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@ Mikey's GyrosStereopathic on Hypem
Mar
14
Bridge Carols
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This album is rough around the edges, rusty and unkempt like an old glass greenhouse. Glass green bottles ring and bizarre pipes interrupt while Miss Gibson whispers in like a starlet in an evening gown exploring a memory in an old Hollywood suspense sequence. Her hair is a little wind-blown, perhaps, but her pearls are intact and her fingernails are immaculate red. She sweeps through the old halls, caressing the days of yore and wondering where to go now that they are over. And that is how you must hear the association of the voice of Laura Gibson and the music of Ethan Rose in their recent collaboration Bridge Carols.
Rose’s instrumentation doesn’t own the beat; Miss Gibson’s voice chimes in around the edges like she is on tip-toe. That is not a draw-back: it is a choice seeping with sublety. These songs are not commanding because they are residual. Gibson’s and Rose’s extraordinary collaboration is an exploration of mystery – and, down, deep deep down, an exploration of belief. It is an exploration of discovery that challenges your conceptions of music and listening. The music is resonant, and the nuance causes Bridge Carols to emanate come-hither like Lauren Bacall.
Take, for example, “Knife,” my favorite song on the album. The song is about cutting a shadow with a very sharp blade so that you can hold it, save it, dress yourself in it – and, perhaps, not hear its reflection echoing in your mind. “Knife” evokes the memory that defines a life – explores the options of out-growing it, leaving it behind, or learning how to embrace it as a piece of your own self-heritage. This theme of self sine qua non reverberates throughout the album, and makes it a volume of required listening for the inquiring listener.
Apr
2
Voodoo – The Musee Mecanique
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Like every other person in the audience at Laura Gibson’s show last week, I was enraptured by her stunning performance. This is art, this is magic, I knew. Laura herself is a work of art, but, the rest of the band (drummer Micah Rabwin and electric organist Sean Ogilvie) were equally – uniquely – mesmerizing. Rabwin and Ogilvie share their own band, Musee Mecanique, pictured left. Musee is a collective dedicated to producing pure voodoo. Prepare to fall under their spell.
Sean Ogilvie’s voice is as soft and sleepy as Read more
Mar
24
Poster by David Dalbey.
Mar
23
Laura Gibson very kindly risked carsickness and the bleary-eyed, sleepless rigors of living in a tour vehicle while en route to a several-show stint at SXSW to answer some questions we posed to her in anticipation of her upcoming show here this Friday. Laura, touring in support of her much-beloved by Stereopathic record, Beasts of Seasons, alights upon Moscow alongside Seattle’s Pablo Trucker and Troubletown (also known as Jenna Conrad). An elegant and deliberate record, Beasts of Seasons piqued our curiosity not just about Laura’s songwriting and recording processes, but also about the Read more
Mar
19
NPR’s All Songs Considered loves Laura Gibson (as do we). They’ve done one of their Tiny Desk Concerts with her, they chose a collaboration she did with The Portland Cello Project as Song of the Day back in January, she’s been featured on the podcast, and now they’ve selected the first track off of Beasts of Seasons as Song of the Day today. “Shadows on Parade” hints at noise and dissonance, but nothing overwhelms the deftness of the song. Listen there or here, after the jump. Read more
Mar
17
Laura Gibson's Beasts of Seasons reviewed on Pitchfork.com.
First, check out the Pitchfork review of Laura Gibson’s Beasts of Seasons. In light of yesterday’s post, it’s actually a pretty good review. But I’m still completely stuck on the 7.2. On the 1-10 scale that makes it sound not good, but the review shows almost no negativity, engages the music and the words credibly, and generally sounds like it was written by a human. Anyway, who wants Read more
Feb
21
Concerning Beasts of Seasons
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As was mentioned here a few days ago, NPR’s First Listen is streaming Laura Gibson‘s forthcoming (as of Tuesday, February 24th) and staggeringly beautiful record, Beasts of Seasons. Framed around Gibson’s acoustic guitar and her voice — a strange chimeric instrument, at once childlike and also serene and wise beyond its years — each of the nine songs carries what would otherwise be ordinary folksinger fare in surprising and complicated directions. An orchestra’s worth of instruments — banjo, horns, cello, musical saw, vibraphone, found sounds, piano, snatches of other voices — expands on her basic melodies and structures, articulating them into a powerful and evocative suite of songs that, like (I would submit) all great art must do, point away from themselves. Thematically framed around “Communion Songs” and “Funeral Songs”, her lyrics focus on, as she puts it in one place “[f]irst, reaching towards something outside of ourselves, be it a lover or God or family (Communion Songs) and second, grappling with the idea of ultimate aloneness and acceptance (Funeral Songs).” The final song, “Glory,” perhaps sums this up, an amazed and grateful recounting of her past, her childhood — things like her “father’s voice/dressed in anger/swollen with grace/my surrender/his forgiveness,” or her “sister’s belly/red and swollen/carefully swaying/carrying such grace” — and then, with her voice rising alongside a small, quiet choir, she tells us, singing, “I have never seen such glory since.” Beasts of Seasons gives us a gracious portrait of an artist who looks inward and finds other people, who looks outward and finds herself, who is astonished at the sorrow and beauty and transcendence to be found when someone plunges themselves into the fact that it is not good that anyone should be alone.
Pre-order (or, after 2/24, just plain old buy) Beasts of Seasons direct from Hush Records, most likely the best way to get a little of your record-buying budget into her pocket; also keep FRIDAY, MAR 27 @ 9:30PM open, because Miss Gibson is coming to Moscow, playing at Mikey’s with Pablo Trucker.
Brendan occasionally guests on Stereopathic Sessions with Larson and Josh, and is staggered at how inarticulate his words are about the things he loves the most. He doesn’t blog, and doesn’t want to.
Feb
16
Be sure to catch this while it’s available! You can stream Laura Gibson’s entire new album a week before it is released.
Laura Gibson will be playing at Mikey’s Gyros on Friday, March 27th with Seattle’s Pablo Trucker.
