Categories
Concert Review

Chai and Hippo Campus at the Ritz

By: Leksie Fetrow

Hippos on campus? The probability is low, but never zero. Though it may not have been directly here on NC State’s campus, Hippo Campus and CHAI performed nearby at The Ritz, a venue I have become increasingly familiar with during my time here in Raleigh, on Friday, Oct. 21.

I was fortunate enough to receive a photo pass to this show, and ended up with photos (both digital and film) that I am very excited to share from both artists’ sets, and want to give a huge thanks to the awesome staff at The Ritz for this.

Hippo Campus is an indie rock band from St. Paul, Minnesota, comprised of lead vocalist and guitarist Jake Luppen, bassist Zach Sutton, lead guitarist Nathan Stocker, drummer Whistler Allen, and trumpeter DeCarlo Jackson.

CHAI, composed of members Yuuki, Yuna, and twin sisters Mana and Kana, opened the show up with nothing short of an incredible performance, coming on stage in crochet cat balaclavas for their song “No More Cake”. The members of the group alternated between choreography, live mixing, and playing various instruments throughout the show, bringing an astounding amount of energy to the venue.

The Japanese electro-pop group’s stage presence was so entrancing I very nearly forgot I was there for photographs for a moment. Their set was primarily made up of songs off of their latest album, “WINK”, including “ACTION”, which is one of my favorite songs by the group! I thoroughly enjoyed the entirety of their set, and believe if you get a chance you should check them out. CHAI has a very unique style of music, and I felt that their opening of the show set up a nice contrast for Hippo Campus to follow up to.

I will admit prior to continuing about headliners Hippo Campus that I have not personally listened to their new album, so I was unsure of what to expect from their portion of the show. Another photographer there had also told me that in previous years, their sets were near impossible to shoot due to the low lighting, so I was also admittedly a little worried at first from a photography standpoint.

However, I was very pleasantly surprised by their high contrast lighting and the well executed set design. Considering that I also have not listened to them since high school, I found their newer songs much more mature in the afterglow of their prior soft boy-centric indie era. Despite this, they gave a wonderfully pleasant performance and a part of my 15 year-old self was certainly satisfied with seeing them live. 

Their live vocals were impressive, sounding virtually the same as their recordings (Jake Luppen has indeed been eating CDs for breakfast!!), and the incorporation of brass instruments was a touch that I always love to see in live shows. As this show was rescheduled from a previous date as a part of their tour promoting their newest album, “LP3”, their setlist was primarily made up of these new releases, such as “2 Young 2 Die” and “Semipro.”

Though I spent a vast majority of the show running around The Ritz like a chicken with my head cut off to find angles and swap out rolls of film, I had an absolutely awesome time at this show, and it was definitely fun to take a step back and observe the flow of the crowd and the band from an exterior perspective as a photographer.

Photo taken by Leksie Fetrow.

And once again, I just want to give a major shout out to the wonderful staff of The Ritz for providing this opportunity to shoot some sick pics for WKNC (we love y’all, sorry for nearly missing my cue to leave the front of barricade I got a little too invested in the flix).

Categories
Blog Concert Review

Origami Angel, Pool Kids & Insignificant Other Concert Review

Tuesday, Nov.15 these Origami Angel, Pool Kids and Insignificant Other performed at The Blind Tiger in Greensboro, NC.

To briefly summarize: these three performances had drastically different personalities that evoked drastically different audience responses. It had some very high and very low moments.

I’ll be taking a dive into my experience at this show, focusing on the first impressions of each band, their overall stage presence and the quality of their music.

If you are interested in learning more about each band and their discography, WKNC also posted a concert preview blog. You can find the concert preview on our blog.

Insignificant Other

Insignificant Other performance, taken by author

Insignificant Other was a sufficient start to this concert but had some awkward moments that took away from their performance.

Unfortunately, this band felt a little disconnected live. Although this does not directly impact the sound of their music, each of the band member had very different energy during their performance.

To give some context, their van broke down a few days prior to this performance, which threatened their continuation of the tour and required many costly repairs and setbacks. The band was obviously in a poor mood.

However, this issue was brought up in their performance multiple times. One of the members going as far as saying, “please show us some love at the merch table, I don’t want to beg, but we are broke.”

It is extremely unfortunate that they had such a big issue mid-tour, but they allowed this issue to impact their performance greatly. It would have been more beneficial for them to bring it up once, then put on a killer performance despite the circumstances.

Personally, it’s not your comments that will move me to buy your merch– it’s the music.

The van was brought up so many times that I hardly remember what their performance was like– their complaints were at the forefront of my mind.

I want to acknowledge how difficult it must be to be an opener. The audience is not warmed up yet and the energy is low.

However, the best opening performances I have seen have been the bands that are unapologetically high energy and excited to share their music (bands like Similar Kind and Nordista Freeze).

Insignificant Other took a different route, begging for the audience to dance and overall coming off as insecure. I was hoping to see more confidence from them.

I hope in the rest of their tour they are able to cast aside their worries and put on a great show. They certainly have the skill and the discography to do so.

Pool Kids

Pool Kid’s Performance, taken by author

Pool Kids were my favorite performance of the night. They did a phenomenal job, and their performance brought a newfound admiration to their music.

I could clearly see how much this band loved working together. They glowed on the stage and had a contagious confidence to them. There were so many moments when the members would share the biggest smile with each other.

The friendship and talent on the stage was a joy to watch.

Beyond their great chemistry, they make some outstanding music. I was unfamiliar with some of their newest songs, but despite not listening to them prior, they won me over on first listen.

They provided some great moments for moshing and dancing, but also had some great moments of stillness. Overall, just a tremendously talented and well-rounded performance.

Origami Angel

Origami Angel performance, taken by author

I had some pretty high expectations from headliner, Origami Angel; and their performance was nothing short of outstanding. This emo-rock performance has so much skill packed within the two members.

This tour has been their first headlining tour, yet they had such a mature and refined sound. Their performance alluded to a band that had been on many, many headlining tours.

The Audience

Why where they not my favorite performance of the night? The audience.

Unfortunately, their fan base in this concert dampened my experience greatly. It could be due to the fact that they are a relatively new band, emerging in 2017 or it could be their angsty lyrics or pop culture references– their audience was extremely immature.

I have mentioned this in previous blog posts, but the audience is always the worst part of any performance. This audience was by far the worst I have ever experienced.

The moshing and crowd surfing was completely unhinged. Multiple people near me had gotten injured and unwilling individuals would get sucked into the chaos.

Certain individuals abused the chaos. There were two people in particular that jumped on stage and crowd surfed 8-10 times each. These individuals greatly took away from the performance by jumping on stage so frequently.

All to say, there were some poor audience members, and their behavior directly impacted the performers.

It was clear lead singer and guitarist, Ryland Heagy, got increasingly upset throughout the performance due to the shear amount of heckling and chaos on the stage. Not just in the crowd– on the stage.

It was really unfortunate to have such outstanding musicians get upstaged by such inconsiderate audience members.

I cannot stress it enough– Ryland Heagy and drummer Pat Doherty are outstanding live. I am looking forward to the opportunity to see Origami Angel again, hopefully with a more considerate audience.

Categories
Concert Review

Second Annual Psychic Hotline Block Party brought local & national artists together at Cat’s Cradle 

On Saturday, October 15, I saw Lambchop, an alternative country band on Merge Records, at the Psychic Hotline Block Party at the Cat’s Cradle and it was one of my favorite live performances I have seen in the last year. The lineup was stacked with local legends like Truth Club, Indigo De Souza who played a DJ set, Loamlands, and many national artists like Hand Habits, Bartees Strange, AROOJ AFTAB, and more.

This was the second Psychic Hotline Block Party, named after and organized by the record label created and operated by Durham’s very own Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso. It was an all-day event at the Cat’s cradle with performances inside the main room, backroom, and outside on the lawn and there was a pop-up shop inside the Arts Center. 

Lambchop closed out the Block Party in the backroom of the Cat’s Cradle. The last time I saw Lambchop, and the first time, was at Merge 30, a festival at the Cat’s Cradle celebrating the legendary North Carolina record label, Merge Record’s 30th Birthday. There the band performed as what seemed like a 20-piece to me, but there may have been seven or eight people on stage (this was in 2019 so my memory of it isn’t super clear). 

The band has a very unique sound that is unlike any other. They are able to combine opposite music styles of chamber pop, alt-country, Americana, and slowcore to create surreal sounds that filled the room. Lambchop is made up of rotating members, centered around frontman Kurt Wagner.

Their performance at Psychic Hotline was special as Wagner and Andrew Broder performed as a duo. Lambchop has never had a “core” lineup in the band, it consists of a large and ever-evolving collective of musicians including Matthew McCaughn, William Tyler, and James McNew. 

Wagner stood center stage surrounded by darkness, with Broder on the piano to his left. The duo performed many songs from their latest album, “The Bible,” which was released on September 30, 2022, on Merge Records. Before this performance, I had not listened to the album yet, but the minute the performance started I was immediately entranced by Wagner. 

The duo opened their set with “His Song is Sung,” the opening track on the new record.​​ The song was heartbreaking as Wagner sang about a visit he had with his father before he passed. I can still hear his voice echoing “no one’s edgier than I” at the end of the song.

Each song flowed effortlessly into one another, Wagner barely taking a break to catch his breath or speak to the audience. The whole audience did not take their eyes off Wagner, the room was silent, there were only a few phones out here and there taking videos, and nobody left their place in front of the stage. 

Towards the middle of the set, with my eyes locked on Wagner, shakily signing the lyrics to “Daisy,” I felt tears running down my face. Maybe it was because I only got two hours of sleep the night before, or maybe it was because I had never seen somebody be so vulnerable on stage as I saw Wagner being, but it was probably a mixture of both.  

One of the most spectacular aspects of the set was the way Wagner made his voice fill up every empty void in the venue. Not one line he sang fell flat, each word was filled with such intense emotion as it moved through the room.

Usually, when I see shows I feel like all of the energy is on the stage being shared between the members, but here I felt like the piano was swirling around me and Wagner was reaching his hand out to me and signing the words directly to me. The music felt like it moved throughout the room like a gust of wind or a distant memory passing through your mind. 

The set also consisted of new songs “A Major Minor Drag” and “That’s Music” and older tunes like “The New Cobweb Summer” from the album “Is a Woman” and “Give It,” a song that isn’t on any of their albums but has a famed indie classic, live video from their performance of it at Merge Records 20th anniversary festival. They closed their set with a fun cover of a song titled “Listening (to Lambchop by myself again)” by Sun June. 

I hope Psychic Hotline continues to put on annual Block Parties celebrating local musicians, artists on their label, and artists they look up to.

I feel very fortunate that North Carolina has such a rich music scene that artists, like Sylvan Esso, can get involved in and start a record label and host shows showcasing unique musicians and artists. 

Categories
New Album Review

“SEE YOU THERE” by Matt Watson Album Review

Matt Watson, 1/2 of the comedy duo Supermega, released his debut album “SEE YOU THERE” on November 7. The California-based musician has been working on this album for over two years and it has finally come to fruition.

Having been a huge fan of Supermega since 2016, I was pleasantly surprised by Matt’s first venture into the music scene with his EP “OUCH!” in 2020. This new album builds on the bedroom pop sound he established in that EP and embellishes it with elements of rap, dream pop and full-blown pop.

Since I am such a fan of Matt outside of his music ventures, my opinion of this album might be slightly skewed. However, it is clear that there was immense care put into this album, it comes off as a truly personal effort by Matt.

SEE YOU THERE

This album starts off incredibly strong with “STARSTUD”. Featuring Sarah Bonito, this song is an incredibly catchy pop jam that was stuck in my head for weeks after its release as a single. The addition of Sarah to the song makes this track a highlight on the album and the one I find myself coming back to most often.

Matt’s vocals work extremely well with dream pop songs. He dipped his toe into the genre with a cover of “Space Song” by Beach House earlier this year, which he put an excellent flair on. He steps further into the genre on this album, with “CORAL”. The echoey instrumental combined with Matt’s dissonant vocals and lyrics make it another highlight on the album.

Matt Watson, “STARSTUD” music videp

Many of Matt’s friends in the music industry, such as Kill Bill: The Rapper, Rav, and Ben Beal are pioneers in the lo-fi hip-hop genre. Matt takes clear inspiration from them while rapping, and there is no exception in this album.

“Ring Pop” featuring Father is the only song that is entirely rap and while a good track, I felt didn’t fit very cohesively with the rest of the album. I would definitely be interested to hear a full EP or album with Matt exploring this genre.

Many of the tracks on this album are in the same vein as the tracks on “OUCH!”. Songs like “WACKY”, “Aquarium”, “Work It Out” and “STUPID” are all very bedroom-poppy but feel more like full songs than the tracks on “OUCH!” did. It is clear that Matt has truly come into his own sound with these songs.

Conclusion

Overall, I really enjoyed “SEE YOU THERE”. Matt has begun to flesh out his sound fully and I look forward to seeing it develop further. The highlights of this album are the explorations of different genres and sounds that I hope to hear more of in Matt’s next release.

Matt Watson is touring right now on the West Coast. If you are out West, you can find tickets on his website.

Categories
Band/Artist Profile New Album Review

The Ups and Downs of Turnover

Turnover, once emo, once indie rock, now synth pop has been through many dramatic changes.

Their newest album, “Myself in the Way” has certainly been the biggest change yet. For better or for worse, Turnover has stepped entirely away from their humble emo-rock roots and is evolving into a highly synthentizer oriented band.

Past Work and Criticism

To give some history, this is not the first time Turnover has had a genre shift. Their 2019 album, “Altogether” was quite controversial due to their sudden departure from indie rock.

“Altogether” is provided many new sounds and tones from Turnover that throughly diversified and matured their overall discography. Although it was a shift, it still referenced their previous work.

However, “Altogether” was poorly received in comparison to their previous albums, “Peripheral Vision” and “Good Nature”.

In Pitchfork’s review of “Altogether” they claimed, “Turnover shot themselves in the foot at the get-go. They hoped for an album that was simple, but the banality that manifested instead was a pretty inevitable side effect.”

I as much as I enjoyed the sounds that emerged in “Altogether”, I was surprised to see them step even further away from their more popular genres.

“Peripheral Vision” was an undeniably solid indie rock album. They finally came into their voice in this album, it is hard to imagine them stepping away from it. In stead of doubling down and producing another solid rock album, they decided to explore. I don’t blame them for that.

“Altogether” was a successful exploration. “Myself in the Way” took that exploration a step too far– the result creating an unfamiliar band that is hard to connect to.

“Myself in the Way”

I have been a fan of all of Turnover’s work up until this newest album.

They have stripped themselves of all the authenticity and skill seen in “Peripheral Vision” and “Altogether” and replaced it with a hollow mess of synthesizers and autotune.

The album has been described as a blend of dream pop, disco, funk, and synth pop. Simply no reference to their perilous genres they have spent their entire careers developing.

I appreciate and admire artists that defy expectations and try something new, but Turnover is not building upon their strengths. They have ignored their best moments and amplified their worst.

For example, Turnover’s lyrics have always been on the borderline of genuine or hollow– and unfortunately the lyricism in this album is quite a disappointment. Track, “Fantasy” is the prime example of this,

“What’s your fantasy
I’d really like to know
What you’re thinking about
When your smile starts to show”

To highlight a positive, track “Wait Too Long” was a favorite on the album. Although it had very distracting, conflicting backing tracks, it was nice to hear a nice bass line and some reference to the sounds in “Altogether”.

One of the failures of Turnover in their previous work and in this release, was inserting unnecessary instruments into their songs. In track, “People That We Know” there is a rambunctious, bold trumpet line.

In the right song with deliberate placement– brass lines can take a good song to a great song. Although, in this scenario it is too timid to be the highlight yet too frequent that it takes away from the song.

To summarize, this album was disappointing and distracting.

This album truly made me doubt the overall skill of this band. Was he success of the past few albums just a fluke? Have they abandoned their roots entirely? I sincerely hope not.

Final Thoughts

I am quite interested to see how this album will be received by the general public.

Turnover has been one of my favorite bands for quite some time, but has lost some of that love in this release. I sincerely hope they return to some of the sounds in their past.

However, bands change and music change. If this is the new avenue for Turnover and this is the genre that brings them passion– so be it.

If you would like to hear more of Turnover and see them perform, they will be touring at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro Dec. 15.

Categories
Concert Review

The Garden at Union Transfer Concert Review

Who remembers the 2016 killer clowns craze that happened? This is not that. This is something even better. On October 8, with the help from our friends at Pirate Radio (shoutout to Doug) I was lucky enough to get to see The Garden in Philadelphia at Union Transfer. 

The Garden is a band composed of twin brothers Wyatt and Fletcher Shears of Orange County, California, and their music has been broadly categorized under the “punk” title, but they would personally describe it as “Vada Vada.” I would describe their music as punk-inspired, experimental, and noisy.

Daytime Music Director Maddy Moore with a friend, Janey Harlow (she/her) on the SEPTA on their way to The Garden concert at Union Transfer.

They are known for their staple jester makeup (hence the reason we look like that), and it is common for fans to show up to their shows in their Jester inspired makeup- white face, and either red or black features like diamonds around their eyes or exaggerated smiles. I think it is such a cool way as a fan and listener to connect with the artist even more. Me and the friends I went with all decided to do our variations of the jester makeup and ultimately we ended up looking terrifying on the SEPTA, Philadelphia’s transit system. 

Friend of Maddy Moore, Andrew Tracy (they/them) in face paint for The Garden.

Once we got to Union Transfer we somehow squeezed our way to the front to see the openers Kumo 99 and Flipper, respectively. These two openers were vastly different but very enjoyable. Kumo 99’s music leans closer to dance/house/electronic music, while Flipper is more similar to the Garden with heavy rock influences but more 80’s rock inspired. 

The lead singer of Flipper, Ted Falconi, although on the older side, is probably the most energetic performer I have seen live. Flipper served as a good “primer” for what was to come with The Garden. I normally know the openers to shows I go to, but I had no prior knowledge of Flipper. I’m glad I went into it “blind” almost because there was no amount of exposure that could’ve prepared me for their performance. 

Their performance energized the entire audience. Ted knows his audience and knows how to engage and energize them, and that’s exactly what he did; everybody in the crowd, whether they knew the music or not, was jamming along, and to me that seems like a really successful thing to accomplish. 

The openers were amazing, and we were pumped to see the Shears twins come out. They opened with “Haunted House on Zillow” which, for a lack of better words, is a silly song to start a concert with. 

For those who haven’t heard the song before, there is a creepy laugh that plays in the background and that, in conjunction with the excitement, the moshing started immediately.

 For the most part, they performed songs off of their new album “Horsesh-t on Route 66” but they also did some songs from their earlier projects like “Kiss My Superbowl Ring”, “Mirror Might Steal Your Charm”, and “haha.” It was a good selection of songs from their discography and just a bunch of songs to go absolutely bonkers to. Some of my favorites they performed were “EGG,” “AMPM Truck,” “Call this # now,” and one of their most notable songs, “Thy Mission.” 

Overall, I had an amazing time and I would like to thank Doug from Pirate Radio for helping me get a ticket to this show! This was easily one of my most memorable and enjoyable concert experiences. Union Transfer was an amazing venue and they made sure to hand out bottles of water to anyone who needed it, which was much appreciated after an intense hour of moshing. Unfortunately, I was having too much fun and I sweated all of my Jester makeup off, so there are no after pictures, but that goes to show how awesome the concert was.

By: Maddy Moore

Categories
Weekly Charts

Underground Charts 11/15

#ArtistRecordLabel
1PERRY MAYSUNPainting Naked [EP]Self-Released
2TOMMY RICHMANAlligatorBoom
3ERNESTO BIRMINGHAMAt a Catalyst [EP]A LONG lil while
4AKAI SOLOSpirit RoamingBackwoodz
5BLACKHEARTS, THEHorn Of The LambUboy
6SEFUHow to CryGAZO
7BILLY WOODSChurchBackwoodz Studioz
8JEAN DAWSONCHAOS NOWHandwritten
9SAEKYIAngels dont call meTwo Faced
10MAVILaughing so had it hurtsMAVI 4 Mayor
Categories
Weekly Charts

Chainsaw Charts 11/15

#ArtistRecordLabel
1ABBEY, THE“A Thousand Dead Witches” [Single]Season Of Mist
2SHOW ME THE BODYTrouble The WaterLoma Vista/Concord
3LAMB OF GODOmensEpic
4STORMRULERSacred Rites & Black MagickNapalm
5SUNAMI“2022 Promotional Tape” [Single]DAZE
6CABALExit Wound [EP]Nuclear Blast
7CABALExit Wound [EP]Nuclear Blast
8AITTALA“Collateral Damage” [Single]Exitus Stratagem
9SLIPKNOTThe End, So FarRoadrunner
10BOUNDARIESBurying Brightness3DOT

Chainsaw Adds

#ArtistRecordLabel
1FELETHDivine BlightRob Mules
2OBITUARY“The Wrong Time” [Single]Relapse
Categories
Weekly Charts

Top Charts 11/15

#ArtistRecordLabel
1PRETTY SICKMakes Me Sick Makes Me SmileDirty Hit
2FLY ANAKINFrankLex
3LAVA LA RUEHi-Fidelity [EP]Marathon
4MIKEDisco!10k
5JPEGMAFIALP!EQT
6ALEX GGod Save The AnimalsDomino
7MAVILaughing so had it hurtsMAVI 4 Mayor
8SCUBADIVERGodspeed ToSelf-Released
9SOFIE ROYERHarlequinStones Throw
10AVIADBelieve [EP]Self-Released
11KNIFEPLAYAnimal DrowningTopshelf
12MAMALARKYPocket FantasyFire Talk
13NILUFER YANYAPAINLESSATO
14070 SHAKEYou Can’t Kill MeG.O.O.D./Def Jam
15ACTION BRONSONCocodrillo TurboLoma Vista/Concord
16ALVVAYSBlue RevPolyvinyl
17ARMAND HAMMERHaramBackwoodz Studioz
18AUDREY NUNAa liquid breakfast DELUXEArista
19EVIDENCE“Delay The Issue” [Single]Self-Released
20INJURY RESERVESuperman ThatSelf-Released
21LITTLE SIMZSometimes I Might Be IntrovertAWAL Recordings
22ROBERT GLASPERBlack Radio III: Supreme EditionLoma Vista/Concord
23SEEYOUSOONVIDÉSelf-Released
24SHY HIGHGoodbye Delicious [EP]Self-Released
25SHYGIRLNymphBecause
26SKULLCRUSHERStorm in Summer [EP]Secretly Canadian
27WHY BONNIE90 In NovemberKeeled Scales
28YOUNG WABOMirage [EP]New College
29BIG THIEFDragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You4AD/Beggars Group
30LUCY DACUSSpotify Singles [EP]Matador

Top Adds

#ArtistRecordLabel
1LUCY DACUSSpotify Singles [EP]Matador
2STELLA DONNELLYFloodSecretly Canadian/Secretly Group
3DIFFERENT JANERoomsSelf-Released
4PALMNicks And GrazesSaddle Creek
5DE LUXDo You Need A Release?Innovative Leisure
6ALICIA CLARAVelveteen [EP]Hot Tramp
Categories
Weekly Charts

Afterhours Charts 11/15

#ArtistRecordLabel
1PENDANTHarpSaddle Creek
2MATVEITALES_FOR_NIGHTCLUBS_II [EP]Kitsune
3WORKING MEN’S CLUBFear FearHeavenly/PIAS
4MAGDALENA BAYMercurial World DeluxeLuminelle
5VTSSProjections [EP]Technicolour
6DIVINO NINOLast Spa On EarthWinspear
7LEBANON HANOVER“Gallowdance” (Deflex Rave Edit) [Single]Self-Released
8DEATHS DYNAMIC SHROUDDarklifeSelf-Released
9SEVDALIZARaving Dahlia [EP]Twisted Elegance
10DE LUXDo You Need A Release?Innovative Leisure

Afterhours Adds

#ArtistRecordLabel
1ST DONOVAN“melanie forever” b/w “obsidian stone” [Single]Self-Released
2JAMETATONESt. GorgeSelf-Released
3LEBANON HANOVER, DEFLEX“Gallowdance (Deflex Rave Edit)” [Single]Self-Released