in 2008, will take their sound to yet another dimension this January when they release ‘Nocturnal.’ The album, by Boulder, CO-based saxophonist/producer Dominic Lalli and drummer Jeremy Salken, solidifies Big Gigantic as a key player in the worlds of electronic, dance, and hip-hop.
With a provocative sound that’s as thoughtful as it is danceable, Big Gigantic’s new songs like “Nocturnal” and “Hopscotch” weave whirling melodies into addictive beats and samples that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Kanye West or LCD Soundsystem single. No genre is off-limits for Big Gigantic, whose breakthrough sound channels everything from funk and dub-step to house and hip-hop.
After graduating with a master’s degree in jazz at the Manhattan School of Music, Lalli relocated to Boulder and began performing with Salken, experimenting with the idea of interpreting traditional DJ-based music with live instruments. The duo built up early hype in 2008 with local shows and one-offs around the country before releasing their debut album ‘Fire It Up’ in 2009 and embarking on a full US tour.
Already a smash on the festival circuit, Big Gigantic’s transcendent live shows are a showcase of brilliant improvisation and a tightly-knit bond between Salken and Lalli, who breathlessly alternates between keys, sax and laptop, building a futuristic wall of sound that keeps the crowd on its feet. The marathon shows feature a variety of songs new, old and unreleased, as well as outside-of-the-box remixes including Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow,” Aloe Blacc’s ‘I need a Dollar,’ and Notorious B.I.G.’s “Notorious Thugs.”
Big Gigantic – Website | Myspace | Facebook | Twitter
at The Slowdown
729 North Fourteenth Street
Omaha, United States
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