Wild Child, an indie pop six-piece with folky origins from the coolest city in Texas, is coming to Philly’s Union Transfer this Saturday.
When they first entered the music scene in Austin in 2010, Wild Child was all sugar and no spice. The band’s self-released first album, Pillow Talk, was bouncy and sweet—pleasant in the way that coffee with too much sugar is nice until about halfway through. The album blurred together into a stream of harmonized melancholy lyrics and toe-tapping guitar riffs.
But with their Kickstarter-funded second album, The Runaround, the band started to take on more wit and grit. My intro to the band came here, with “Crazy Bird,” the song they took to the stage of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.The Runaround experimented with more melodic diversity and some slightly edgier lyrics, propelling the band beyond the Austin scene.
Wild Child is currently on tour for their latest (and best) album, Fools, which hit the Internet October 2. Read the description for their newfound label, Duotone Records, and you’ll find it’s a match made in Americana-folk-indie-pop heaven. The title track gets the album off the ground with a more rock-influenced vibe than the band’s previous work—a welcome addition. The album then follows a long and enjoyable slide back to a soulful vibe that takes full advantage of lead singer Kelsey Wilson’s nostalgia-inducing pipes, though it often sidelines co-lead singer and baritone ukulele player Alexander Beggins to background vocals. But she shines, and she brings it home, backed up by some badass baritone ‘lele.
So tap your toes. Go to the show. I’ll see you there.
Ben Hopkins and Liv Bruce, New York’s dynamic garage glam duo of PWR BTTM chatted with us about the things that matter: gender fluidity, their recent discovery of Bethany Cosentino, and their favorite carbs. If you’re lucky enough to have gotten a ticket in time, we’ll see you at their PhilaMOCA show tonight (they open for the very talented <3 MITSKI <3 )
So congrats on your first album, Ugly Cherries, we love it so much!
LIV: Thank you! We had a really good time making it.
Where did you record it?
BEN: We recorded in in New Paltz, New York, which is near Hudson, New York, which is where I was living, with a guy named Chris Daly who made a bunch of great records. He made a record with our friends in Diet Cig and we met him upstate. We didn’t really know if he was a good engineer or not but he was a cool guy that wanted to do our record and he’s like a genius, he’s amazing, he makes like all our merch and stuff, he fixes my guitar, he’s just this incredible, great friend.
LIV: He holds me when I cry. Just kidding, I’ve never cried.
BEN: Liv never cries, he can’t really spare the moisture. But yeah, his wife and I did the album art together.
LIV: PWR BTTM would be dead in the water without him.
So you both went to Bard, did you find a supportive scene there?
LIV: Absolutely, I started playing in the Bard scene in another band. The Bard scene is amazing because there’s two venues that are pretty much entirely run by students and they have the power to book bands outside of the school. So your favorite bands will be coming through the area and they’ll play Bard and you can start a band with your friends and have your first show be opening for a huge band.
BEN: Yeah our second show we opened for Upset and Potty Mouth.
LIV: There was just always people starting bands and doing incredible things. I really miss it actually. Obviously I love the scene here, but sometimes I’ll be on Facebook and see friends who are still there at Bard and seeing what bands they are starting every week and being like, “Ugh I wish I was still able to see those shows!”
What did you study at Bard?
LIV: I, for most of my time at Bard, was a double major in Computer Science and Dance. And then in my last semester after my Computer Science thesis, I had one more class to take and I just didn’t have the room in my schedule, partially because of PWR BTTM, so I ended up dropping the major after finishing my thesis and graduating with a degree just in the Dance Department. Which, it feels weird to say just the dance department because Bard’s dance department is like incredible. I learned so many things just about everything being there.
BEN: (In between bites of blueberry scone) I studied Theater, it was awesome.
We had another question relating to scones: What is your favorite carb?
BEN: Oh my God, the question we love to answer. I’m really, really feeling chocolate croissants right now. I work at a coffee shop and I have to come in to work at 6 AM and the first thing I do is kick that door open and fuck up one of the deliveries.
LIV: I’m really feeling my mom’s spaghetti and meatballs. I saw her yesterday and I was thinking about the stuff that she makes. I like everything she makes, but spaghetti and meatballs specifically.
BEN: Liv’s mom throws down.
I see it as a positive sign when a label I like signs a band outside their wheelhouse. Deerhunter on Kranky. Nick Cave and Liars on Mute. When a label with a well-established niche gives a group that significant of a vote of confidence, the results are often excellent.
This was part of what initially drew me to Sinkane, whose first album with the label, Mars, is a relative outlier in DFA’s relatively consistent dance sound (sure, they signed Black Dice, but many of the label’s acts are instantly identifiable). Mars runs the gamut from jazz, to krautrock, to funk in a strikingly elegant way–much like label mastermind James Murphy’s LCD Soundsystem, Sinkane synthesizes his influences in a way that feels less derivative, and more like original expression thorugh existing sonic templates.
His more recent effort, Mean Love, dials back the eclecticism a bit. While I prefer the more free-wheeling Mars, Sinkane’s restraint is not without its merits. The record is packed with slinky, funky jams, packed with the attention to detail one might expect from a studio rat multi-instrumentalist (he has previously worked with Yeasayer, Caribou, and of Montreal, among others).
Sinkane will be playing at Johnny Brenda’s on Tuesday, and I’d highly advise checking it out. The dude can play, and I’m sure his band will have chops to spare as well. Get more info and tickets here.
Josh Wink gives an interview on club vs. home life ahead of hometown Halloween gig.
Ovum’s Very Own, Josh Wink
It’s a brisk fall afternoon when I meet up with Josh Wink at Northern Liberties record store Profond Music N Art. Josh has just arrived back from finishing an acclaimed summer residency in Ibiza and is helping organize his son’s birthday party before heading out to Amsterdam the next night.
“My son is four, so I’m still new to being a parent, and there’s all these things I try to balance: being a father and a partner to my wife, being ‘just Josh’ to the people I know from the neighborhood and community gardens, and then being Josh Wink the artist. Finding time to do other things is difficult, but there’s something nice and humble about being here in Philly. I like riding my bike places, I don’t have a car.”
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Josh’s game-changing anthem “Higher State of Consciousness”, the first instrumental record to ever enter the UK’s top 15 national chart twice in one year. The track burst him onto the international scene and became heavily engrained with the first wave of pre-EDM stadium-packing electronic music that took the US and Europe by storm in the ‘90s.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/228654155″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=’450′ iframe=”true” /] Josh co-hosted a show on WKDU in the 90s called Rave FM, so you know we had to get him to do a station ID for us!
Telekinesis, the moniker used by Michael Benjamin Lerner, (also the superpower which allows superheroes to move objects with their minds) has released a new album this September on Merge Records called Ad Infinitum. On tour with Say Hi, he plays Johnny Brenda’s tonight and spoke to us about finding new influences and staying inspired on the road.
On facing writer’s block while working on the new record Lerner said, “I tried to play the guitar but just didn’t want to do it, it was very uninspiring to me at the time. So I just put the guitar away and then tried to learn a bunch of other instruments. I didn’t really understand how drum machines and synthesizers worked before… it sort of came out of boredom in a way.” Continue reading “Telekinesis plays Philly tonight, chases 80’s vibes on new album”
The warm sunny vibes of California perfectly match Goldroom’s music.
Ahead of his LIVE full band performance at Coda tonight (10/15), we caught up with Josh Legg, the mastermind behind Goldroom, to talk about what it means to deliver a true live electronic music performance, his influences, and what his favorite kind of Snapchats are.
KDU: So you’re on a live tour now. What does it mean to you with regard to DJing vs live performance?
Goldroom: I grew up playing in bands and have always incorporated a lot of live instrumentation into my music. I cared a lot about DJing when I started Goldroom and I was only doing DJ sets then. I still DJ all the time – both in clubs and festivals. For me, playing live is a whole different level of emotional commitment and it’s much more musically fulfilling for me. We’re not up there with a couple of drum pads and an Ableton controller. When we’re up there live it’s a four-piece band with bass, guitar, and we sing every song – it’s truly like a band experience. Trying to bring electronic music to people in an authentically live performance is something that means a lot to me and I’m trying to fight the good fight.
Chronovision features Oberhofer’s signature amped psych-pop with orchestral flourish, New Wave flare, and grungy fuzz, but multiplied with his intensity that only time and life’s gut checks can enhance. The road to Chronovision was winding, owing to Oberhofer’s resolve to produce the LP himself and initially taking him from the Catskills to Seattle and back. A final spurt brought him to a studio in his hometown of Tacoma, two NYC facilities (Strange Weather, Electric Lady), and the former Sound City in Los Angeles. Lastly: Atlanta to mix with Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Washed Out). Exactly 106 demos later, Oberhofer emerged with these 12 songs.
