Recap: Joanna Newsom at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue

Joanna Newsom is one of the most polarizing artists in contemporary music, drawing favorable comparisons to Joni Mitchell and Björk from some while causing less patient listeners to clap their ears shut at the first sound of her wavering soprano. Newsom is a demanding songwriter, topping rich, layered arrangements that often reach lengths in the double digits with unapologetically esoteric lyrics—delivered in a voice that, admittedly, tends to take a few tracks to get used to. But she is also an absolute virtuoso, a gifted harpist with the uncanny ability to deliver sincere and powerful vocal performances while plucking away at one of the world’s most taxing instruments. Newsom’s talents were in plain sight from the moment she took the stage last night for the first of two sold out shows at D.C.’s Sixth And I Historic Synagogue.

The mere set-up for the performance was telling of Newsom’s idiosyncratic musical approach. Midway through the almost hour-long break between openers The Moore Brothers and her set, Newsom casually meandered onstage to make last-minute tuning adjustments to her harp. (It’s something you don’t see very often in a rock show; but it would honestly be more shocking to find a roadie capable of tinkering with such an intricate instrument.) When Newsom returned to the stage shortly after to start her set, she was forced to navigate a veritable treasure heap of instruments scattered across the stage—grand piano, drum kit, trombone, bassoon, violins, electric guitar, banjo, whiskey bottles, jaw harp, Bulgarian tambura—before eventually arriving at her majestic centerpiece.

Without a proper greeting, Newsom immediately broke out into the opening harp lines of “’81,” a short yet gorgeously melodic song about a garden party in Eden off of her recently-released three-disc epic, Have One On Me. For those seeing her perform for the first time, the song was a perfect introduction to Newsom’s style, showcasing the remarkable concentration required for each pluck of the harp (which makes the purity and consistency of her vocals even more impressive). Newsom’s five-person accompaniment—including the mastermind behind most of the arrangements in her latest album, Ryan Francesconi—joined her onstage for “In California,” a heartfelt love song that elucidates many of the recent critical comparisons to Mitchell’s Blue.

After evoking audible cheers with the hypnotic finger-picking of “The Book Of Right-On,” Newsom moved to the piano and revisited her recent work with “Easy,” the orchestral opener off Have One On Me. She would stay behind the piano for the next few songs, a stretch that included some of the poppiest tracks in her catalogue to date, notably “Soft As Chalk” and “Good Intentions Paving Company.” Newsom returned to her harp for Have One On Me’s 11-minute title track, in which crawling harp lines and clicking percussion accents tickled the nape like the daddy long-legs referenced in its lyrics.

After “You And Me, Bess,” Newsom closed her set with the 12-minute masterpiece off of 2006’s Ys, “Emily.” The piece was eloquently symphonic, arching from nuanced string pizzicatos to swirling choruses backed by thumping percussion. After an uproarious standing ovation, Newsom and her crew returned to the stage for a single-song encore, a soulful rendition of “Baby Birch’ accompanied by distorted riffs from Francesconi’s electric guitar. When the house lights finally went up, there was an unmistakable radiance in the audience, as if those in attendance fully comprehended the rare musical talent to which they were just treated for 90 minutes.

http://www.avclub.com/dc/articles/joanna-newsom-at-sixth-i-historic-synagogue,39465/

Review: Bluebrain's Soft Power

One morning in 2009, Hays Holladay woke up in his Washington, D.C., home physically unable to move, stricken with what doctors would eventually diagnose as temporary paralysis. One spinal surgery and a few months later, Hays and his brother Ryan—who together make up D.C. electro-rock outfit Bluebrain—returned to their home studio to put a backlog of material on record. The result is an inspired, genre-straddling debut LP, Soft Power, which the duo will release Thursday night with a show at the new U Street Music Hall.

With the opening harpsichord lines, rolling rhythms, and orchestral accents of “Royal Blue,” the Holladay brothers set the stage for the lush, perplexing affair that will follow. “Up & Down” is a multi-textured gem, leaping from bubbly piano-pop to meticulously-arranged electro-funk within the space of a few bars (along with an addictive interlude of “up-up-down-down”s that evokes tender memories of a fatality code from Mortal Kombat). “Ten By Ten” sparks the record’s second wind, dressed in lofty bursts of Basement Jaxx-style reverb hooks and a frenetic dance-floor bounce beat. The upbeat tone persists through “Doctor Doctor,” a straightforward work of indietronica that calls to mind the poppier sides of MGMT.

Things get a tad murkier in the album’s back half, with “Caught Up In The Laughter” as the recognizable pivot point. There are still catchy moments in the subsequent tracks, though the ominous melodies and atmospheric tinkerings in “Rotten Apples” and “Funny Business” lack the raw adrenaline of their predecessors. But that’s not to say that the record trickles off as it approaches the deep cuts. If anything, it evolves, swelling from clever electro-pop ditties to dense, cathartic arrangements.

Grade: B+

http://www.avclub.com/dc/articles/bluebrains-soft-power,39209/

Recap: Rodrigo Y Gabriela and Alex Skolnick Trio at 9:30 Club

The genre of “world music” is a bit of a misnomer. By grouping all music from countries outside of the G8 into a single catchall, we tend to blur the lines between countless subgenres, often understating the vast influences and unique styles of “world” musicians. There is perhaps no better poster child for the genre’s complexity than Mexico City-by-way-of-Dublin guitar duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela, which kicked off its North American tour last night with the first of two sold-out shows at 9:30 Club. The duo's performance was less a rock show than a study in acoustic ingenuity, transforming a pair of amplified nylon string guitars into many of the sounds of a proper band: the thuds and claps of a full drum kit, the clicks and subtle accents of an auxiliary percussionist, even the scorching riffs of a thrash metal shredder.

The show opened with a set from the Alex Skolnick Trio, fronted by the lightning-fast axe man of the metal band Testament (and gray-streaked doppelganger of Rogue from the X-Men), Alex Skolnick. The trio was a lovely complement to Rodrigo Y Gabriela, jamming through instrumental jazz-fusion renditions of metal classics, including Kiss’ “Detroit Rock City,” Rush’s “Tom Sawyer,” and Judas Priest’s “Electric Eye.” Similar to the headliners, Skolnick and his crew managed to span genres without coming off as gimmicky, weaving familiar rock hooks around disjointed samba rhythms and experimental bebop lines.

From the opening lines of “Hanuman”—the first track off Rodrigo Y Gabriela’s 2009 release, 11:11—lead guitarist Rodrigo Sanchez’s dexterous finger-picking was on full display. Though a night with Sanchez alone would have surely been enough to please the crowd, the accompanying talents of rhythm guitarist Gabriela Quintero were nothing short of mesmerizing. Quintero stretches her instrument to unimaginable lengths, tapping relentlessly across the body of her guitar while maintaining a steady stream of supporting riffs. During an impromptu mini-clinic in the middle of the set, Quintero shared the secret of her technique with the audience: she strikes the body in triplets with a precise finger sequence, derived from years of jamming on the bodhrán in the streets of Dublin. “This one, it has to be played very fuckin’ fast,” she explained. “You have to just practice like crazy for hours, and then maybe next week you’ll have it.”

Doubtful.

Early in the set, Sanchez explained that they would play “pretty much the whole album” of 11:11, a clever medley of eleven original recordings inspired by eleven artists that have contributed to Rodrigo Y Gabriela’s distinct sound. The set list was telling of the duo’s eclectic musical influences: “Santo Domingo” is a tribute to Dominican jazz pianist Michel Camilo, “Buster Voodoo” flashes shades of Jimi Hendrix, “Atman” is a nod to Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell. The night also included a couple of choice covers, including an almost unrecognizable rendition of “Stairway To Heaven” off the duo's 2006 self-titled breakthrough album. (The song’s iconic riff was so well-veiled in classical guitar twangs that a particularly unperceptive audience member unironically called out for “Stairway” later in the set.)

There was remarkable intimacy between the performers and the crowd throughout the night. Sanchez established the colloquial mood early by genuinely asking, “By the way, who won the hockey?” (Greeted, of course, with a roar of playful boos and “Fuck Canada” quips). You could feel the cockles of the crowd’s collective heart warm every time Gabriela spoke, gleefully cursing her way through anecdotes in an adorable Spanglish-soaked Irish brogue (“It’s fookin’ freezing out there” and “It’ll be like fookin’ Spinal Tap” stand out as personal favorites.) And, as if to clarify a common miscategorization of the band’s style, she later made a point to share that they are, in fact, not flamenco players. “We love flamenco…but they are really fuckin’ strict,” she slurred. “They have a completely different technique…It’s almost ritualistic—almost religious for flamenco people.”

Silly us, thinking we could classify Rodrigo Y Gabriela under any single genre. I guess we’ll just have to stick with the “world music” tag for the time being.

http://www.avclub.com/dc/articles/rodrigo-y-gabriela-and-alex-skolnick-trio-at-930-c,38666/

Review: Title Tracks' It Was Easy

When D.C.’s Georgie James split in the summer of 2008, co-frontman John Davis already had an album’s worth of studio-ready songs in his repertoire. It’s not a particularly compelling origin story for Davis’ first solo project, Title Tracks—one door closes, another opens, yadda yadda yadda—but the break-up backdrop does provide some insight into the surprisingly melancholy lyrical tone of his debut LP, It Was Easy (which will be released Wednesday, March 10, at The Black Cat). Despite a hefty dose of bubbly pop hooks and sing-along melodies, much of It Was Easy has the feel of a heartfelt break-up album, sprinkled with woeful themes of exposed vulnerability, unmet expectations, and wasted energy.

Davis’ unabashed love for bridge-heavy power pop stays in the fore throughout the record, but its presence is most prominent in the opening tracks. “Every Little Bit Hurts” is an angst-soaked pop ditty accented with guitar jangles and rushed verses, faintly reminiscent of Ted Leo’s early work; “Black Bubblegum” tests the listener’s limits for sugary pop riffs, but conveniently comes to a close just before the diabetic coma kicks in.

Though the entire record nestles in the cushy realm of semi-polished pop rock, moments in its second half flash a darker side of Title Tracks. “Found Out” channels the punkier corners of Davis’ notoriously deep reference pool, most notably The Jam. “Piles Of Paper” comes off as the album’s most self-referential piece. The line “Don’t make me over, I’ve already tried to turn a snare into a lute” sticks out in the track, seemingly alluding to the sonic leap from his early work (at least compared to the sing-shout vocals and disjointed rhythms of his stint as the drummer for Q And Not U), while playfully jabbing at the artistic compromises and lack of fulfillment associated with his previous project.

http://www.avclub.com/dc/articles/title-tracks-it-was-easy,37926