BRAIDS and Baths (outstanding musicians, splendid people, tour mates… soul mates) came through Brooklyn, and somewhere between a few glasses of wine and a V-day viewing of Ponyo, this happened. A nice and light departure from the usual formats for all:
Formed via email, encouraged via blog love, and funded via kickstarter, the creative relationship between Brooklyn’s Holy Spirits and visual artist, Nathaniel Whitcomb, defines what’s been special about our community in 2010. Above is the latest piece of The Afternoon’s Blood to start moving, and in the next few weeks all of it will (as mentioned by The Road Goes Ever On‘s Cameron Book).
Thanks to a successfully backed project, Nathaniel was flown out from Cleveland to meet the band for the first time and perform together last Saturday at Space Space with fellow collaborators Gem Club accompanied by visual artist BriAnna Olson (pictures below), and again tonight at Issue Project Room. The act will then go west in January.
We all (Aaron, Michael, Nathaniel, Victoria and I) found ourselves hanging in one room on Monday, so naturally this thing called for a snapshot and came out like a roundtable interview:
Ice Cream Shout rode into sudden awareness on a music video. Clips from an 80s gang violence documentary re-purposed over this inexplicably soothing tune—it was an odd crossing that worked too well. And from where? Kansai, Japan. Two months later another concept arrived to similar effect, this time from their frontman’s solo project. Genuine interest turned to inquiry and here we are.
In addition to playing along, Bob was kind enough to share an unheard remix of that initial gem. Its origin: “I heard Metrotune‘s ‘Casio Beach’ on Altered Zones and even though I’ve never met him I felt he could do some magic to one of our songs.” So let’s have that be our soundtrack.
Fascinating days these are, where a figure like RxRy can thrive in the dark, letting sounds and images swirl into visible persona. His true identity is known by some, and isn’t nearly as protected as others may think. He is simply an artist who prefers a low profile, not for benefit of hyperbole, but rather the idea that we can be transported by art without having to look it square in the eye. The objective here is to give a glimpse at his world of operation, somewhat personally, but more so musically.
In a way, this all began last January, when S&S unknowingly became a vehicle for RxRy; one he could regularly share creations and words through. With each of his emails came a progression, another ‘drownstep’ mission, and a somehow natural corresponding post. That unspoken bond was occasionally helped along by a “thanks” or “cheers” or “I haven’t seen the ocean in ages, tell her hello next time” via Gchat, until recent longer exchanges came about. Together we decided that it might work best to publish the very transcripts from those late night sessions (figuratively referred to as “the shadows”). Note: they have been structured and cleaned up a bit for easier reading. And there’s a new song somewhere in there…