Jens Lekman @ the Green Building in 2010 (more by Dominick Mastrangelo)

today in NYC
* Cumbiagra @ Barbes
* The Crooked Trio @ Barbes
* Ollabelle @ Bowery Ballroom
* Rimar, Test House @ Union Pool
* Talib Kweli (DJ) @ Brooklyn Bowl
* Zozo Afrobeat, Edoheart @ Zebulon
* Melvin Seals & JGB @ Brooklyn Bowl
* Natalie Merchant @ Highline Ballroom
* PS I Love You, Suuns @ Mercury Lounge
* Deadmau5, Excision @ Roseland Ballroom
* Mungo's Hi-Fi, MC Soom T @ Dominion
* The Mekons, Chris Mills @ The Bell House
* Twin Shadow, Diamond Rings @ Webster Hall
* Telebossa, Yximalloo @ Issue Project Room
* NOFX, Anti-Flag, Old Man Markley @ Irving Plaza
* Rifle Recoil, Werewitch, Anxieteam @ The Gutter
* The Pietasters, The Skels, Icewagon Flu @ Maxwell's
* Little Gold, Country Mice, Grand Rapids @ Cake Shop
* Robbers On High Street, The Wild Deer @ Mercury Lounge
* Earthride, When The Deadbolt Strikes, Archon @ Acheron
* Jens Lekman, Geoffrey O'Connor @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
* Deceased, Bitchslicer, Hellcannon, Possessor @ Saint Vitus
* Teenage Angst (Nirvana Tribute) @ Mercury Lounge (free & late)
* Still Flyin', Dinosaur Feathers, Sundress, The Gytters @ Glasslands
* GDFX, Olneyville Soundsystem, Koonda Holaa, Blizzardo @ Death By Audio
* Friends, Dive, Night Manager, Heaven's Gate, Kevinz Gate @ 285 Kent Ave
* Moon Bounce, Love Connection, Conversion Party, Loyal Divide, Last Tide @ Pianos
* Paper Fleet, Borrowed Beams of Light, No Fun, Moonmen On The Moon, Man @ Bruar Falls
* D. Charles Speer, Dustin Wong, Jovontaes, Pygmy Shrews, In Buenos Aires @ Shea Stadium
* Kallathon, Volahn, Arizmenda,The Haunting Presence and Raspberry Bulbs @ the Charleston

Yes, the lineup for tonight's Black Twilight Circle show at The Charleston has changed again, this time swapping out Shataan for Kallathon (who also played on Monday). The crew visited WFMU last night for a live set featuring SEVEN of their bands.

Despite what "This Week in Indie" originally listed, Ladytron is actually Saturday at Terminal 5.

This Week in Indie doesn't have many shows previews for tonight, but note that it does mention tonight's 285 Kent show in the Thursday section.

Friends, who also just announced a Mercury Lounge show with Ganglians (that goes on sale at noon today), plays that 285 Kent show.

Those Darlins got all dressed up and made a new video for "Screws Get Loose". Watch below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Friday?"

by BBG

Kuxan Suum at Acheron (more by BBG)

Though previously listed with the same lineup as the show they just played at Acheron, this Friday's 9pm Black Twilight Circle show at The Charleston will feature an almost entirely different lineup with Raspberry Bulbs, Volahn, Arizmenda, Shataan, and The Haunting Presence. Black Twilight Circle also visit WFMU that day (10/7).

The show is also one of two upcoming shows for Raspberry Bulbs who will also join Villains, Occultation and Skull at Saint Vitus on 10/18 (tickets).

Speaking of black metal, the.... New Yorker wrote a piece:

The fertile and fractious U.S. scene in the genre known as black metal can be understood through a familiar moment in rock history. In the sixties, British bands like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones mined American blues, first copying their heroes and then creating something vivid and novel. In the nineties, a range of American acts began drawing from the work of Norwegian metal bands that were famous mostly for a look and for several unpleasant events. The Norwegians were largely faithful to the "corpse paint" costume, in which the face is covered in white makeup, with black circles drawn around the eye sockets. Upside-down-cross pendants and spiked bracelets were common accessories. The tabloid-worthy events centered on a musician named Varg Vikernes, of the one-man band Burzum, who encouraged and participated in the burning of churches. In 1993, while playing bass in a band called Mayhem, he murdered the guitarist, a man known as Euronymous.
Until recently, it was a legacy that the genre couldn't shake. But now American bands such as Liturgy, Krallice, Absu, Leviathan, Wolves in the Throne Room, and Inquisition have left a fair amount of the pageantry behind--not to mention the violence--and helped to create a community, as well as a musical moment that is rife with activity...

The article goes on to talk about Wolves In the Throne Room's recent show at The Bell House.

Wolves in the Throne Room, who premiered a track at NPR, have also since received 'Best New Music' from Pitchfork.

Speaking of Liturgy, The Quietus recently interviewed Aaron Weaver of Wolves in the Throne Room . They discussed, among other things, Liturgy and its place amongst the "black metal elite": Aaron Weaver says:

"Wolves in the Throne Room has absolutely received the same kind of criticism, because over the years I've said the exact same thing [as Hunter regarding black metal's ability to be positive and optimistic]. That's something that I believe very strongly. I think that maybe the difference is that I've always said that we don't play black metal. I refer to Wolves in the Throne Room as a black metal band just sort of out of convenience. But I've also been really clear over the years that I do think that true black metal, which is a worthwhile and very powerful thing, does need to be negative. It does need to be rooted in the darkest aspects of the human experience - bitterness, negativity, hatred, violence, tribal warfare, mass murder, these sort of things lurk in the human experience, and it's always been there. And true black metal channels that incredibly destructive and insane and violent energy."

Read the whole thing HERE.

Liturgy's tour with Boris hits Irving Plaza later this month.

by BBG

The number one question from last night?

"Who is this playing?"

It may be hard to believe that anyone would go to a show without knowing who was on stage, but that was the case last night at Acheron where four bands from the Black Twilight Circle collective played (Dolorvotre, Kallathon, Shataan, Kuxan Suum) in addition to local greats Mutilation Rites.

To clarify, Black Twilight Circle is West Coast collective of bands that all deal in the dark arts, namely the different faces of black metal. The crew rose to prominence with material by Volahn and Ashdautas, whose members spun off other bands in the following years. One of the most fascinating aspects is that the BTC have kept it in the family, with the number of bands in the stable topping the number of members in the collective; individual members rotate from instrument to instrument depending on the band. This was the case on Monday night. Volahn is the single constant.

The most compelling material of the night though was fronted by Volahn, the soft-spoken and omni-present center of BTC. His vocals were the focus of both the opener Kuxan Suum and the closer Dolorvotre, the latter of which yielded a two guitar attack and were the tightest and most impressive band of the crew. The remainder of the touring bill featured Volahn either on drums (Kallathon, who were plagued with technical difficulty) or on bass (as part of Shataan), with the latter kicking off their almost-garage influenced set with a flute and a demand for "utter silence for this ritual".

Sandwiched in between sets by Kuxan Suum/Shataan and Kallathon/Dolorvotre were the great Mutilation Rites, whose thrash-y black metal power was a welcome break from the overwhelmingly-primitive black metal that was the focus of the evening. Not to say that Mutilation Rites are some glossy metal machine; this Brooklyn band shows their crusty roots but makes sure to keep it tight and well-oiled. Mutilation Rites is definitely a band to watch.

Missed it? The Black Twilight Circle will descend on The Charleston on 10/7 with the awesome Raspberry Bulbs in tow. You can also catch them that day on WFMU. More pictures from Acheron last night are below...

Continue reading "The Black Twilight Circle played Acheron (pics), playing the Charleston & WFMU"

photos by Suren Karapetyan, words by BBG

Mutilation Rites @ DbA, WITTR backdrop on the wall

"The most exciting music in American black metal today is being made by a collective of musicians who call themselves the Black Twilight Circle, and who combine for a dizzying array of line-ups under names like Arizmenda, Axeman, Kuxan Suum, the Haunting Presence, and Dolorvotre. Based in Los Angeles, the collective takes its inspiration from pre-hispanic cultures and, in solidarity with the Mexica movement, they reject terms like "latino" and "native American," and instead call themselves "Nican Tlaca," a Nahuatl phrase often translated to "we the people here," meant to refer to the indigenous population of the Western Hemisphere.

Black Twilight Circle's bloodthirsty music praises ritual sacrifice and the shamanistic exaltation of mind-altering drugs. The collective's vision of black metal combines traditional sounds and outré experiments, with Blue Hummingbird on the Left adding flutes and war drums to their instrumentation; others, like Arizmenda, churning out muscular, twisting 13-minute epics; and groups like Axeman hewing percussive BM anthems inflected with traces of '80s punk like GISM and Amebix. An intensely secretive group, the Circle's music appears in very limited editions, often on cassette; they favor off-the-beaten-path live performances..." [The Phoenix]

Mysterious black metal crew The Black Twilight Circle will head to the East Coast for a rare set of dates that will (if everything works out) include THREE NYC stops. As you can see in the list of dates below, two are still "TBA", but one is 10/3 at Acheron. The Black Twilight Circle member bands on the Brooklyn bill are Kallathon, Dolorvotre, Kuxan Suum, and Shataan. Mutilation Rites also play that show. Stay tuned for more info on the other dates.

The BTC, which is primarily based on the West Coast, recently played a showcase at Chaos in Tejas. Click the link for pics and more about that.

Mutliation Rites played Death By Audio on Wednesday 9/14 as part of a pair of NYC dates for Wolves in The Throne Room & Thou. Pictures from the show are in this post (pictures from The Bell House are HERE). Thou returns in early October.

In related news, Wolves In The Throne Room spent Saturday night (9/17) at Strange Matter in Richmond, with support from Megaton Leviathan (who re-released their demo) and Richmond favorites Bastard Sapling. Richmond show-goers might have noticed that Bastard Sapling had a new item on their merch table, Dragged from our Restless Trance, a new collection of tunes on cassette. Check out "Cold Winds Howled Across The Desolation" from said cassette below, and look for copies of it at Forcefield Records.

That song stream, more pictures from Death By Audio, and the Black Twilight Circle dates are all below.

Continue reading "black metal crew Black Twilight Circle coming east (dates), WITTR & Thou & Mutilation Rites played Death By Audio (pics)"