CURRENT JOYS (SOLO) Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/currentjoys/] |
Bandcamp [https://currentjoys.bandcamp.com/] | Instagram
[https://www.instagram.com/nicholasrattigan/?hl=en] | Website
[http://currentjoys.tumblr.com/]
ABOUT THE SHOW:
_Doors 7pm / Show 8pm_
_Tickets on sale Friday 9/7 at 10am _
Current Joys is the enigmatic solo project of 25-year-old Henderson,
Nevada-born songwriter Nicholas Rattigan. In addition to his minimal
two-piece band with Jacob Rubeck, Surf Curse, Rattigan has been
releasing a prolific catalog of heart-wrenching no wave ballads via
Bandcamp under a handful of names (including The Nicholas Project and
Tele/Visions), eventually choosing Current Joys as the permanent
moniker, based on a song by folk-artist Liam the Younger of the same
name. His newest release, A Different Age, documents the process of
making art and the desire to create it sincerely in an era fraught
with extreme irony, apathy, and nostalgia. Ripe with many of the
emotions and conflicts that have influenced Rattigan’s songwriting
in the past, A Different Age contains some of his most poetic lyrics
and thoughtful arrangements to date.
Rattigan started writing the material for A Different Age, his fifth
solo album, in 2015, shortly after moving from Reno to New York City
and the release of the album Me Oh My Mirror (the limited-edition
cassette of which is now sold out, along with all his other tape
releases). A Different Age has changed drastically over the past three
years as a result of Rattigan’s relocations, with each city
influencing and altering his work. He discarded and re-recorded
various tracks many times over throughout the process. Rattigan’s
work on the album spans across almost three years, primarily due to
the success of his other project Surf Curse who released a new
critically acclaimed LP, multiple tape re-issues, and toured across
America and Europe since he began making A Different Age.
He first wrote the title track, which serves as the album’s
emotional core. A meditation on an artist’s place in contemporary
culture, Rattigan sings about breaking free from outdated conventions
over a driving beat and lush string arrangements that swell to a
chilling static. Rattigan later revisits those themes throughout the
record while also referencing the films and art that has inspired him.
A nod to Brian Eno, the slow burning album opener “Become the Warm
Jets” reflects on the power of music and the overwhelming feelings
that hit when “that old song starts to play.” Later on, in “My
Nights are More Beautiful Than Your Days” (named after a film by
French director Andrzej Żuławski), Rattigan’s haunting vocals
acknowledge the futility in trying to outrun one’s past. While most
artists would draw influence from other musicians, Rattigan, a
cinefile, is inspired by the works of several different directors. The
vibrant, dark tone of the album is set to reflect the films of German
new wave director Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the slow burning pace
of the Belgian art-house filmmaker Chantel Akerman.
As with his previous releases, Rattigan made most of A Different Age
alone with a single guitar, drums, a loop pedal, and his laptop. After
testing out many of the songs for the first time on the road and at
sold out DIY shows in each of the cities he’s lived in, Rattigan
consciously tried to distill the passion and spontaneity of his live
performance into his recordings. He chose to leave many of the tracks
desolate and sparse in an effort accentuate the emotional nuances of
his performance. He also brought in label-mate Robert Tilden of BOYO
to help record “Become The Warm Jets” and “A Different Age,”
before eventually mixing and mastering the album on his own.
CRASHPREZ
Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/CRASHprez/] | Bandcamp
[https://music.crashprez.com/#_=_] | Instagram
[https://www.instagram.com/CRASHprez/] | Website
[http://crashprez.com/]
CRASHprez was born from lonely musings in a suburban basement in
Prince George’s County, MD. The “CRASH” originates from a poetry
event in Baltimore in the summer of 2010: he almost passed out from
dehydration and the homies clowned him for it, giving him the
nickname. The “prez” comes from his time at Kettering Elementary:
the school nurse told him he could be president one day.
CRASHprez is a hip-hop project rooted in the traditions of protest
music, remix culture and digital DIY. Through an intersectional lens,
he interrogates the triumphs and turmoil of modern society from the
vantage of a millennial Black man in the United States. He’s shared
stages with Chance the Rapper, Danny Brown, Vince Staples, Ab-Soul,
and Lil B the Based God among many others.
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16/11/2018 Last update