LEEDS: The Brudenell Social Club

Wednesday 15th August, 2012

7:30pm

Event information

DAMIEN JURADO:
Welcome to Maraqopa, population 2. Damien Jurado's newest collaboration with producer Richard Swift drops us into a brutal and benevolent landscape. The bold strokes and new turns the pair made with 2010's Saint Bartlett are taken even further. He throws open the gate on his oft insular dirges and allows them do some real wilding out in the canyon. In Maraqopa, the vistas are miles-wide; the action is more dynamic; the close-ups sweaty and snarling. The strummed desert blues that begin "Nothing is the News" quickly bursts open into an Eddie Hazel-worthy supernova shred session, all of it swirling in tinny-psych and Echoplex'd howls. We've never heard anything like this from Jurado. Fifteen years into his remarkable career, and he continues to blossom. Jurado and Swift establish themselves not only as inventive, trusting collaborators, but as one another's spirit animals in American outsider songcraft --lone wolves in black sheep's clothing. Swift is the Ennio Morricone to Jurado's Sergio Leone.
At Swift's National Freedom studios, the live-to-tape ethos allowed these songs to expand and retract like a great beast's breath. Every in-the-moment bell and whistle here is hung with a natural, casual care. And from this, each song offers up its own unique gift: the enchanting children's choir that echoes each line of Jurado's lament for innocence lost on "Life Away from the Garden"; the breezy bossa nova that begins "This Time Next Year" and rises as effortless as a smoke cloud into high-noon showdown pop; "Reel to Reel"'s wobbly, Spector-symphony and its meta themes; the wonderful falsetto vocal work Jurado pulls from himself on "Museum of Flight." The Seattle Times recently called Jurado "Seattle's folk-boom godfather," a praising recognition to be sure. But also a title Jurado might not yet be ready to accept. That's a title for someone who has settled. With each visit to National Freedom, Jurado is exploring, taking risks. He's not only freeing his songs. The gate is opened wide to allow us all into his once-isolated musical universe. One gets the sense he's just now hitting his stride.
New Album, Maraqopa, out now on Secretly Canadian.
http://www.damienjurado.com

MEGAFAUN:
Based in Durham, North Carolina, Megafaun was built by brothers Brad and Phil Cook and fellow Eau Claire, Wisconsin, native Joe Westerlund. The trio, plus longtime friend Justin Vernon (a.k.a. Bon Iver), made the cross country move together from WI to NC as the band DeYarmond Edison, ultimately splitting in 2006. Megafaun was born from those ashes and proceeded to record the remarkable album Bury the Square in 2007. They found a home on the road, collaborating with friends (they also joined Akron/Family and Dreyblatt as backing band) and developing an American musical language that is exquisitely translated by this year's Gather, Form & Fly.

"Megafaun pickles rickety back-porch folk reconstructions in a brine of chaotic field recordings and organic, free-form atmospheres...so ingeniously balanced that it stands a chance of satisfying both folk and experimental music fans." - Brian Howe, Independent Weekly

Brad, Phil, and Joe have been playing in bands together since 1997, after meeting at jazz camp in Wisconsin as teenagers. Life's been an additive --- and adaptive --- process since then, bound by a rare and long-lasting commitment to a friendship that has always been set to music. With the end of DeYarmond Edison, a paradigm-shift was imminent. "Brad and I left our primary instruments behind and picked up secondary ones. We booked a seven day tour with out having written any songs," said Phil, revealing the seeds of the improvisational spirit that both Megafaun and their fans now cherish and exalt. "We've become song writers collectively and individually through the birth of this band," added Joe, "and Gather, Form & Fly marks a huge growth and change in our thinking about time and song form."

Megafaun's past three years ripple with the power of varied experience usually reserved for a lengthy decade: 250 shows over the past two years, supporting tours doing double-duty as backing band/collaborator with nearly every notable and diverse tourmate, and musical exploration spanning albums, generations of musical history, and fathoms of personal exploration. That self-survey daringly brings itself to the stage: "We thrive on situations that allow us to expose our nuances, our imperfections, and our spontaneity. We are not afraid of the imperfect set, but areafraid to limit ourselves to the non-spontaneous nature of recitation," said Joe. That same spirit informed the album, which was self-recorded in three bedrooms, a kitchen, a yoga studio, a living room, a basement, and in a forbidden university piano studio that they had to break into to find an in-tune piano. In act of further embracing the new, Megafaun brought in Chris Stamey (the dBs, Holsapple-Stamey, et al) to help mix and guide Gather, Form & Fly, adding another dimension to the superb result.

"We have an all-inclusive, listener-sensitive, tradition-hungry, innovative and genuine practice of improvisation. The stylistic spaces we inhabit during these improvisations can span influences from dissonant 50s electronic music, musique concrete, and free jazz; to a melodic consonance associated with traditional American folk and popular song forms, as well as some traditional influences from other parts of the world (African, Cuban, South American Rhythms). Really, we feel all these musical styles (academicly-based or not), when incorporated in the improvisational life of this band, become part of our own folk tradition." - Joe Westerlund of Megafaun

Gather, Form & Fly rings out in its honesty to its makers and, thus, to its listeners --- both on wax and on stage. Phil, Brad, and Joe move with awareness of their every move, acknowledging in near-unison that this album share's Bury the Square's broad stylistic and emotional palettes --- group percussion, cacophony, drone, and folky narration will not disappoint --- but also reveals sounds and words that have been, somewhat silently, with them all along. There are the moments, present in every song, that will turn heads toward speakers, turn eyes toward the sky, and turn all notions of music on their sides, if just for one shimmering and genuine moment. And then, almost anywhere this Summer, you can go see them live --- and hear it all again, for the first time.

"I love that when we talk to each other, names like David Tudor, Anthony Braxton, Avett Bros. and the Band are mentioned in the same breath. We are attracted to people who are always searching and always honest. That's the core aesthetic we are drawn to." - Brad Cook of Megafaun

http://www.megafaun.com

Venue information

LEEDS: The Brudenell Social Club

0	33 Queens Road Leeds West Yorkshire LS6 1NY
>	www.brudenellsocialclub.co.uk
!	01132752411
`	Live music will generally begin around 30 minutes after doors open.