To celebrate the arrival of their first new album in over five years, Antagonizers ATL are hosting a weekend of soul, reggae, street punk, and oi rock ‘n’ roll sounds. The festivities kick off at the Star Bar on Friday, March 19. DJ Gonzo and The Low Life Sound System fly in from the West Coast to spin an evening of soul and reggae hits and deep cuts. It’s $10 to get in, and a limited number of tickers are available. Doors open at 9 p.m.
Villain, born Carmen Maria Hillestad, is an Oslo, Norway-based former model-turned full-time musician, who caught the world’s attention with the lilting avant-garde pop of her 2017 album, Infinite Avenue. Perlita, named in homage to Villain’s grandmother who lives in Puebla, Mexico, forges a much deeper path of sedate bliss, spherical rhythms, and instrumental beauty. It’s also built around a theme of hibernation and reemergence. Throughout the tape, songs such as “Everything Without Shadow,” “Two Halves Touching,” and “Light In Phases” take shape with a stylishly hushed approach that’s too well-composed to be called experimental music, and too abstract to draw any other concrete pop comparisons. Each number indulges in a deep-listening exploration of electronic drones, textures, and resonance itself as a musical instrument.
On the B-side, “Agua Azul” builds around Johanna Scheie Orellana floating flute melody, guiding dissonant rhythms, bringing this aural cycle to a fine point.
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Adron has rolled out a new single for coping with COVID-inflicted ennui. “Song About My Computer” is a lovely pop mediation on just how much of daily life is spent navigating a complicated relationship with a silicon-based companion, nemesis, and portal to the world and beyond. As with all good pop songwriting there are layers of meaning at work in the title as well as the hook, “I don’t want to write a song about my computer.”
On the surface, it’s a lighthearted ditty. Give a deeper listen, though, and the glow of melodic catharsis weighs heavily against the existential dread projected in the lyrics: “Maybe we’ll pull through / Maybe we’re all screwed.” Or as Adron says: “The song is a whimsical-pessimist take on pandemic loneliness, and how much I miss being a real-life musician, with some shouts out to LA venues I hope and pray will survive the long lapse.”
Every time I press play on the Youtube video the algorithm toggles away from “Song About My Computer” and follows up with “She Sells Sanctuary” by the Cult. I can’t help but wonder if my computer is taunting me or reciprocating Adon’s sentiments by offering its own message of solace in the nuanced barrage of 1s and 0s reflecting back at me.
Whatever the case may be, the accompanying B-side is a cover of Bruce Hornsby’s 1986 FM cheese hit “The Way It Is.” Adron’s version was originally recorded as a Christmas gift for drummer Colin Agnew (it’s one of his all-time favorite guilty pleasure songs). “The Way It Is” was produced and mixed by Adron in her bedroom in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood, where she’s been cooped up since the beginning of the pandemic. The song features sounds derived from the AdLib Music Synthesizer Card—one of the premier pieces of software for home PCs circa 1986 through the mid ‘90s, and it shows.
“It’s my favorite digital synthesizer,” Adron says. “Obviously, since the pandemic, I’ve been on a bit of a tear, geeking out intensely on early PC game music and the sounds of that era.”
She goes on to say, “Basically, I went pretty far down the road to making an actual chiptune version of ‘The Way It Is,’ but decided to ditch authenticity—as far as what you can truly call chiptune—and sing on it and do effects processing and whatnot, because I was having too much fun.”
Back to “Song About My Computer …” This latest number was mostly recorded in her bedroom as well, all but the drums which Agnew recorded in his Adair Park home in Southwest Atlanta, where he also mixed the song. It also features a touch of the AdLib sound palette, albeit more subtly worked in.
This latest round of songs is a one-off release. Although Adron has recently finished recording a new album. When it arrives remains to be seen.
In the meantime, keep an eye/ear out here for what she likes to call the “evil twin” of “Song About My Computer”—a version of the song that’s arranged entirely using sounds derived from the late ’80s Yamaha PSS-170 toy keyboard. “This is a very dear and beloved sound palette for me,” Adron says. “I have this bizarre obsession lately with remaking a bunch of my songs using all PSS-170 samples.”
Head over to Adron’s Patreon page to check out an ongoing series of scores for imaginary video games she’s been putting together over the last year, and more offerings.
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Every Sunday from 9 a.m. till 2 p.m., Buteco Coffee & Bar in The Beacon hosts an open-air brunch featuring breakfast sandwiches, Brazilian bites, and beverages.
DJ Mike Zarin spins music from 9 a.m. till 2 p.m. 1039 Grant St SE Suite C-10.
ECRYPTUS: (left to right) Allen Keller (Lord Tenebris), Danny Ryann (Dan Solo), Justin Brown (Lord Abraxas), and Mike Michalski (Lord Crypt). Photo by Emily Harris.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, an early incarnation of the group now known as Ecryptus was born as a melodic death metal band hellbent on exploring the blackened depths of the cosmos. It was the early aughts, and the group’s singer and guitar player Mike Michalski took lead of this ragtag band of thrashers who knew from the beginning that they wanted to do more than write what he calls “pretentious love songs to Satan.”
One day, while wandering around the annual sci-fi and fantasy Sodom and Gomorrah that is Dragcon the group came face-to-face with an ancient order of Force-wielding rockabilly punks with a penchant for theatrics—Grand Moff Tarkin. Featuring Atlanta artists and underground impresarios Jim Stacy and Shane Morton, GMT pushed the Star Wars theme to the extreme, with an array of spot-on costumes, props, and a legion of stormtroopers to do their bidding.
In an instant, Ecryptus emerged with an arsenal of wholly new and sinister Star Wars-themed black metal to serve the Dark Side.
“Grand Moff Tarkin did their thing with unapologetic campiness,” Michalski says, “but we wanted to make serious songs and treat the source material how many bands treat Tolkien. So we thought, how can we hint at the Dark Side of Star Wars without getting completely sued?”
In 2008, Ecryptus unleashed the Astral Crusades EP, breathing life into the group’s campaign for Darth metal supremacy with songs such as “Imperial Revenge,” “Abandon All Hope,” and “Execute Order 666.” More than a decade later, the “Rancorous” b/w “Execute Order 666 MMXVIII” 7-inch summons a supernatural whirr of cosmic grind, making their transformation to the Dark Side complete.
“Ecryptus,” according to Star Wars lore, was the name of the cavern deep below the surface of the planet Korriban where the ancient Sith species first encountered the Dark Side of the Force. Most of the songs the group has recorded and played live deal with the more horrific scenarios that are woven throughout the Star Wars canon that people only familiar with the films might have never thought too deeply about: being sentenced to death by Rancor, being frozen in carbonite, enslaving an entire planet of wookies, and so on.
“Rancorous” opens with a mighty roar before a spiraling assault of blast beats and demonic incantations rise over searing guitar leads that burn with the heat of Vader’s red lightsaber. On the flipside, “Execute Order 666 MMXVIII” resurrects what has become Ecryptus’ unofficial anthem with a new recording, celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Astral Crusades’ release. The song chronicles Anakin Skywalker’s perspective of executing Emperor Palpatine’s “Order 66” to slaughter the Jedi. “Making the Emperor say “666” was fun,” Michalski says.
The line up at the time of recording the “Rancorous” single featured Michalski, aka Lord Crypt, performing alongside bass player Lord Tenebris, born Allen Keller of Degradations, drummer Dan Solo, aka Danny Ryann (ex-Gigan), and guitar player Ryan Lamb. Lamb moved to Orlando shortly after the songs for the 7-inch were recorded. Lord Abraxas, aka Justin Brown (ex-Synapse Defect), now plays guitar.
The 7-inch arrived pressed on a multi-hued galaxy of vinyl colors: Cauterized Saber Wound, Mace Windu Purp Surp, Ghrey Rey, Opening Crawl Rotten Banana, Gamorrean Guard Mucus, Sarlacc Puke After Trying To Digest Boba Fett, Luke’s Lame-Ass Saber, and Dagoba Green.
Ecryptus. Photo by Emily Harris.
Live, the group takes the stage sporting sith-corpse paint, robes, armor, Dragoncon-acquired lightsabers, and their friend Scara Slayfield wearing her best “Hutt Slayer” Princess Leia outfit, serving drinks to the stage, and adorning the monitors.
The group recently finished recording material for a new EP that’s due out in the Spring of 2021. More recent Ecryptus songs draw inspiration from the expanded universe—characters from Star Wars comic books, novels, and video games.
The forthcoming EP is tentatively titled Kyram Beskar’gam, and, if you watched the The Mandalorian—and you know you did—you already know the title is Mando’a for “Death Armor/Metal.” The new EP will feature songs with titles such as “Cauterized Saber Wound Massacre,” “Planetary Enslavement,” “Compulsion to Disintegrate,” and “Digested over 1000 Years.”
“With each new release, we give in to our anger,” Michalski says, “and become more the Dark Side’s servant …”
In the words of Darth Vader, “You don’t know the power of the Dark Side!”
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The Howling, The Beyond, Driller Killer, Evil Dead 2, The Legend of Boggy Creek, Slumber Party Massacre, Fright Night, The Fog …
If you were breathing oxygen in the ‘80s, merely mentioning these titles stirs up memories of youthful fascination, elation, and terror while staring at the artwork for these horror classics of the VHS era. “Voyeur,” the second single from Entertainment’s forthcoming Horror parts 1 and 2 EPs, pushes this aesthetic nostalgia to a deeper and darker place within the imagination.
As vocalist Trey Ehart explains, “‘Voyeur’ is probably the most direct reference on the EPs to being bored and young in rural suburbia, and spending time absorbing horror movies and skate tapes from the local VHS rental store.”
“Voyeur” falls on the heels of Entertainment’s previously released single, “Maggot Church,” and taps into a more severe sense of urgency before diving deeper into the rabbit hole of hazy and cinematic ambiance. Tom Ashton of the March Violets unfurls a rich, goth-tinged production, as Ehart’s heavily affected voice drives the song’s unhinged melancholy and dreamlike vibe with lyrics such as: “video stains my eyes,” “dreams returned too late, screams in the gages of youth,” “show me ways of new desire,” and “static shivers so strange.”
“Each lyric glamorizes the impact of being exposed to a life and music outside of mainstream culture with over saturated practical effects, unnecessarily gratuitous glimpses of nudity, and underground soundtracks,” Ehart says.
The song’s constrictive and alluring melodies grow increasingly more pronounced in the Candelabra Cage Match mix, which comes courtesy of Beta Machine’s bass player Matt McJunkins, who also performs with Puscifer, A Perfect Circle, Eagles of Death Metal, Poppy, and more.
Keep an eye out for the video, directed by John Breedlove of Hip To Death to arrive soon.
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It’s the people one encounters along the way that turns any trip into a journey.
On Wednesday, December 16, the iconic drummer John Densmore joined me for an A Cappella Books exclusive Zoom chat discussing his latest memoir, The Seekers: Meetings With Remarkable Musicians (and Other Artists).
Densmore is the former drummer for the late great Los Angeles psychedelic rock group the Doors. With The Seekers, he reflects on a lifetime spent crossing paths with greatness. From artists such as Elvin Jones to Joseph Campbell, Patti Smith, the Dalai Lama, Willie Nelson, and John Coltrane, his own mother, and more, The Seekers is a rumination on the knowledge that Densmore has gained through various remarkable encounters, and an exploration of his own relationship with art, music, and humankind.
Jeffrey Bützer and Emily Marie Palmer have released a new single titled “Rebekka.”
The song finds Bützer and Palmer embracing an elegant folk-pop sound that serves as an invisible soundtrack that’s loosely based on The Ballad of Jack and Rose, a film about a daughter that has an unhealthy relationship with her father. As Bützer explains, the song’s protagonist is “raised in a former comune and has really only been around him for her entire life, and, more or less, falls in love with him. I didn’t want to write a salacious incest folk song, so I kept the mood and changed the intent.”
The song features Bützer playing guitar alongside vocalist Palmer, backing vocalist A. R. Palmer, piano and guitar player Lionel Fondeville, Eric Balint playing vibraphone, and cello player Kristin Haverty. The group weaves together a rich tapestry of ethereal, cinematic chamber pop that tells a story that is as tragic or as wistful as whatever the listener brings to the music. The cover art is courtesy of filmmaker Guy Maddin.
Jeffrey Bützer (left) and Emily Marie Palmer. Photo by Ken Lackner
If Palmer looks familiar, you probably recognize her from her roles as Isabel on the rebooted MacGyver series, or as Betsy in season 3 of Cobra Kai—teenaged John Kreese’s love interest. Check out her previous singles “Holy Magic,”“For Beauty,” and “Two Brothers.”
“Rebekka” offers the first glimpse at a new eight-song full-length album, titled Bedrooms, due out later this year.
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For this Friday’s Free Parking live stream, Kevn Kinney is diving into a set of mostly loosely veiled topical songs from throughout his career—Drivin N Cryin songs such as “With The People,” “The Innocent,” “Scarred But Smarter,” “Another Scarlet Butterfly,” and more.
As the flier suggests, there is something of an Elvis and David Bowie-related theme this week. It’s Elvis and Bowie’s birthday, so settle in to hear stories about Kevn’s trips to Graceland over the years, high adventure in Memphis, maybe a Sun Records medley, and stories of crossing paths with the Thin White Duke himself.
Rad/ATL 