MT BEARINGTON
Matt Thomas knows how to write a song—as evidenced in over a decade of music-making with the Weigh Down, Leaves of Lothlorien, and Short Pants Romance. Sometime around 2006, he found himself in between projects, wondering what to do next. The answer came as soon as he got his hands on a Mac and discovered Garage Band. He toiled and tinkered. He wrote and recorded one song. One song led to many. He shared a few with people. The people really liked them—particularly Jason Hamel of Mates of State, who encouraged Matt to put a band together to share a bill with the Mates and Carlos Wells, who released the collection of bedroom recordings as "A Cloak of Nouns and Loss" on Safety Meeting Records in 2008. Three drummers, four bassists, three guitarists, and one trumpeter/keyboardist later—the Bearington Band remains busy as ever. Over the past two years, the band has shared the stage with Deerhoof, the Drums, and Tim Easton at New London's 2009 I AM Festival, rocked with Of Montreal and Lupe Fiasco at the 2010 BOMB Fest, and opened for Mates of State on a Northeast stint in February 2010. Their full-band, follow-up effort "Love Buttons" hit the shelves on Valentine's Day 2011. Produced by Fuzzy Rainbow (Fake Babies, Eula), with a hand from Greg Giorgio at Tarquin Studios (Interpol, The National), it's an upbeat collection of sonic musings on various forms of love—from the traditional to the twisted—through the eyes of characters real and fictional. And just in case that's not enough to keep you entertained, don't fear—the next record "Silent Immortals" about a gang of vampire mimes is already in the works. That's right, we said "vampire mimes."
SNAKE OIL
Snake Oil is a collective with its primary collaborators in NYC, Western Massachusetts, and Southern Connecticut. They produce electroacoustic instrumental music that is skeptical of genre distinctions, though this is subject to change without notice. Snake Oil released a debut LP in 2011, followed up by a 7" EP in early 2012. A new LP, The Train is White and the Moon is Strong (or Combinations of Objects and Animals), will come out later this year. The new recordings draw from a wide range of influences--Nigerian psychedelic, free jazz, kraut rock, funk, early fusion, etc. The live line-up includes members, past and present, of Weigh Down, Titles, Stephen Brodsky, MT Bearington, Latitude/Longitude, Charles Burst, and others.
SPACE ORPHANS
The sound is built upon a thick foundation of scratchy guitars, weighty drums, relentlessly shifting rhythms and rowdy animated vocals. Their arrangement adds a blanket layer of cosmic essence, worthy of their name, while the musical structures are focused, finely tuned and surprisingly melodic. The members other music affiliations (Jupiter Suction, Kimono Draggin', Atrina, MT Bearington, Leaves of Lothlorien, Council of Five Nations), while completely different, gently seep through the cracks to create the unique sound that is Space Orphans. If cornered into describing their genre, one might say they are a mixture of Shoegaze, Glam and Prog...but you really need to hear them for yourself in order to wrap your head around it.
Elm Bar 372 Elm Street New Haven CT. Thursday Jun 27th 9:30pm $5 Cover.
