Angel Olsen

My live review of the Angel Olsen/Pillars & Tongues show is running as a feature at Blurt today.


RARE AIR: Angel Olsen

On Oct. 1, songstress Angel Olsen and Windy City pals Pillars and Tongues utterly captivated a Northampton, Mass. audience at the storied Iron Horse venue. BLURT’s contributing editor was there to bear witness.

BY JENNIFER KELLY

Two Chicago bands – one stuffed to the gills with equipment and instruments, the other spare as a twig in winter – played Northampton’s Iron Horse last week (Oct. 1). Pillars and Tongues, a trio, wove dense, drone-y layers of violin, synthesizer, bass guitar and harmonium into enveloping textures. Angel Olsen, touring in support of her recently-released Half Way Home album, sketched a stark landscape with folk guitar, minimal bass and drums and her extraordinarily expressive voice.

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Two ways to wake up in the morning

Gorgeous morning today, went to the Y just to change, then out for a run, still a little foggy both weather-wise and alert-ness wise, and I came screamingly, joltingly into focus with music from the Body.

Here's the tag line from their Thrill Jockey page:

“There’s heaviness. There’s brutality. Then there’s The Body.” – Metal Sucks

Oh yeah, and in case you didn't get the biblical overtones in the band name, the current album is called Christs, Redeemers...plural, that will really bother some people, won't it?

It's remarkable that just two guys -- Chip King and Lee Buford -- make all this racket, or maybe not, considering they're from Rhode Island and have to compete with all that Lightning Bolt legacy.

Anyway, it's awesome and epic and only metal in the loosest possible sense...but I can't really recommend it for your iPod clock radio. Here's a bit:




Now it's later and I'm done running and have had some coffee, so naturally I am listening to something far gentler, far softer and more welcoming...something, in fact, that might be perfect for easing into a morning run, except for the danger of nodding away and veering off the sidewalk. It's an EP called Eternality by an LA-based film composer and electronic guy named Cuscino...lovely cool, rhythmic, faintly unsettling textures of electronics and voices.



Let's see what else...I am terrified that my paying job is just going to stop dead again, as it has half a dozen times since the global meltdown when the Republicans do something insane. (Let's tie the CR to mandatory baptism, full immersion, too, fuck that sprinkling shit.) Who cares about the country or the global economy when you get the chance to stick it to Obama once more, right?

Also I'm interviewing Zachary Cale this evening, not prepped at all. after I thrash around pointlessly trying to get some work this morning, I'm going to start working on that.

And finally, I am going to see Angel Olsen and Pillars and Tongues tomorrow and will be writing it up for Blurt.