skinny wolves
Well-Known Member
After nearly two years since their last sell out show in Whelans, we are happy to welcome Crystal Stilts back to Dublin! Following two albums on the revered Slumberland Records label, which fostered aesthetic references from the artrock of The Velvet Underground, the gothic howl of psychobilly pioneers The Gun Club through to the garage pop sensibilities of Jesus and The Mary Chain, they are set to release a new EP on Sacred Bones Records (Zola Jesus, Moon Duo, Gary War, etc)
"The Radiant Door EP reflects the band’s experiments with specific ideas in the studio and what they’ve been excited about and listening to, including Blue Orchids, Sanford Clark, and many more. Opening track “Dark Eyes” may be their strongest song to date, unshackling them from their fuzzy reputation, which, even at its heaviest, could never obscure one from this bands dexterous song-craft."
Girls Names have also released their debut album on Slumberland Records, and in their short existence they've quickly forged their own self-styled "disposable noise pop" reminiscent of the 80s shadow world of Black Tambourine and Felt.
They have just had their new single premièred on the Pitchfork website, (see here:
) which represents the band’s increasing gravitation towards melody without losing any of the strange darkness that has characterised their work to date.
This show will be the first time these labelmates have shared a stage, and we for sure, cannot wait....
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Harmonic & Skinny Wolves Presents:
CRYSTAL STILTS
w/ Special Guests
GIRLS NAMES
Friday 4th November
The Grand Social, Dublin
Doors 8PM
Tickets €15 including fees from Tickets.ie
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CRYSTAL STILTS
http://www.crystalstilts.com
Back in 2008, a lot of heads turned to clock Crystal Stilts’ Alight Of Night, their first album after a string of here-today-gone-tomorrow singles and EPs. It wasn’t exactly a surprise – Crystal Stilts felt like part of a new age dawning, of underground collectives and random, crazy groups who’d rediscovered the joys of noise-pop and set about creating their own Creations – but there was something unique about Crystal Stilts, something hermetic yet gorgeous about the world they created. With their new album, In Love With Oblivion, they stretch things further still, honing their songcraft, indulging their more strung-out sides, full of elliptical verses and perfectly chiming guitars, cranky pop organs and the punkest of rhythms. It’s a perfect blend of pop smarts and beguiling experiment. Converging in the quiet of South Florida, Brad Hargett and JB Townsend dreamt a perfect pop group and then set about recreating the dream. Along the way to New York, they collected members, record labels, a cultish fanbase, raves from the likes of Dean Wareham and Stephen Pastel, and (from across the seas, at least) the kind of mystique even the ‘know-everything’ glaze of the modern ‘net-age couldn’t debase. I still listen to their records and wonder about the people behind the songs – and this does not happen very often nowadays. Their record covers are mysterious two-tone ciphers. They know the importance of a good font. In short, they sound and look like a group you want to be in. And as with all good pop bands, Crystal Stilts not only look cool and sound great: they also listen hard. I recently read an interview where JB said his favourite show of ’09 was The Mad Scene, which made me double-take – who else cares so much about Hamish Kilgour’s other best group? But if Crystal Stilts are scholarly about pop, they don’t wear their knowledge heavily. The best songs on In Love With Oblivion are effortless, rapturous – “Through The Floor” burns on fevered energy; “Silver Sun” kisses the air with a beautiful stream of jangle guitar; “Alien Rivers” is a spooked, psychedelic requiem, roughly Opal’s Happy Nightmare Baby + 14 Iced Bears’ “Mother Sleep” x Victor Dimisich Band. (But that was my math, not theirs.) “Precarious Stair” is my favourite girl-pop-song-not-actually- fronted-by-a-girl since, I dunno, “Just Like Honey”. A friend of mine walked into my flat when “Half A Moon” was playing and for a split-second asked if it was The Damned’s “Smash It Up”, which made me chuckle. Then he looked at the speakers and wondered what exactly he was hearing. Hey, cool – it’s always good to take people by surprise. Well, that’s what Crystal Stilts do with In Love With Oblivion – take all of those expectations you have and quietly, unassumingly, but determinedly turn them upside down, make you listen differently the glorious haze of pop they pour out of their bloodied veins. A buzzing organ, some slack-strung guitars, a clutch of Moe Tucker dreams and some black tambourines rarely sounded this alive. - JADE PILLAR
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GIRLS NAMES
http://girlsnames-deadtome.tumblr.com/
Forming in Belfast in January of 2009, Cathal Cully and Neil Brogan booked their first gig as Girls Names before they’d even played together, expanding to a three-piece some months later with the addition of Claire Miskimmin on bass. Although still in their infancy, Girls Names has refined their take on the early/mid-’80s shadow world of Black Tambourine, Felt and the Sound of Young Scotland on a series of releases: one on Captured Tracks, an eight-track mini-album on Tough Love and a split 7" with San Francisco’s Brilliant Colors on Slumberland followed by Dead To Me... With their identity firmly established, their debut album Dead to Me was the next step forward and solidly delivers on the promise shown on previous releases. The song writing is more defined and the production values have been sharpened, representing a definitive break from the nonsensical lo-fi tag that has been associated with them. The band entered the studio in the last half of 2010 with the conscious desire to make an old-fashioned pop album, albeit one with a perverse haunted feel. The ten tracks that comprise Dead to Me are possessed with a warm, classic quality derived second-hand from the ’60s influenced bands of the ’80s. The songs “When You Cry,” “Bury Me” and “I Lose” are characterized by a timeless melodicism that’s long been the reserve of pop classicists from the Walker Brothers to Orange Juice, while others such as “Séance on a Wet Afternoon” reveal a darker undercurrent.
