THREE CHORD MONTE: Musician Bart King returns this year with another instance of his popular Holiday Hustle Club show, which will happen at The Foundry this time around. Special guest performers this year are Claire Campbell, Tracy Brown, Alys Willman, Anthony Zuniga, Lora Hogan, Michael Joe White and Philip Kohnen. Loosely defined as a pop-jazz-blues combo, The Holiday Hustle Club events are very well attended and needed a larger venue this year. In other news, King will release a new single named “The White Elephant Waltz” which he describes as “a tongue-in-cheek country song à la ‘The Tennessee Waltz.’” It’ll be available on all major streaming services Friday, Nov. 22. Advance tickets for the Holiday Hustle Club show are on sale now and are $15 in advance plus taxes and fees for a total of $19.41 or $20 at the door. This show will very likely sell out, so roll the dice however you want. Tickets are available at eventbrite.com/d/ga–athens/foundry.
RADIOACTIVE MEN: Propeller Sound Recordings is all set to re-release Flat Duo Jets’ 1993 album White Trees. The official street date is Friday, Nov. 22, so if you see this before then know that preorders are still open. On or after that date, you can just pick it up in stores or order like a regular person online. If you have never engaged this scorcher of a record, know that this set of tunes, all 15 of them, will get you where you’re going and are as trademark Duo Jets as you’re likely to wish for. I mean, they basically gave Jack White his reason for being, you know? While the band only ever briefly lived as a unit in Athens, long enough to appear in Athens, GA: Inside/Out at least, its fingerprint has long been on our musical map. Find the newly released record on all major streaming services and buy directly at propellersoundrecordings.com.
STEP BY STEP: A whopping 280-song benefit compilation for Western North Carolina titled Caverns of Gold: A Benefit for WNC Hurricane Relief was released recently, and you can grab the whole thing for a mere 10 bucks. One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to Beloved Asheville, which is an Asheville-based nonprofit dedicated to providing immediate assistance as well as long-term support for those in its area affected by the disaster. Athens-related artists on this compilation include Kevn Kinney, Jupiter Coyote, R.E.M., The Pink Stones, Five Eight, Mercyland, Bloodkin, The Woggles, Beat Up, Jay Gonzalez and more. Beyond them, though, is an incredible amount of incredibly talented—and famous!—folks. Please find this at cavernsofgold.bandcamp.com, and learn more about Beloved Asheville at belovedasheville.com.
NEW MAGNETIC WONDERS: The always hot-to-trot Primordial Void label is the proud home of the first new music from Elephant 6 cofounder Robert Schneider’s (Apples In Stereo, et al) longtime solo project Marbles in nearly 20 years. It’s a two-song release, “New Emotion” b/w “Free From Grief.” While Schneider has consistently worked with other projects and released other music during this time, having some new tunes under the Marbles moniker is certainly a special thing. The record notes go deep into explaining the origins and execution of these tracks, so I’m just going to talk about the actual music. The A-side, “New Emotion,” bounces slowly across a semi-Caribbean electronic beat with a gentle breeze of a melody and heavily processed vocals by Schneider. The B-side, “Free From Grief,” is shocking in its bare piano and vocal arrangement, substantial emotional weight and lovingly tender delivery. I challenge you to listen and not get choked up. Find this at primordialvoid.bandcamp.com.
FIVE MINUTES, THIRTY EIGHT SECONDS OF FEAR: Since they last appeared in this column, industrial-synth punk band Obscurity released a new single. It’s “County Fair Blue Ribbon” b/w “Hit Me.” The former is kind of a slow grinder that betrays its roots in digital hardcore by throwing that aspect kind of to the back. The latter jumps immediately into a brittle but stable beat and a melody that never really resolves. The effect is two minutes of complete anxiety. Among the stuff they’ve released so far, this is the least essential but, that said, I look forward to these being included in a retrospective sometime in the future as I sincerely hope there are many more releases due out from these folks. Find this at obscurityy.bandcamp.com.
READY FOR THE HOUSE: I’ve been oddly drawn to the new 13-track release by Luxurientes (aka Jacob Parr) named Lesser South Carolina. These recordings play as if they’re sketches or improvisations, but some are so long that they have a compositional feel about them. For example, the just-over-four-minute “1967 Colt. 45” has a deliberateness about it that surpasses its recording. All the performances here are Parr playing solo electric guitar, and its effect is something akin to hearing one’s housemate rehearsing down the hall. To give you an idea of how primitive sounding this is, it makes Jandek seem like Springsteen. The album notes appear to be relatively stream-of-conscious, and the price for downloading is a hefty $1,000. So stream this for free at jacobparr.bandcamp.com.
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