Carlos Giffoni Plays Water Street Lounge on August 1st

Carlos Giffoni is probably best known as the curator/ promoter of the annual festival No Fun but he also makes music in his "spare time". Norwegian electronics and noise pioneer Lasse Marhaug describes Giffoni as "the Jimi Hendrix of Noise". According to the bio posted on Giffoni's website, his sound "can be described as psychedelic electronics for the new era of death and destruction hope music."

It looks like a fun show and, if you have any doubt, check out these mp3s:
*No More Air
*Bellua Resurrectio

Carlos Giffoni is playing with The Cathode Terror Secretion, Halflings, Ahlzagailzehguh, and Diaphram. Tickets are only $7.00 and doors @ 8PM.

Water Street Lounge is located at 66 Water Street, DUMBO Brooklyn, NY 11201. F to York st. A or C to High St.
www.myspace.com/thtfl for details.

Jarboe @ Water Street Lounge, Brooklyn May 26, 2007

Jarboe always gives a stunning performance and Saturday night's show at Water Street Lounge was no exception. She played about a 45 minute set to a full club and left many audience members hoping for more. There weren't too many people watching the first two band's sets but the club filled up quickly right before Jarboe took the stage. This wasn't surprising as this was Jarboe's only area show and the show was listed as a Time Out New York pick of the week.



A lot of reviewers compare Jarboe to Diamanda Galas. While I would agree with this comparison based on past performances, I would think that a better reference point for Jarboe's performance on Saturday would be Patti Smith. To put some context around this picture, Jarboe is on her knees having just recited the Hail Mary.


Jarboe's latest releases are a very limited set of three EPs (Magick for Mischiefs, Magick for Prudence, and Magick for Cherishings) which are available through her website The Living Jarboe.

Yellow Tears @ Water Street Lounge, Brooklyn May 26, 2007

Yellow Tears opened up the show last night night at Water Street Lounge. For anyone who hasn't seen them before, make sure to wear earplugs. Yellow Tears sounds like a sonic explosion and mines a genre similar to Wolf Eyes and John Wiese. Yellow Tears' MySpace page describes the band's sound as "violent, overtly-abrasive guitar/elektroniks based harsh noise."



The band's next show is at the Rockstar Bar in Brooklyn on June 29th.

Links:
Yellow Tears' MySpace Page (link)

Jarboe (x-Swans) Plays Water Street Lounge, Brooklyn on May 26th

Water Street Lougne is an intimate space so it should be the perfect setting for a show by Jarboe. (The gig poster is pretty cool too).

WHO: The Living Jarboe, The Angelic Process, Black Mayonnaise, Yellow Tears

WHERE: Underwater Lounge at Water Street Restaurant, 66 Water St., DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY

WHEN: Saturday, May 26, 2007. Doors at 8:00 pm.

ADMISSION: $15

CONTACT: Water Street Restaurant & Lounge, 66 Water Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201-1048
Phone: (718) 625-9352 • Fax: (718) 625-9350 • info@waterstreetrestaurant.com

The Underwater Lounge and THTFL are proud to present The Living Jarboe on Saturday, May 26, 2007, with guests The Angelic Process, Black Mayonnaise, and Yellow Tears.

Jarboe’s name is the stuff of legend, after years with the seminal experimental noise/post-punk band Swans. Picking up where Swans left off, Jarboe channels experiences ranging from her early exposure to snake-handling revivals in the Mississippi delta, to parents who were in the FBI, to participation in a lounge act, experimental performance in gallery & live radio settings, and her 14-year collaboration in worldwide concerts to assert a new presence – at times ethereal, knowing, seductive, and vitriolic. She explores identities as she explores voices, ranging from schoolgirl to seductress to demon.

“Jarboe's aesthetic runs the gamut from rural blues to extreme experimental metal; think Diamanda Galas with less shrieking, more seething. The former member of Swans and World of Skin's recent album The Conduit features haunting art songs written around texts by poet Joshua Fraser, as well as members of her online fan community. A chilling, mesmerizing performer – albeit one to avoid in dark alleys...save the mental ones she maps out in her songs.” — The Stranger, Seattle, WA

“Her vocal shifts almost effortlessly from sinister whisper to telephonic spoken word and an almost Gothic Country croon." — Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, (UK)

Jarboe’s musical explorations have led to select comparisons to other female musicians with regard for their success in penetrating the otherwise male-dominated “rock” subculture. Featured prominently in Andrea Juno’s Angry Women In Rock, and Adele Olivia Gladwell’s women’s studies/cultural theory work Catamania, Jarboe is also a recipient of the corporate sponsored “Work In Progress” arts program that has resulted in the rock theatre The Living Jarboe being performed in New York, Chicago, and Atlanta.

“My friends Diamanda Galas and Lydia Lunch have these images of being really powerful and strong, and we were sitting around, laughing about how we're consistently told how strong we are – but to me, vulnerability is strength. I try to bring back the vulnerability where I try to break down the barrier between the performer and the audience. I think of myself as a communicator, who's trying to translate something real.” — Jarboe, as quoted in The Portland [OR] Mercury

She has performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto as a guest of the Serralves Foundation in Europe. Other performances have included PS122 in NYC, tours with the Italian avant-garde group, Larsen and the American rock group, Neurosis as well as The Living Jarboe performances in the Baltic region, which included cathedrals as venues. A 2005 East Coast tour of intense pieces involved renowned San Francisco band Amber Asylum. Jarboe’s list of collaborators includes Michael Gira, Bill Laswell, Jim Thirlwell, Lustmord, PanSonic, Mark Spybey, Steven Severin, James Izzo, Chris Connelly, Alan Sparhawk, Neurosis, Edward KaSpel, William Faith, David J, David Torn, Paz Lenchantin, Bill Rieflin, Iva Davies, Blixa Bargeld, Kris Force, Nic Le Ban, Julia Kent, Brian Castillo, Renee Nelson, and Lary Seven. She has worked with visual artists in design / film / photography including: Richard Kern, Beth B, Laura Levine, Wim Van De Hulst, Cedric Victor-DeSouza, and music video director Chad Rullman.

* * *
Black Mayonnaise is the one-man bedroom doom project of Akron, Ohio's Mike Duncan, whose extremely disturbing music features dying Elephant Man gurgles as vocals mixed with detuned sludge metal guitar and an overall cough-syrup-spacerock feel. Those not in tune might call it "depressing," but for slow-mo headbangers and psych-freaks alike, it serves as a blessing of beautiful bleakness.

On the new Revolver release TTSSATTSR, the nine-minute "Spherics," for example, begins with a grueling six-minute intro of space gurgles and a slow Melvins-like kick/snare pattern, but the payoff is a rush of Sabbath-on-16-guitar flood that runs like a river of mayonnaise. Good things come for those who wait.

“TTSSATTSR reminded me of an old Stephen King story, where a man drinks a bad can of beer and turns into this ravenous, gelatinous ooze. Black Mayonnaise have written the score to that tale. Gurgle gurgle.” — John Pegoraro, Stonerrock.com

* * *
Formed in 2001, Athens, Georgia’s The Angelic Process have spent the last 5 years creating some of the most exciting and unique music ever heard. Pioneers and figureheads of the Ambient Drone Metal subgenre of extreme music, their influence can be found in numerous bands that have come of age in their wake. Fusing the layered guitar drone of My Bloody Valentine, the epic sound and tribal thump of Neurosis, the emotional bloodletting of Swans, and complex, yet fluidly shifting time signatures, The Angelic Process have forged new musical ground and over the course of a nine releases on labels all over the world, have refined and defined a sound that one listener described as "the sound my soul makes." Blasting noise, complex melodies, droning guitar resonance, rippling bass, tom-heavy tribal drums, and hauntingly emotional vocals collide to create violently ambient songs that have a definite shape and progression, but envelope the audience in warm, bombastic soundscapes.

“…the audio equivalent of slipping into the vent of a volcano that’s actually the world’s largest washing machine, to be swirled around for infinity in a state of absolute confusion bordering on rapturous bliss.” — Gerald Robinson in Vampire Magazine, on the new Angelic Process release Weighing Souls With Sand

* * *
New York's sludge-noise mongers Yellow Tears drip out some molasses electronics wallowing in its own filth. Four cro-magnons armed with a couple of basses, a guitar, some electronics, voice and a drill aim right for the skull in hopes to pump out some of that gray matter. l to 100 in blood-splattered volume on top of slaughtered deer.
* * *

Situated on the cobblestone streets of DUMBO's historic waterfront, Water Street Restaurant & Lounge fills the bottom two floors of a landmark warehouse and iron foundry, over 7,000 square feet of dramatic raw space that dates back to 1887. The lower level opens into the spacious UnderWater Lounge , a venue featuring local and national experimental, noise, rock, and pop acts amid shimmering lights against stone and brick walls. Recent performances have included: Time of Orchids, Toby Driver, Unearthly Trance, Growing, James Plotkin & Tim Wyskida and Holopaw.

THTFL is an entity created with the intention to support the burgeoning avant music and art scene. In the wake of many recent performance space closings, THTFL plans to utilize new spaces and venues to showcase music, art and film that would otherwise go unnoticed. THTFL also works as an independent imprint to release what they feel is important to the music and art scene at the moment.

Time of Orchids Headline Water Street Lounge, Brooklyn on Friday, March 30th

Water Street Lounge continues booking some interesting acts each weekend. Here are the bands that are playing this Friday:

Time of Orchids
Hazel Rah (mem. Friendly Bears)
Chubby Behemoth
A Three Ring Circus



8:30 - A Three Ring Circus
(as described on their myspace page):a wild depression-era bum canudleing with Stravinsky and Philip glass at a morose shadow puppet performace somewhere in java whilist lou reed and steven reich mutually masturbate behind the curtains.

9:30 - Chubby Behemoth
The Behemoth Returns! These guys were great the last time they played Water Street. They work from a definate Jazz foundation with compositions streatched and pulled into many different genres. Avant-fusion-thrash-rock?

10:30 - Hazel Rah
The Hazel Rah Returns! Tim Byrnes of Friendly bears is the brains behind this operation. That's all you need to know! You're psyched now!

11:30 - Time of Orchids
Time of Orchids reviews
"Seeing TIME OF ORCHIDS live is a crazy experience. While some songs top out at 10 minutes, moving from disjointed metal to eerie dream pop, others are 55 seconds of pure insanity. Their new Sarcast While features vocals by Julee Cruise and is out now on John Zorn's Tzadik Records." - Village Voice "Best of NY" issue, 10/05 ("Best Epic Avant Rock")

Shows are all ages and admission is only $10.

Lola Danza debuts Naadu at Water Street Lounge, Brooklyn on March 31st

I have been listening to some mp3s of Ms. Danza and have liked what I have heard. I am also intrigued by an artist that is going back to the concept of combining art and music as haven't seen anyone try this since the early days of punk. I haven't seen Ms. Danza perform live but she is getting great press for her live shows. Give a listen to the mp3s and check out the show.

From Avant-Garde CD "Live At Rutman's" Boston MA, Recorded June 2nd 2005
Untitled 1
Untitled 2

The enchanting vocalist and composer, Lola Danza debuts her project Naadu, with visual artists: painter Jacqueline Chachitz and installation artist Meaghan Bates Saturday, March 31st 2007 at 8pm at the Water Street Lounge (66 Water St. (718.625.9352 in DUMBO Brooklyn, NY 11201-1048).

The project Naadu infuses two mediums: music and visual art. Naadu celebrates the organic, the spiritual and the primal creation of music and art at its most vulnerable state through improvisation. Naadu allows music and visual art to become one, the painter another member of the band, while the installation artist transforms space and time.

Ms. Danza combines Jazz, Avant-garde, World, Classical, Post Modern Pop and Americana music. Danza's created a new idiom in Jazz. Lola’s original compositions evoke images of impressionistic and abstract paintings rich in texture and colour. She sings beautiful flowing melodies and creative improvised lines with effortless mastery, Danza's voice is rich, warm and resonant, with a four-octave range and vast array of vocal techniques. Lola's music reveals a special connection to her soul that cultivates mutual inspiration between the musicians and captivates the audience.

Visual artist, Chachitz, provides intense, bold, thought provoking, raw, complex, innocence - the paint speaks for itself, using its own language. The physical reality of Ms. Chachitz’s painting is about exploring the fundamental process of creating, returning to the act of creating with no preconceived notions. Manipulating the canvas, creating and destroying figures and forms, spontaneously flowing with and against all direction - color, texture, shape, and the gestural brush strokes of each motion bring context to chaos.

Meaghan Bates' drawing concerns altering the states of time and space. The mark making is done with the intent to displace time and recognizable space in order to allow for looseness of thought in the viewer and the artist as the work is being made. When interrupted, the fragility of time and common space is evident. Materials such as Kozo paper and pastel or Sumi ink relate directly to the artist's interest in investigating fragility as a universal quality.

Ms. Danza is joined by musicians John Lockwood- Acoustic Bass, Garth Stevenson- Acoustic Bass and Nat Mugavero- Drums.

Unearthly Trance Playing Water Street Lounge Tonight (March 2nd)

Wow, I got the date of this show wrong. I was thinking it was tomorrow night.

If anyone is looking for something to do tonight, this should be a great show. Unearthly Trance just released their debut on Relapse and Constant played some strong shows when they came through the area in '05 (and I don't think they have been back since).





Here is the complete lineup for tonight's show:

8:30 - So Is The Tongue
The epic orchestrations of this progressive three piece from central New Jersey range from swirling psychedelia to fits of heavy doom laden cacophony.

9:30 – Chubby Behemoth
This New York progressive Jazz ensemble will take your preconceived notions of Jazz and grind them to a pulp.

10:30 – Constants
One of Boston’s best-kept secrets brings their forward thinking “space rock” to Brooklyn, to drown you in the most beautiful sea of sound.

11:30 – Unearthly Trance
The Trident, Unearthly Trance’s recent debut for Relapse Records is a tightly wrapped package of blackened doom and thrash. New York is still in the forefront of churning out the most exciting and fresh sounds from the underground.