Presented by Bowery Boston Doors: 7:00 pm / Show: 8:00 pm Tickets on
sale Fri 1/31 at noon! Tickets available at AXS.COM, or by phone at
855-482-2090. No service charge on tickets purchased in person at The
Sinclair Box Office Wednesdays-Saturdays 12-7PM. Please note: This
show is open to all ages. Opening acts and set times are subject to
change without notice. All sales are final unless a show is
postponed or canceled. All bags larger than 12 inches x 12 inches,
backpacks, professional cameras, video equipment, large bags, luggage
and like articles are strictly prohibited from the venue. Please
make sure necessary arrangements are made ahead of time. All
patrons subject to search upon venue entry. *** *** mxmtoon Website
Facebook Twitter On her 2019 debut album the masquerade, 19-year-old
singer/songwriter mxmtoon delivers what she calls “rhyming diary
entries”: an off-the-cuff account of her most private thoughts and
feelings, usually dashed off very late at night, straight from her
brightly lit brain. In her deliberate refusal to hide behind metaphor,
the now Brooklyn-based artist otherwise known as maia achieves a quiet
bravery, an unrestrained honesty that gives voice to those who often
go unheard. “When I first started making music it felt like an
escape from my day-to-day life, where I’d have to put on a mask to
hide what I was really feeling,” says maia in reflecting on the
title to the masquerade. “Writing songs was a way to express all the
things I couldn’t talk about in face-to-face interactions, and share
them with a community of people who maybe also needed to put up a
façade to get through the day.” Over the past couple of years, maia
has built a remarkable bond with her audience entirely on the strength
of her resonant songwriting and unaffected presence. Her 2018 debut EP
plum blossom clocked more than 100 million streams on Spotify
alone—not bad for songs recorded by herself in her parents’ guest
room. She’s now amassing millions of followers and subscribers
across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, making a point of using her
ever-growing platform to speak out on issues close to her heart. “As
a young bisexual woman of color from a family of immigrants, a lot of
current events directly affect who I am,” says maia, who’s mixed
Chinese-American. “I firmly believe it’s my obligation and
opportunity to speak on issues that affect us all.” Since the
release of the masquerade—as well as its accompanying original
Spotify podcast and graphic novel—mxmtoon’s following has only
continued to flourish. Boosted by glowing praise from the likes of The
New York Times and The New Yorker (who lauded her songwriting for
showing an “emotional sophistication that reminded us that there are
some things we never outgrow”), the album’s breakout success
recently saw maia embarking on her first-ever UK tour. In addition,
she’s now gearing up to support Lauv on his forthcoming spring tour
of Asia. Newly relocated from her native Oakland, maia is currently at
work on a pair of back-to-back EPs due out later this year with the
first single the spellbinding “fever dream.” With its soaring
chorus and shapeshifting textures, the song finds mxmtoon executing
her sound on a far more sonically adventurous scale than she’s ever
explored before. “Writing and producing with other people has really
helped me step outside what my brain would normally gravitate to, and
helped me to take more risks,” maia points out. “At first it was
nerve-racking to go from writing alone in my bedroom to working with
other people—in a way you’re essentially having a therapy session
with complete strangers. That’s a really intense environment to be
in, but it’s also been so fun and eye-opening to have other people
help me unpack all these ideas swirling around my mind.” Despite the
grander scope of “Fever Dream”—an element amplified by her
notably more powerful vocal command—mxmtoon’s upcoming output
carefully preserves the warm intimacy that’s always defined her
material. As evidenced on the masquerade, she possesses a singular
talent for turning detailed narrative of the most mundane moments into
songs with deep meaning—a transformation propelled by her delicate
melodies and utter aversion to self-seriousness. Made in collaboration
with musician/producer Robin Skinner (aka Cavetown), the album offers
such standouts as “prom dress”: a layered meditation on
expectation and disappointment penned by maia in a moment of sheer
frenzy (“I ate a Double-Double from In-N-Out and then couldn’t fit
in my prom dress and started having a panic attack,” she explains).
On songs like the impossibly breezy “seasonal depression,” the
masquerade reveals mxmtoon’s rare gift for illuminating experiences
typically unrecognized in pop music. “I wanted to be honest about
the feeling of waking up and having no desire to do anything with your
day—but then also maybe help people feel a little better and lighter
when they’re stuck in that gray moment,” she says. Meanwhile, on
the album’s showstopping centerpiece, mxmtoon presents a
particularly confessional track called “my ted talk.” “I find
myself writing all these songs about romantic relationships, which is
ironic considering I’ve had very little experience with that,”
says maia. “That song came from me asking, ‘Am I even allowed to
write something I barely know anything about?’ But I’ve realized
that my songs are a way for me to untangle my emotions and try to make
sense of what I’m going through, even if I don’t fully understand
it in the moment.” In each piece of music she creates, mxmtoon
matches her lack of artifice with the graceful musicality she first
honed by studying violin and cello as a child. After writing her first
song with two friends for a music class at age 13, she continued
writing on her own but mostly kept her output to herself. In 2017,
Maia began posting her music on SoundCloud, first only sharing her
comedy songs but eventually uploading a heart-on-sleeve track called
“feelings are fatal.” “At the time I was like, ‘Whatever—I
have 200 followers, I’m just gonna post it,’” she recalls.
“But then people really responded to it, which made me realize that
I needed to keep my music as candid as possible, because that’s what
people connect with.” As her recent touring has shown, mxmtoon
relentlessly brings that unabashed candor to her disarming live
performance. Her first ever headline US tour sold out months in
advance in part to her army of fans across social media platforms. In
the past year, she’s augmented her live set to include a drummer and
guitarist/keyboardist/background vocalist, a shift that’s
paradoxically made each show all the more intimate. “Having my band
frees me up to interact with my audience in a way that I can’t
normally do if it’s just me up there with my ukulele,” she says.
“It’s been so much fun, and I’m excited to keep elevating the
live show as I keep touring.” In her endless effort to create true
connection onstage and in her music, mxmtoon has attained an
undeniable solidarity with her listeners, ultimately providing some
much-needed solace for the shy, the sensitive, the routinely
underrepresented. “When I listen to my first album, it feels like a
musical of the things I’ve gone through and the life inside my
head,” says Maia. “I hope people come away from it feeling like
the songs belong to them too—like now there’s a piece of art in
the world that speaks to their own experiences, even if they’d
always felt like they were alone.” *** Claud Website Facebook
Twitter Claud is the solo project of Claud Mintz. After releasing
their debut EP that was made out of their college dorm room under the
name Toast with Terrible Records, Claud dropped out of college to
pursue music full time. Following a quick stint in Los Angeles to be
closer to family, they soon relocated to New York City and the
Sideline Star was born. The EP came out of a dark period of transition
and growth that ultimately resulted in Claud’s evolution as an
artist and a 20-year-old closer to finding themselves and belonging.
The project chronicles relationships, friendships and feelings of
being an outsider amongst a massive transition through their tender
pop anthems. They’ve since toured and played with the likes of girl
in red, The María’s, Clairo, Triathalon, and more.
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10/06/2020 Last update