Kurt Vile & The Violators
Angel Olsen, Steve Gunn
Sat, May 18, 2013
Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 8:30 pm
Union Transfer
Philadelphia, PA
$16.00 - $18.00
Sold Out
This event is all ages
http://www.utphilly.com/event/221151/
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Kurt Vile & The Violators
Kurt Vile has a way of tying time in knots. You can hear it on his new album Smoke Ring For My Halo from the get-go – the pinwheeling guitars and reaching atmospheres of ‘Baby’s Arms’ are as strange as they are familiar: a demonstration of how Kurt can put worn methods and sounds through himself and end up with something that isn’t emotionally or sonically obvious. Instead we’re left with a record that contains traces of the past but doesn’t waste precious time in the now being reverent.
Once compared to Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty, Psychic TV, and Animal Collective in the same review (for 2009’s Childish Prodigy), Kurt can bring to mind anything from Suicide to Leo Kottke to My Bloody Valentine, Bob Seger, Nick Drake, and Eastern ragas. Still, he pieces together these disparate elements so seamlessly and unpretentiously that such reference points are rendered pointless by the singularity of his sound. Kurt Vile might belong to a long lineage of classic American songwriters, but he’s the only one who’s alive and in his prime today.
This is the fourth time Kurt Vile has put an album’s worth of songs together and stuck a name on it, but in a sense Smoke Ring For My Halo is his first real album – every flinching guitar arpeggio and vocal wander was made to be here, made with this record in mind, to sit alongside another in situ and in sequence. It seems weird saying this given the amount of ground he’s covered already, but Smoke Ring For My Halo is the perfect way into the music Kurt Vile makes. It’s tender and evocative, elusive but companionable, tough in the gut and the arm but swollen in the chest and giddy in the head. It’s a record that is perfect for any given day during whatever season, to satisfy all moods in every possible scenario – be that first thing in the morning or last thing at night; today, tomorrow or five years from now.
In short, it’s real. Kurt Vile isn’t just the loneliest of ten siblings born to parents on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the former forklift truck driver who makes rock band guitar songs in the solitude of his bedroom. Smoke Ring For My Halo brings all of that together, marrying the introspection of the nocturnal stoner with the exploration of a troubadour frontiersman to arrive at a record you know is so much more than the sum of his and its constituent parts because often he sounds like he doesn’t know how he got there himself.
Once compared to Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty, Psychic TV, and Animal Collective in the same review (for 2009’s Childish Prodigy), Kurt can bring to mind anything from Suicide to Leo Kottke to My Bloody Valentine, Bob Seger, Nick Drake, and Eastern ragas. Still, he pieces together these disparate elements so seamlessly and unpretentiously that such reference points are rendered pointless by the singularity of his sound. Kurt Vile might belong to a long lineage of classic American songwriters, but he’s the only one who’s alive and in his prime today.
This is the fourth time Kurt Vile has put an album’s worth of songs together and stuck a name on it, but in a sense Smoke Ring For My Halo is his first real album – every flinching guitar arpeggio and vocal wander was made to be here, made with this record in mind, to sit alongside another in situ and in sequence. It seems weird saying this given the amount of ground he’s covered already, but Smoke Ring For My Halo is the perfect way into the music Kurt Vile makes. It’s tender and evocative, elusive but companionable, tough in the gut and the arm but swollen in the chest and giddy in the head. It’s a record that is perfect for any given day during whatever season, to satisfy all moods in every possible scenario – be that first thing in the morning or last thing at night; today, tomorrow or five years from now.
In short, it’s real. Kurt Vile isn’t just the loneliest of ten siblings born to parents on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the former forklift truck driver who makes rock band guitar songs in the solitude of his bedroom. Smoke Ring For My Halo brings all of that together, marrying the introspection of the nocturnal stoner with the exploration of a troubadour frontiersman to arrive at a record you know is so much more than the sum of his and its constituent parts because often he sounds like he doesn’t know how he got there himself.
Angel Olsen
Angel Olsen has a fresh edge to her sound, a warm and wonderful range, and an otherworldly skill and charm. Her special presence became apparent through her debut, Strange Cactiand radiates even more on her sophomore album, Half Way Home. Released on Bathetic Records, Half Way Home is a continuation of Angel's elegance, a collection of both new and old music, honed and matured, thoughts revisited. It presents this beautiful woman and her extraordinary voice taken to a new level, in no doubt a growth and reach brought on by many road trips with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and crew.
"It's now rare to come across a new artist not pre-loaded with backstory-- to find yourself bubbling over with questions instead of already knowing too much....You may be tempted to fill in the narrative gaps with something fantastical: maybe she records at night in the eaves of a barn with a murder of crows, say, or holds seances to evoke the spirits of Roy Orbison and Sandy Denny. But ultimately, the songs are all you need: 11 tracks of rough-hewn folk, shimmering and ribboned with dirt-packed veins, sung by a voice that curls and dips and dissolves like a black smoke plume." --Pitchfork
"It's now rare to come across a new artist not pre-loaded with backstory-- to find yourself bubbling over with questions instead of already knowing too much....You may be tempted to fill in the narrative gaps with something fantastical: maybe she records at night in the eaves of a barn with a murder of crows, say, or holds seances to evoke the spirits of Roy Orbison and Sandy Denny. But ultimately, the songs are all you need: 11 tracks of rough-hewn folk, shimmering and ribboned with dirt-packed veins, sung by a voice that curls and dips and dissolves like a black smoke plume." --Pitchfork
Steve Gunn
Steve Gunn is one of the most exciting american guitarists working today. his solo discography, as well as his work with GHQ, should be well known to folks who have followed three lobed recordings over the past several years. percussionist john truscinski is a stalwart of the american underground in his own right through his dedicated work in x.o.4 (with bill nace and jake meginsky), slaughterhouse percussion, as well as with GHQ (as last seen on the outfit's everywhere at once from the oscillation III series). sand city is an extremely mature and thoughtfully crafted album that conjures some of the most potent moments of both fantasias-era sandy bull and the more guitar-centric sun city girls albums while firmly charting its own raga-based territory. it is an exceptionally strong collection that should leave listeners rapt for years to come.
Venue Information:
Union Transfer
1024 Spring Garden St.
Philadelphia, PA, 19123
Union Transfer
1024 Spring Garden St.
Philadelphia, PA, 19123
