Band to Watch: Pure Bathing Culture
I first caught wind of Portland, Oregon’s Pure Bathing Culture through an Octopus Windmill post back in June, and was reminded of the two-piece through yesterday’s post on My Old Kentucky Blog. The duo is comprised of Vetiver guitarist and keyboardist Daniel Hindman and Sarah Versprille, respectively. The group is set to release its debut, self-titled EP on November 19 via London record label Memphis Industries.
I’ve long been a fan of Vetiver‘s work, and my excitement over this new side project doubled upon the discovery that Richard Swift had taken the band under his wing. The multi-instrumentalist, producer and personal hero has maintained a busy schedule in 2012: engineering Jessie Baylin’s Little Spark and Pleasure Center EP, gigging on keys with The Shins, and guiding The Mynabirds’ ship on Generals. Swift served as producer on the four tracks that will make up the Pure Bathing Culture EP.
Under Swift’s tutelage, Pure Bathing Culture has churned out a handful of 80s-infused pop gems. The dreaminess of PBC’s Miami Vice backdrop makes it easy to overlook the seriousness of the lyrical content. The band’s most recent single “Gainesville” deals with the death of a friend in a motorcycle accident in Peru. The strength of the band’s stripped down performance of debut single “Ivory Coast” in the Beardy Session underscores the fact that this material will hold up in any setting. Compare and contrast the video with the studio rendition below.
Connect with Pure Bathing Culture via Facebook | Twitter
Written by Rob Peoni
Vintage Track: Binder Quintet ft. John Tchicai “Vasvirag”
The Binder Quintet was a Hungarian jazz ensemble whose lone celebrated work came in the pressing of their 1983 radio broadcast with alto saxophonist John Tchicai. The group’s style blended native folk influences with American free jazz of the late 1950s. Their recording of “Vasvirag” has been included in Volume 3 of the Spiritual Jazz series on London’s Jazzman Records. According to a suspect online translator vasvirag is Hungarian for “old maid.” However, there is nothing stale or outdated about the play of the musicians at hand.
Discogs credits Károly Friedrich and Mihály Dresch with the dueling, dissonant harmonicas heard at the outset of the song. Their play recedes to make way for a driving undertone on upright bass and piano. Overhead Tchicai inserts broken, muffled notes on alto sax, at times taking on an animalistic tone. His play creates a visceral tension in the music that is only heightened by the primal howl and guttural growl featured in the background of the song’s latter half. Spiritual Jazz 3 is set for release on CD and vinyl on September 3.
Connect with Jazzman Records via Facebook | Twitter
Written by Rob Peoni
Album Review: TEEN ‘In Limbo’
Upon hearing of Brooklyn’s TEEN, you will likely be fed a shallow narrative that unfolds something like this: Rock chick leaves successful up-and-coming band. Rock-chick joins up with sisters and friends to form all-girl electro pop group. Look at them now. Aren’t they cute? (For evidence, see our Band to Watch post)
While this storyline is an accurate assessment of how Kristina “Teeny” Lieberson’s new project TEEN came to be, it fails to do their debut LP In Limbo justice. The album kicks off with “Better.” A song whose girl-power infused hook could be easily substituted for the shitty rendition of Irving Berlin’s “Anything You Can Do” from that old Mia Hamm vs. Michael Jordan Gatorade commercial. Yet, set against the backdrop of intricately woven synth and vocal lines and a foot stomping rhythm section, the chorus proves more irresistible than trite.
Follow-up “Come Back” is my favorite cut from the LP. The song turns the traditional narrative of the desperate female on its head. Here, Teeny spends the chorus begging for the return of a lost love. In the verses, though, we learn that her loneliness comes as the result of loving and leaving too many half-forgotten names on the road to now. Her regret stems not from whether she may one day find love, but rather the thought that she may have already cast it aside. A familiar storyline from your male rock n’ roller, but rarely one told from the female perspective.
Rather than present their brand of girl-pop in concise, pre-packaged three-minute infomercials, TEEN has chosen to challenge its audience. Seven of In Limbo’s 11 tracks stretch beyond five minutes. The band’s attempt to break down and re-purpose the traditional notion of a pop song is an admirable one, but testing the limits of listeners’ ever-shrinking attention spans proves a dangerous decision on a debut.
The B-side of In Limbo occasionally loses its focus, dissolving into trippy meditations. Even those moments manage to hit their mark on tracks like “Sleep is Noise” and “Fire“. The good news is that the few songs that fell flat for me on the album, I found captivating in the stripped down space of TEEN’s Secret Garden video session. Typically the reverse is true, a successful cut off the LP proves completely dysfunctional in a live setting. It’s an encouraging trait for a new band in an era in which live gigs provide the meat and potatoes and album sales increasingly cover dessert.
With a four-track EP and a fascinating mix tape of covers under their belt, TEEN is a band that appears road-ready from Jump Street. These girls have achieved an astonishing amount of depth both sonically and lyrically on In Limbo. This is achieved largely through a masterful layering of vocal arrangements and a relentless willingness to explore. Grab your copy of In Limbo from Carpark Records. Stream it in its entirety below.
Connect with TEEN via Facebook | Twitter
Written by Rob Peoni
Thought on Tracks 