Terminal 5 upcoming shows
WRXP Presents
Editors
The Antlers / The Dig
- Venue:
-
Terminal 5
- Date:
- Fri 2/19
- Notes:
- all ages
- Doors: 7:00 PM / Show: 8:00 PM
- $27.50 advance / $32.50 day of show
- Editors
- official website
- myspace
- Editors released their third album, ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ on 12th October 2009. The album represents a significant step forward for the band following the huge successes of debut album ‘The Back Room’ and the Number One follow up ‘An End Has A Start’.
There have been many changes to life in Editors since ‘An End Has A Start’ broke the band worldwide and established the then Birmingham based four piece as one of the UK’s most prominent bands of recent times. Bassist Russell Leech and guitarist Chris Urbanowicz are now resident in New York whilst singer Tom Smith has become a father. These changes added to the sense that ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ was the start of a new chapter for Editors and the band came together in London for the recording sessions with producer Flood at the start of 2009 with a determination to push their sound into wholly new territory. Whilst all four members were keen to make a far more electronic record, they were determined to ‘give the machines a human feel’ in the words of lead singer Tom Smith.
London dominates the record, both lyrically and musically. According to Tom, now resident in the capital for four years, ‘I actually think it’s in every song. In the right time and place, in the right light and on the right evening, something you have seen 1,000 times before can still take your breath away’ whilst the background of electronic whirrs and hums that run under many of the tracks mimic the constant background noise of the city.
Renowned for their explosive live performances, the release of the album sees the band return to UK dates for the first time since their triumphant double header at Alexandra Palace in March of 2008. Prior to those concert hall shows, the band appear at selected festivals throughout Europe. Dates follow overleaf.
- The Antlers
- official website
- myspace
- Sometimes you have to put yourself first, no matter how difficult that notion seems; no matter how much time and effort you’ve already put into this one person—the person who’s reduced your very being to its absolute core. Just ask Peter Silberman, the string-pulling founder of The Antlers, a solo project that suddenly went widescreen on the self-released Hospice LP (now receiving a proper widespread pressing through Frenchkiss). The first Antlers effort to feature two key permanent players—powerhouse drummer Michael Lerner and the layer-lathering multi-instrumentalist Darby Cicci—it’s an album with a sound that’s actually as ambitious as its concept.
“Hospice came from the idea of caring for a terminal patient who’s mentally abusive to you,” says Silberman. “You don’t have the right to argue with them, either, because they’re the one who’s dying here; they’re the one that’s been dealt a wrong hand. So you take it, but you can only take so much. Eventually, you realize that this person is just destroying you.”
Appropriately enough, Hospice’s 10 distinct chapters resonate on debilitating sonic and lyrical levels, from the hypnotic harp and tension-ratcheting build of “Two” to the sing-or-sink choruses of “Bear” and the speaker-rattling peaks of “Sylvia,” easily one of the year’s most immediate epics. It’s here, amidst contrasting shards of ambient noise, sweeping strings and smoky horns, where The Antlers truly transcend Silberman’s singer-songwriter beginnings—a striking escalation of expectations first hinted at on 2008’s New York Hospitals EP. The progression doesn’t end there, either. In a move that could be taken as the riff-raking extension of his thorough guitar training (from the age of 6 ‘til right before college), “Atrophy” and “Wake” delve into sheets of distortion, subtle shades of soul, cicada-like effects and enough movements to fill an entire EP.
“We were going for something that’d be dense but not too complicated,” explains Silberman. “I hate the word ‘lush,’ but I guess that’s the best way of describing it. The structures are like pop songs—verse/chorus, verse/chorus—but the sound is a little more shoegaze-y or post-rocky.”
It’s about to get even more complicated, too, as The Antlers’ Technicolor-tinged trio take all of Hospice’s songs—and three previous releases—in a completely different direction, jettisoning a note-for-note rendition of the record for “a massive sound” doused in delay, reverb and unrehearsed chaos. And to think Cicci was a stage actor with a desire to drop it all for music just a few years ago.
“Hospice was the clear indication that this isn’t a singer-songwriter thing at all,” says Silberman. “Whatever we record next is going to define the three of us as a ‘band.’
He continues, “I always figured I’d be the ‘shredder’ in a group…But things somehow ended up this way.”
We wouldn’t have it any other way, either.
- The Dig
- official website
- myspace
- Not many bands can claim to have origins in grade school, but in one incarnation or another, some members of The Dig have played music together since they were ten years old.
In Westchester County – just a stone’s throw from New York City, where they now call home – singer/guitarist David Baldwin and singer/bassist Emile Mosseri first met in sixth grade, becoming fast friends and playing in bands. Baldwin and Mosseri met keyboardist/guitarist Erick Eiser at a summer music program in high school, and the three reunited in college in Boston. In 2007, all three relocated to New York City and began writing songs in Baldwin’s basement as The Dig. The relentless, hard-working young band dug their foundation the old-fashioned way: they embraced an indefatigable DIY ethic, playing all over the city regularly and hitting the streets with an endless stream of posters, flyers, and free music. The band released their debut EP Good Luck and Games (produced by Bryce Goggin, who has produced, mixed, or engineered Pavement, Antony & the Johnsons, The Ramones, Bishop Allen) late that year, catching the attention of Popmatters, who wrote in a review, “This is the catchiest, most intriguing power pop band to emerge out of the no-name pile in some time…”
The Dig’s self-booked shows and self-promotion began to pay off by late spring 2008, when the band was booked for three, month-long residencies through the summer at Piano’s in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. With a strong and ever-growing fanbase, late that year esteemed local venues like the Bowery Ballroom and the Music Hall of Williamsburg began to call upon the band consistently to open for national touring bands such as Mission of Burma, The Soft Pack, The Rakes, Longwave, and Rural Alberta Advantage, shows that earned The Dig praise from local blogs such as Music Snobbery: “I have no witty observations or creative writing pull quotes to give you. They are just a damn good band.”
Never resting and looking to expand their base past hometown confines, The Dig began touring in the northeast and southeast in early 2009. Touring over the next six months, the band was profiled in major dailies and weeklies – like the DC Examiner, The Washington Times, The Winston-Salem Journal, and The Asheville Citizen-Times. New drummer Jamie Alegre, a Toronto ex-pat from a family of musicians, joined the band in-between tours in April. Alegre, who moved to NYC four years earlier to pursue a life in music, had gotten to know them through playing the same LES haunts with other bands. With his previous band having just gone on hiatus when The Dig’s first drummer departed, he landed as a perfect fit.
The Dig’s continual touring and dynamic live show caught the attention of noted booking agent Kevin French at the Paradigm Agency, who quickly signed the band in June 2009. Around the same time, the band headed into Brooklyn’s Trout Recording with returning co-producer Goggin to record their full-length debut, Electric Toys. With the album, The Dig has crafted 12 rock songs of various shapes, sizes, and moods, linked by the band’s indelible hooks. Written and arranged by all four members, the songs often tell a story: darkish tales with twisted circumstances and desperate people driven to do bad things. Alternately, there are classical references to girls, love, and the many points in-between. Mosseri and Baldwin alternate lead vocals throughout the album; Mosseri’s soaring, roguish tenor takes lead on the poppier tracks, while Baldwin’s raspy, weathered croon holds court on the guitar-heavy, wall-rattling anthems. Differing in sound, their voices retain a stylistic similarity won by playing, singing, and writing together for the past 14 years.
This similarity grants Electric Toys a seamless flow from track to track, striking a perfect equilibrium between upbeat and moody rockers. The unaccompanied chords of Eiser’s keyboard launch the alternately wistful and roaring album opener “Carry Me Home,” introducing essential atmospherics that, along with his rhythm guitar parts, in many ways help shape the sound of both the album and the band with additional layers of depth and color. Like that first song, the humming, hypnotic “Two Sisters” and the ominous, hot-blooded “She’s Going to Kill That Boy” build to explosive climaxes. In contrast, the jaunty, hand-clapping “You’re Already Gone” and the spry, ebullient beat of “Penitentiary” highlight the band’s strong pop instincts. “For All Your Sins” and “Feel Like Somebody Else,” meanwhile, are dreamy, string-laced ballads. Mosseri and Alegre’s intertwining rhythm section propels each track, while Baldwin’s deft guitar work ranges from a lilt to a shimmer to a howl across the album.
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