The Bowery Presents

The Mercury Lounge upcoming shows

Early Show

CMJ Music Marathon - Windish Showcase!

The xx
9:00
Javelin
8:00
Lia Ices
7:00

All set times are actual times.
Venue:
The Mercury Lounge
Date:
Wed 10/21
Notes:
21+
Doors: 6:30 PM / Show: 6:30 PM
$15
The xx
official website
myspace
The xx arrive with their brilliant debut single ‘Crystalised’ – released on 20th April 2009 on Young Turks.

The xx are a London quartet, featuring the dual lead vocals of Romy Madley-Croft and Oliver Sim (who also play lead and bass guitar respectively), Baria Quereshi (keyboards and guitar) and Jamie Smith (beats, MPC sampler).

All 19 years old, The xx are childhood friends who formed while attending the Elliot School – the south west London comp whose alumni also includes such acclaimed boundary-pushers as Burial, Four Tet and Hot Chip.

Bonding over a shared love of stripped back anti-folk and mid-90s R&B, The xx’s unique sound befits a wide range of influences that include everything from Aaliyaah to Cocorosie, Rhianna to The Cure, Missy Elliot to the Chromatics, The Kills to Ginuwine, The Pixies to Mariah Carey and Justin Timberlake to Tracey & The Plastics.

These influences combine via beautiful, hushed vocal duets and a brilliantly inventive use of samplers and low-end frequencies to produce the stark, sweet melancholic pop of this debut single. Available on 7” vinyl, ‘Crystalised’ also features a cover of band favourite Aaliyah’s ‘Hot Like Fire’ on the b-side that further expands The xx’s hauntingly soulful sound. Both tracks are produced by the band themselves and engineered by Cocadisco’s Rodaidh McDonald.

Meanwhile, The xx are currently putting the finishing touches to their debut album, due for release later in 2009. Due for release on XL Recordings imprint Young Turks (Holy Fuck, Young Turks), this will be the first ever album to be recorded in XL’s in house studio.
Javelin
official website
myspace
In performance, Javelin will use colorfully painted boomboxes that form large speaker totems (“boombaatas”) which can hang from the ceiling or stack up on the floor like pyramids. The signal from the show is broadcast via FM transmitter, thereby fostering audience participation (B.Y.O.Boombox) or fueling battery-powered, mobile parties.

The duo has played venues as diverse as the children’s branch of the Olneyville Public Library (RI), to the Museum of Modern Art (NY), both of which happened in the same week. When not performing, Javelin is busy producing. Together they have amassed a vast catalogue of music, varying in its aesthetic range. Songs resemble the record collection from whence they spring, if not literally as when sampling, then figuratively as when past forms are cited and recontextualized.

Sounds range from broken dance jams to relaxed instrumental cut-ups, created with love on their MPCs. Long forgotten samples are chopped and re-assembled with drums, wooden recorders, old keyboards, handmade thumb pianos or whatever instruments are readily at hand. The result is a kind of mix tape fantasy (residing in the mythical “dollar bins of the future”), where R&B impresarios, amateur booty bass producers and Andean flautists hold equal sway.
Lia Ices
official website
myspace
Lia Ices is a singer-songwriter of uncommon power and presence based in Brooklyn, New York.

Lia’s 2008 debut, Necima, was recorded at the Rare Book Room with Nicolas Vernhes—Lia at the piano, Nicolas at the board and an assortment of talented friends (including guitarist Eliot Kessel, drummer David Muller, cellist Brent Arnold and multi-instrumentalist Robbie Lee) helping to flesh out the gracefully spare arrangements.

The eight songs on Necima accurately reflect the experience of seeing Lia perform live: Her music acts as a bulwark against the frenetic maximalism of the world, slowing time and quieting the noises that distract us from what matters; circling from periphery to center and outward again, it renews the questions to which we’ve always returned. And maybe, if your ears are all in, and your phone is off for just a bit, something that had been dark will light up again. Attention, attention…

After selected shows in the fall and winter, Lia will be on more stages near and far throughout 2009, including dates with Iron & Wine; Loney, Dear; and Juana Molina.

www.rbrrecords.com
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© 2010