dreampop

Don’t Miss: Jenny Hval @ DC9, 9/9/15

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Jenny Hval (Photo by Jenny Berger Myhre)

Norwegian artist Jenny Hval may offer a totem for the modern DC working woman with the cover of her new album, Apocalypse, girl, which depicts a woman slumped over a medicine ball, apparently having collapsed, disconnected with the task at hand.

On the album, Jenny actually seems very connected to her surroundings, eerily so! Her songs amble along with dreampop reflections as she sometimes narrates her thoughts and at other times sings gently. The experimental nature of her albums is reflected in her videos, including the latest for the track “Sabbath,” at first glance a disjointed collection of memories but more accurately a small treatise on questions of identity.

The video features bandmates Jenny (vocals, synth), Håvard Volden (electronics), Annie Bielski (performance artist and Apocalypse, girl cover model) and Zia Anger (visual enhancement), and it was shot entirely on Zia’s iPhone during a recent tour of Europe.

Watch the video for Jenny Hval’s “Sabbath” on YouTube:

Tracks like “Sabbath” put the “dream” in Jenny’s dreampop, and the dream isn’t always the most lucid although it’s often concerned with sex. She launches a US tour in support of the album later in August, and the tour makes a stop at DC9 on Wednesday, Sept. 9. Seattle singer-songwriter Briana Marela opens for Jenny.

Listen to Apocalypse, girl, out now on Sacred Bones, via Soundcloud:

Tickets are available online.

Jenny Hval
w/ Briana Marela
DC9
Wednesday, Sept. 9
Doors @8:30pm
$10-12
All ages

Music Park: The Mynabirds @ POV Lounge — 6/1/15

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Laura Burhenn performs in Dallas in 2010.

Laura Burhenn, former DC native transplanted to Omaha, Neb., has done her share of traveling in recent days. The hypnotic chanteuse had been touring with her frequent collaborators Black English, opening for the Psychedelic Furs, when she got the call to open for The Pixies at the 9:30 Club Sunday night.

She flew back to DC Sunday morning, and several members of Black English supported her as her band in The Mynabirds, which also played an intimate show at the POV Lounge at the W Hotel in DC on Monday night.

At the W, The Mynabirds performed a lush 11-song set, half of which roughly consisted of new songs from an upcoming third album, Lovers Know, due on August 7 on well-regarded indie label Saddle Creek.

Monday was my first time catching a performance by Laura and The Mynabirds, and one thing immediately was clear: Laura sings with purpose. Generally her songs are concerned with devoting yourself to something 100 percent –- and when you have to do so, you fight.

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Music Park: Craft Spells @ Comet Ping Pong — 3/10/15

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Craft Spells by Greg Barnes
Craft Spells (Photo by Greg Barnes)

In 2010, Justin Vallesteros released his first song “Party Talk” as Craft Spells, recording the lo-fi single on his own.

The song is pleasing, straightforward number expressing sentiment of a desire for something more out of a chance meeting.

“Is this new? ‘cause I’m falling for you/
This better not be party talk”

The lovelorn lyrics represent an attempt at identification with the rest of humanity in general and a pretty girl in particular. Fast forward to 2014, and Craft Spells have released their second full-length LP, Nausea — the title track of which almost seems to reference the 1938 Jean-Paul Sartre novel of the same name!

“Nausea/
You’ve kept youself away from everyone you used know/
Nausea/
You brought yourself here now everybody’s gonna know”

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Music Park: Furniteur @ DC9 — 11/26/14

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I gotta say that it seems Prince George Records is doing something right.

I knew of the DC label as the backer for dance duo Pleasure Curses, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Prince George has more artists in its roster, and one in particular which could prove a breakout act in the next year.

Enter Furniteur, who opened for Frenchman David Grellier performing under his bandname College at DC9 last Wednesday. With the recent electronic release of a four-track EP, Furniteur have been playing several small shows around DC in places like The Dunes and Comet Ping-Pong. They are well worth catching at your earliest opportunity.

Furniteur’s frontwoman is local chanteuse Brittany Sims, who studied art in New York City and decided to form a band back home in DC after graduating. She’s recruited Kevin Bayly and Mike Toohey of Brett (formerly the Dance Party) and presented Furniteur as a smoldering synth-driven trio.

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