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Harvest Records presents TRANSFIGURATIONS 2009: Part One
Featuring Bonnie Prince Billy (solo), Espers, Brightback Morning Light & Steve Gunn
Schedule
Doors open at 6:30 PM
Steve Gunn: 7:00 - 7:30 PM
Brightback Morning Light: 8:00 - 8:40 PM
Espers: 9:10 - 10:00 PM
Bonnie Prince Billy: 10:30 - 11:45 PM
August 14th
7:00 pm
Oldham debuted as a musician in 1992 with the Drag City single Ohio River Boat Song, which he released as Palace Songs; his debut album, There Is No-One What Will Take Care of You, arrived the following year as a Palace Brothers offering. By 1995's Viva Last Blues he was beginning to work as Palace Music, a name that stuck until 1997's Joya, which Oldham released under his own name. However, with 1998's Black Dissimulation and the following year's I See a Darkness, the Bonnie "Prince" Billy name seemed to stick, for the most part: aside from the soundtrack Ode Music and Guarapero: Lost Blues 2, the majority of Oldham's work from then on was credited to Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Ease Down the Road arrived in early 2001, featuring collaborators David Pajo, Catherine Irwin, Mike Fellows, and Harmony Korine. Master and Everyone appeared two years later. In 2004 came the release of a rather surprising project for Oldham -- Bonnie "Prince" Billy Sings Greatest Palace Music, in which his usual collaborators were joined by a band of Nashville session musicians for a set of polished re-recordings of songs from his back catalog.
Oldham's next project found him collaborating with guitarist Matt Sweeney (who had previously worked with Chavez and Zwan, as well as playing banjo on Ease Down the Road) for the evocative January 2005 release Superwolf. Reflective, bittersweet, and achingly melodic, it was praised as one of the year's first truly strong albums. Oldham and Sweeney followed up Superwolf that July with an extended single, I Gave You, featuring two non-album tracks. Sweeney was also on hand for the live album Summer in the Southeast, issued by Sea Note in November 2005. Oldham and Sweeney were joined by a full band for the shows. The singer released another solo album, The Letting Go, in September 2006 and followed it up with an EP of cover songs titled Ask Forgiveness in November 2007. Oldham was especially prolific in 2008, beginning the year with the live album Wilding in the West, an Australia-only release recorded in California during his 2007 tour. That spring, he returned with Lie Down in the Light, one of Oldham's more polished efforts, which Oldham followed that fall with Is it the Sea?, another live album recorded on his 2006 UK tour and released by Domino. Just a few months later in spring 2009, Beware, an ambitious effort featuring contributions from Rob Mazurek, Azita Youseffi and the Mekons' Jon Langford, arrived.
"Breaking through the dirt and shooting upward into our atmosphere is a new variety of exotic Bonnie “Prince" Billy plant. Stronger. Stinkier. It blooms in low light and cold but thrives in the sun as well, showing enticing spots and eating small creatures as they wander into its jaws. They had it coming, they were weak... and you're next! Beware.
Though Beware shares spit with its immediate predecessor released this past summer, Lie Down in the Light, its reach is longer and stronger, more grandiose. Where fiddle and steel contribute their rustic timbre alongside guitars and voices, a thickening thud of low tone rolls beneath, giving the record a bottom that's fun to watch bounce in new clothes. This intensifies the air and heralds Beware as Bonny's biggest, most ambitious record to date - yea, bigger and more ambitious than even The Letting Go. A listen or two through and you too may conclude that this could also be the great Bonnie “Prince" Billy contempo-country record - though, as always, the “Prince" goes his own special way, even when climbing the charts with brawny arms and classic titles like “I Don't Belong to Anyone," “You Can't Hurt Me Now," and “I Am Goodbye."
Bonnie Prince Billy Myspace Page
Espers is a psych folk band from Philadelphia that is part of the emerging indie folk scene. They formed in 2002 as a trio of singer-songwriter Greg Weeks, Meg Baird and Brooke Sietinsons but later expanded to a sextet including Otto Hauser, Helena Espvall and Chris Smith. Their music is reminiscent of late-sixties British folk as well as many contemporary folk acts such as Six Organs of Admittance. Most of the band's members have also featured on recordings by a number of other folk artists such as Nick Castro and Vashti Bunyan and as a result have become an important part of the psych-folk revival.
They released their self-titled debut in 2004 on Locust Music and followed that with an album of cover songs, The Weed Tree, in 2005. This release featured the band's versions of songs by artists as diverse as Nico, The Durutti Column and Blue Öyster Cult. In 2006 the band released their third full-length album, II (presumably so called because it was their second album of original material), on Drag City Records.
Brightblack Morning Light are the work of N. Shineywater & friends. Recording a debut in 2006 for NYC's Matador Records... the tent based collective opened for Os Mutantes, Vashti Bunyan & Ramblin' Jack Elliott in 2006 Northern California shows. Previous shows include DANIEL A.I.U. HIGGS (Dischord), LAVENDER DIAMOND (Matador), ESPERS (Drag City), JOANNA NEWSOM (Drag City), MARIEE SIOUX (Grassroots), BILL DANIEL (Films), LAURIE ANDERSON, as well as All Tommorrow's Parties Barcelona.
Brightblack Morning Light Myspace Page
Steve Gunn is probably best known as a key component to the mighty GHQ with Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards) and Pete Nolan (Magik Markers), but his solo efforts have been even more impressive. With a couple limited & hard-to-find CD-Rs under his belt and a few offerings under the moniker Moongang, Gunn is ready to step out of the shadows and into the spotlight with his first proper CD. This music is finely-tuned and expertly crafted by Gunn's capable hands, showing his skill not only as a guitarist, but as a songwriter as well. Sundowner may be short & sweet, but it has an epic feeling. Gunn reaches deep into the vaults to line the walls with hypnotic acoustic guitar dirges, organic drones, and banjo ditties. And unlike any of his previous work, he also unleashes his voice on three songs, showing that not only can he play with the best of them, he can sing too. When he's not wowing the listener racing around the fretboard, his simple but effective vocal hooks are sinking themselves deep into the confines of your memory.
