Saturday 08.27.11: KXLU presents DNTEL / THE ONE AM RADIO / GEOTIC (Will from Baths) @ Echo

8:30pm / $13adv; $15dos / 18+

DNTEL || LISTEN || WATCH||MP3
Dntel is the operational alias for Los Angeles resident Jimmy Tamborello. Jimmy also sometimes records and releases music under the name James Figurine. He is also the host of the Dublab show Dying Songs. And, he is also, it’s true, one half of The Postal Service (whose 2003 album Give Up is Sub Pop’s second best-selling album of all time). In 2007, we at Sub Pop released the most recent Dntel album, entitled Dumb Luck which included contributions from a whole raft of talented people too numerous to list here (a short version of that list would include members of Grizzly Bear, Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes, and Arthur & Yu). On Dec. 7th, 2010 we are releasing new music from Dntel in the form of a pair of companion EPs, entitled After Parties 1 and (very sensibly, given their complementary relationship) After Parties 2. These two EPs collect 8 new Dntel tracks (3 on After Parties 1 and 5 on After Parties 2) which are a bit more minimalist and experimental in nature, all of them instrumental, and feature (to the best of our “knowledge”) a list of guest contributors numbering exactly zero. These 8 new tracks are also, we are able to discern even through the mist of biases both personal and professional, really something special.Sub Pop Records

The One AM Radio || LISTEN || WATCH
The One AM Radio is a trio based in Los Angeles, where the sun hasn’t completely thawed their New England roots. They make music about the feeling you get while driving home, fast, late at night, through half-empty streets.

The project began in New England, where Hrishikesh Hirway was studying design and photography at Yale. With a borrowed guitar, a 4-track, and a drum machine, he made cassettes for his friends and his sister to fall asleep to—instrumental lullabies mixed with staticky murmurs of talk radio.

Hirway started writing lyrics and singing over his music, and began performing, using what he’d written on the label on the first cassette — “The One AM Radio” — as a moniker.

Ted Leo gave Hrishikesh his real start and his first release, after the two played a show together, inviting him to come record in Boston at Radium City, Ted’s home recording studio. Those recordings were released as a split 7-inch with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists…..Dangerbird Records

Geotic || LISTEN
It’s becoming common for hazy electro-pop artists to have an ambient side project (see Evan Abeele’s work away from Memoryhouse, and the Teen Daze offshoot Two Bicycles), which makes sense. The music is about vibe and feel, after all, so it has to be tempting to ditch the songs altogether and dive all the way into atmosphere. But while there’s a lot of music in this vein being made, much of it seems interchangeable. So it’s natural to approach Geotic, a side project of Will Wiesenfeld from Baths, with a certain amount of skepticism. But there’s more going on here than just a break from songwriting.

Mend is Wiesenfeld’s fifth album as Geotic, a project he’s been returning to since 2008. There are a few non-musical elements that might make it seem tossed-off– its unveiling via an Angelfire page, the fact that it was recorded in four days total, just after this past Christmas. But the record itself is more than just half-formed ephemera. Most of Mend was recorded on electric guitar, an instrument that didn’t feature heavily on Baths’ breakout debut LP, last year’s Cerulean. Wiesenfeld’s recent Daytrotter session demonstrated his skill on piano and his ear for deconstructing his own material, and Mend offers further revelations in the form of his guitar playing. Throughout, gently picked patterns skip across webs of static tone, all of which is swathed in amniotic fuzz. There’s a bit of sleepiness here and there, particularly on the loping “Beaming Husband”, but this is otherwise quite physical music for an ambient album. You can hear the bent notes and fingers sliding along the fretboard on opener “Unwind”, and there is real movement on the lightly galloping highlight “And Upon Awakening”. Mend ultimately feels organic and human, more about people than machines.

Which makes sense, since the bloops and warped samples of Cerulean were always in service of exploring emotion (the guy titled a song “♥”). A quick scan through Mend’s tracklist (“Find Your Peace”, “Sleep and We’ll Transition”, “I’ll Have Come and Gone With You”) reveals that those preoccupations are still very much present. There are no lofty themes or overwrought sentiments here, though. Instead, Mend’s melodies are gently simple, carrying enough heft to stick to your brain without becoming syrupy. For most bedroom artists, that’d be a triumph; for Wiesenfeld, it’s something he did over the holidays, another bend in an increasingly compelling career path.Pitchfork