Dig ‘in: Dry Cleaning, voyeur, Verity Den
Check out what the No Wristbands team is listening to and what’s in our show calendars this month on our latest Dig ‘in.
INCOMING
Dry Cleaning - Secret Love (4AD LP)
When Dry Cleaning guitarist Tom Dowse invited Florence Shaw to a rehearsal of his fledging band project in hopes of getting her to sing over their instrumental music, she was uneasy about the prospect of it. It would a good hour or so of the band jamming before Shaw would utter anything. What did finally come forth was her iconic sprechgesang delivery of peculiar observational phrases that Shaw had been taking note of in recent times. A few stray snippets of traditional singing would gradually emerge from her over time, but it took coaxing from Cate Le Bon to get her more comfortable with the approach when she was enlisted to produce Dry Cleaning’s third full-length album, Secret Love.
The singing is most prominently found on the tracks “Joy,” “The Cute Things” and “Secret Love” (Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy),” but even then they’re interspersed with Shaw’s spoken word recitations with the sum effect of providing a richer range of sonic textures. Overall, the instrumentation on Secret Love is more nuanced; carried out in the service of the song as opposed to peeling off on a tangent. “Rocks” and “Evil Evil Idiot” incorporate the dissonance that has been a calling card for Dry Cleaning from the get go. Shaw’s provocative turn of a phrase is as sharp as ever: “Striking while the iron is hot” from “Cruise Ship Designer” and “I don’t like to clean / I find cleaning demeaning” from “My Soul / Half Pint.” On the later number, she declares “I don’t give a fuh” in such a blasé manner that indicates that she can’t be trifled by convention and the expectations of others; a decidedly punk attitude from a literary mind! -Bruce Novak
voyeur - The Burden of Desire (self-released LP)
Fifteen years after their break-up, Sonic Youth still casts a considerable shadow over the NYC noise rock community. Voyeur lurks in those shadows, bearing a distinct resemblance while also looking to forge their own identity.
The Burden of Desire was recorded and mixed by Martin Bisi, who was behind the board during Sonic Youth’s amazing run of EVOL, Sister and Daydream Nation. Voyeur is similarly fronted by the couple of Jakob Lazovick and Sharleen Chidiac, who regularly swap verses, sometimes shouting to be heard above the swirling maelstrom. Numbers like “I Don’t Want To” and “Probably” rush headlong into the fury, while “Split My Heart” stretches out and gently dissipates into the ethers. “Thorn” follows a reverse pattern; building in intensity as it progresses. Voyeur throttles back the aggression on “I Can’t Wait”—a hushed ballad featuring the yearning voice of Chidiac.
With their album debut on The Burden of Desire, voyeur are serving notice of their presence and are off to a promising start with room to evolve from there. -Bruce Novak
Verity Den - wet glass (Amish Records LP)
On their second record release, Carrboro, North Carolina’s Verity Den cover a vast swath of territory; from ambient realms to blissed-out pop, on over to the noise rock scrap pile. “Vacant lot” kicks things off with an industrial-sounding lead-in that gives way to Casey Proctor’s airy vocals and majestic reach. On the title track, Proctor and Mike Wallace split vocal duties, working as counterparts with Wallace’s plaintive spoken delivery set against Proctor’s celestial tones. Wallace goes on the offensive during “spit red,” full of invective as he questions “So what’s the point of being seen / When you’re just something else on the wing / Walking on sunshine waiting for the man / We gotta move out but the weather’s moving in / Do you think it’s sinking, sinking in?” The pair reconnect on “green drag,” striking a more optimistic tone in noting that “Nobody knows everything / So don’t say no to anything,” Wet glass offers a glimpse of Verity Den’s worldview; things are not always crystal clear but they eventually come into focus. -Bruce Novak
UPCOMING
Rainer Maria at Ramova Theatre - Jan 17, 2:00 PM
Prompted by their poetic pursuits, the members Rainer Maria formed in 1995 at Madison’s University of Wisconsin. As a female-fronted trio, the band was an anomaly in the male-centric circles of Midwest emo, but the confessional intensity of vocalist/bassist Caithlin De Marrais soon resonated with the sensitive set. They eventually set up shop in Brooklyn before initially calling it a day in 2006 soon after the release of their fifth album, ironically titled Catastrophe Keeps Us Together. A reunion show at the Bowery Ballroom near the end of 2014 facilitated a smattering of subsequent gigs and a songwriting surge culminating in their last album, S/T, in 2017. After another similar hiatus Rainer Maria emerged again and celebrated their 30th anniversary with a performance last summer in their former hometown of Madison at Atwood Music Hall. Their Ramova Theatre appearance is part of a fourteen band line-up across two stages that runs from two in the afternoon to eleven in the evening. -Bruce Novak
Golomb at Schubas Tavern - Jan 17, 8:00 PM
Co-vocalists and current spouses, Mickey and Xenia Shuman, met in high school in Columbus, Ohio and first performed together at a local cafe when she joined his band on stage to sing a duet of X’s “The Once Over Twice.” Family ties run deep in Golomb, with Xenia’s brother Hawken Holm rounding out the trio as their stickman. The siblings grew up immersed in music; benefactors of their parent’s participation in a number of local indie bands. Their father David even pitched in with guitar accompaniment on a couple of tracks on their 2022 self-titled debut album and then again on the follow-up,The Beat Goes On, that arrived last summer on the No Quarter label. That record finds the band hitting their stride with a palatable energy stoked by the trio’s telepathic playing and the addictive harmonizing between Mickey and Xenia. Their secret deserves to get out; Golomb is a family affair in the best sense of the word. -Bruce Novak
Optic Sink at Hideout - Jan 31, 8:30 PM
On 2019’s 3, the final studio album from Memphis’ girl garage punk outfit Nots, vocalist and guitarist Natalie Hoffman started incorporating synths into the band’s repertoire. That was the direction she pursued when she teamed up with electronic musician/drummer Ben Bausermeister for the inception of Optic Sink. After playing a show with Sweeping Promises, Caufield Schnug and Lira Mondal extended an offer to the pair and their new bassist, Keith Cooper, to record their second album, Glass Blocks, at their Lawrence, Kansas studio. Optic Sink tapped Memphis icon Greg Cartwright (Reigning Sound, Oblivians) for pre-production assistance on their fine follow-up, Lucky Number, and then returned to Lawrence to once again record with Schnug and Mondal. Mondal pitched on supporting vocals and synth on a few tracks, and there are certainly parallels between the two outfits with their electronic dance orientation, but whereas Sweeping Promises fall on the summery vibes spectrum, Optic Sink inhabit an icier approach. For the Hideout show, they’ll be partnered with Cincinnati’s wonderful Artificial Go, whose latest record, Musical Chairs, is another delight that I covered last year. -Bruce Novak
UNCOVERED
100 Flowers - S/T (Happy Squid Records LP)
After skewering punk’s self-seriousness under the banner of The Urinals, John Talley-Jones, Kjehl Johansen and Kevin Barrett re-christened themselves as 100 Flowers to pursue a more wide-ranging art-punk platform. The change proved brief, with the LA trio splitting a month before they were able to release any recordings. In hindsight, their self-titled debut was eclectic and diverse to an extent where the band members couldn’t help but quibble over divergent viewpoints on their direction.
The eclecticism is what makes the record still sound relevant forty-plus years after its creation. There’s the wiry pop of “Without Limbs” and “I Don’t Own My Own Heart” that follow a linear path, devoid of traditional choruses. There’s the New Wave/No Wave mash-up “Horizontal,” a paean to base desire as expressed by the socially awkward. “Pressing the Point” sounds like the precursor to Steve Albini’s roadmap for Big Black with a simmering tension that explodes into unmitigated rage. “Poltergeists At Home” and “Virtually Nothing” keep the neurotransmitters firing throughout, sprinting headfirst in dizzying fashion. Admirably, long after 100 Flowers had gone out of print on the band’s own label, San Francisco’s erstwhile Superior Viaduct stepped in to re-issue it thirty years from its inception. -Bruce Novak
We recommend listening along over at our Spotify page. Here’s this week’s content: