Quilt
Young Magic, Old Toy Trains
Thu, July 19, 2012
8:30 pm
The Echo
Los Angeles, California
$8.00 - $10.00
Tickets
This event is 18 and over
http://www.theecho.com/event/131771/
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Quilt
It's not uncommon to form a band while in college, and that is exactly what Quilt did. Its founding members, Shane Butler and Anna Fox Rochinski were visual art students at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, but bonded over their mutual love of weird, experimental jams and classic pop harmonies. John Andrews joined the band as drummer after opening for every Quilt show on tour in 2009. Butler grew up in a "community with a lot of musical chanting" and Rochinski was "doing classical singing in choirs that had a lot of crazy harmonies. There's a lot of repetitive, almost mantra stuff in our songs," she adds. Quilt is a band with strong roots that formed at the apex of the point in your life when you're thinking about your own art and what it all means.
From the gorgeous two and three-part harmonies that pepper every track to the twinkling guitar that floats over everything, this is wandering music made up of expansive, cinematic moments, brought home by those harmonies. Singing at the same time, Butler and Rochinski are the core, sounding both powerful and intimate while letting their voices go thin and then build up to a concrete thickness. At points, when all three members sing, it's a revalation. "Penobska Oakwalk" sounds already classic, Rochinski rounding out Butler's melancholy with subtle power, while "Gome Home" is all bluster, thudding bass, footstomps and faint, swirling desolation. "Philosophically and musically we're very attuned in a lot of ways," Butler says. It's visual music without any visuals. Quilt's music is so vivid that we don't even need them.
But the real key to the band lies in the members' complete freedom with their music. Each of these songs is a result of endless jamming letting the tracks take shape organically until they cohered into songs worth digging into. "We get together and intuitively flow and then carve the songs with lyrics," Butler says of the writing process. But that's not to say Quilt are comfortable making an appealing melody and a catchy riff and leaving it at that. Instead, the band finds a formula in experimentation, letting keys drift languidly, following their own threads wherever they need to go.
From the gorgeous two and three-part harmonies that pepper every track to the twinkling guitar that floats over everything, this is wandering music made up of expansive, cinematic moments, brought home by those harmonies. Singing at the same time, Butler and Rochinski are the core, sounding both powerful and intimate while letting their voices go thin and then build up to a concrete thickness. At points, when all three members sing, it's a revalation. "Penobska Oakwalk" sounds already classic, Rochinski rounding out Butler's melancholy with subtle power, while "Gome Home" is all bluster, thudding bass, footstomps and faint, swirling desolation. "Philosophically and musically we're very attuned in a lot of ways," Butler says. It's visual music without any visuals. Quilt's music is so vivid that we don't even need them.
But the real key to the band lies in the members' complete freedom with their music. Each of these songs is a result of endless jamming letting the tracks take shape organically until they cohered into songs worth digging into. "We get together and intuitively flow and then carve the songs with lyrics," Butler says of the writing process. But that's not to say Quilt are comfortable making an appealing melody and a catchy riff and leaving it at that. Instead, the band finds a formula in experimentation, letting keys drift languidly, following their own threads wherever they need to go.
Young Magic
Although now firmly settled in New York City, Young Magic's three members came together through equal helpings of openness and fortuity. In 2010, singer and producer Isaac Emmanuel had left his home continent of Australia to travel across Europe, over to New York, and down through Mexico, all the while creating and recording music with whatever instruments he found along the way. While in Mexico, Emmanuel kept a tight correspondence with fellow Australian expat Michael Italia, who for months had been similarly traveling across Europe and South America with portable recording gear in tow. They decided to meet up in New York, where their good friend from a few years prior, Indonesian-born vocalist Melati Malay, had been living and making her own recordings. In early 2011 the three friends, who had initially bonded over their broad musical palettes, began recording together and contributing songs to the record, culling influences and finding their own footing among them.
The immediately fruitful collaboration brought forth singles "Sparkly", "You With Air" and "Night In The Ocean," all of which were fitting indicators of the band's chameleonic sound, heavily informed by West African rhythms, Brainfeeder hip-hop, UK bass, and 60s psychedelic soul. Young Magic's full-length debut, Melt, comprises both of these tracks-as well as their B-sides-and expands on their varied aesthetic, at once electronically sequenced and completely organic. Containing recordings from 10 different countries, the album flaunts new facets at each turn, letting-as on "Watch For Our Lights"-rough samples from distant lands coalesce with drum machines and distorted synths. "Night In The Ocean" and "Jam Karet" put soaring synth pads around the higher frequencies while deep kicks keep the songs grounded, allowing Isaac and Melati's vocals to float in synchronicity between. And with its shifting rhythm, open structure, and layers of echoed vocals, closer and highlight, "Drawing Down The Moon," hints at crystalline take on UK garage: a last dance from a collection of short stories from around the world. With a sonic mélange of vibes on a debut that remains cohesive and distinctly their own, it will be exciting to see where the trio's tastes will guide them next.
The immediately fruitful collaboration brought forth singles "Sparkly", "You With Air" and "Night In The Ocean," all of which were fitting indicators of the band's chameleonic sound, heavily informed by West African rhythms, Brainfeeder hip-hop, UK bass, and 60s psychedelic soul. Young Magic's full-length debut, Melt, comprises both of these tracks-as well as their B-sides-and expands on their varied aesthetic, at once electronically sequenced and completely organic. Containing recordings from 10 different countries, the album flaunts new facets at each turn, letting-as on "Watch For Our Lights"-rough samples from distant lands coalesce with drum machines and distorted synths. "Night In The Ocean" and "Jam Karet" put soaring synth pads around the higher frequencies while deep kicks keep the songs grounded, allowing Isaac and Melati's vocals to float in synchronicity between. And with its shifting rhythm, open structure, and layers of echoed vocals, closer and highlight, "Drawing Down The Moon," hints at crystalline take on UK garage: a last dance from a collection of short stories from around the world. With a sonic mélange of vibes on a debut that remains cohesive and distinctly their own, it will be exciting to see where the trio's tastes will guide them next.
Old Toy Trains
Old Toy Trains, a school of like-minded travelers who have grown in numbers over the course of various incarnations that are at times minimal and cosmic through the telescope that should be on your front porch. They've been on various compilations and have just released their first ep on Detroit's Mind Expansion records. Home to such acts like Fuxa,Spectrum and Suicide's Martin Rev. Also digitally via Planting Seeds Records.
Old Toy Trains was bread and spread in Los Angeles.
Old Toy Trains was bread and spread in Los Angeles.
Venue Information:
The Echo
1822 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, California, 90026
The Echo
1822 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, California, 90026
