This week’s installment of Carolina Grown is exciting for a few reasons. First off, since the show started I’ve yet to have an entire hour where I get to do nothing but play local music! Granted the whole point of a talk show is to chat with guests, but throughout the second hour of the show this week listeners will get the treat of continuous local tunes from a wide variety of artists and genres. I’m far more excited for this than I probably should be, but combining it with the fact that we’ll be highlighting our November Artist of the Month during the 5:00 hour, this makes for an awesome two hours of programming.
November’s Artist of the Month, and my guest for the first hour of Carolina Grown, is Whatever Brains. For those unfamiliar with this Triangle standout act, Whatever Brains are an amorphous punk band that has swiftly come to command the attention of everyone in proximity. Combining sparse electronic percussion with wrangling instrumentation that teeters simultaneously between noise rock, punk and garage rock, Whatever Brains’ music slowly unfurls with as much aggression as they have precision. With three full-length albums, all self-titled might I add, the band has steadily stayed close to their roots while slightly experimenting with their tried and true sound to make things both exciting and familiar.
Whatever Brains have swiftly become the figureheads of Raleigh’s punk-rock scene, especially with the untimely falling out of Double Negative. The band combines spastic punk rock roots with sprawling bouts of lo-fi psychedelia and riveting lyricism to tightly pull it all together. The band is oozing with tightly wound frustrations that pour out through their caustic live performances, displaying the tact and finesse that many punk bands are devoid of.