Transgressive Records 20th Anniversary
with The Antlers, Mykki Blanco, MICHELLE, Mutual Benefit, Odetta Hartman, Julien Chang
EDT
(Doors: 8:00 PM)
$35.00
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Artists
The Antlers
The brighter outlook emerged, paradoxically, after a succession of ominous events. Following 2014’s Familiars, it looked iffy whether there would even be another Antlers album, after the onset of Silberman’s auditory problems. Affecting his left ear, it was a condition that left him struggling to cope with commonplace noises. Feeling assailed by the cacophony of Brooklyn, it necessitated that he retreat to a less complicated, more serene world. So, leaving his band, he moved to Upstate New York in 2015, close to where he spent his childhood.But he still felt the strong pull to spend time and work with longtime drummer Michael Lerner, and frequently invited him up to visit the idyllic hamlet he now called home. “I would record him playing drums in the studio while he listened to old soul and R&B songs in headphones. I couldn’t even hear those songs, I was just listening to him play along and hitting record,” laughs Silberman. “I just sensed we couldn’t begin with an entirely blank canvas, and those drum recordings ultimately served as starting points for the songs that followed. But at the time, we were merely attempting to make music together again, without really knowing how to approach it, or to what end.” A scrap of sound that they developed into a short, pastoral instrumental, unlike anything they had done before as The Antlers.
The biggest difference between Green to Gold and The Antlers’ back catalog is its arrival at a kind of quiet normalcy after a number of rather anxious records, in the same way Neil Young’s Harvest Moon does; a softer, gentler album that the august artist made after recovering from a case of tinnitus himself.
“Green to Gold is about this idea of gradual change,” sums up Silberman. “People changing over time, struggling to accept change in those they love, and struggling to change themselves. And yet despite all our difficulty with this, nature somehow makes it look easy.”
Mykki Blanco
The first official music release under the artist name Mykki Blanco dropped in the form of an EP entitled Mykki Blanco & The Mutant Angels in 2012. In the time since, they have pushed hip-hop to some of its most untethered bounds, melding noise and experimental elements with club and trap sounds, whilst also forging a uniquely subversive path within a genre historically entangled in a problematic ideological web of misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia…And while Blanco has been widely recognised as leading the charge as a pioneering trailblazer in the so-called ‘queer rap’ sub-genre, the music of this forthcoming new chapter of their career represents such significant musical evolution toward eradicating the confines of genre categories and mashing the previous perception of the ceiling of their potential reach.
MICHELLE
Born-and-bred New Yorkers, MICHELLE formed in 2018 around their celebrated debut album HEATWAVE. The band is comprised of Sofia D’Angelo, Julian Kaufman, Charlie Kilgore, Layla Ku, Emma Lee and Jamee Lockard. On their forthcoming record, the predominantly POC and queer collective are closer than ever before as they continue to mix and match the writing and production groups amongst the six of them. The hallmarks of MICHELLE’s music—layered vocal harmonies, analog synthesizers, vibrant percussion, smoldering hooks—dominate the sonic landscape of the album. Songs hop across genres, from funky R&B to bedroom slow jams to amped-up beat-heavy anthems and more.
Mutual Benefit
New York-based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Jordan Lee, aka Mutual Benefit recently released his fourth studio album Growing at the Edges. For Lee, who has recorded as Mutual Benefit since 2009, began writing Growing at the Edges at a creative crossroads, but it led to his most intentional, adventurous, and realised album, a world to enter. In writing, Lee was thinking about areas of life that capitalism deems to be valueless, how the reality of relentless extraction creates what are perceived to be wastelands.
Odetta Hartman
Odetta Hartman is a native New York singer/songerwriter. Following her debut mini-LP 222 and 2018’s Old Rockhounds Never Die, which saw her touring her unique performance style, part Jack White rock and roll folk blues, part electronic experimentations, with the likes of Let's Eat Grandma, Cosmo Sheldrake and Skullcrusher, Odetta recently released her new album swansongs, which is equally inspired by AG Cook’s Apple & New Orleans trad jazz, the musical mixology of these songs cycle spans various genres of folk, americana, pop, punk, soul, ambient & spiritual.
Julien Chang
Julien is a singer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Early this month he released his new EP Home For The Moment, which received praise from Paper Magazine, Our Culture, Flood Magazine Atwood, and more. Studying Classical and Jazz throughout high school - Baltimore artist Julien Chang decided to start making his own music after exploring other genres and principles. Having taken a job at his local grocery store at 17, he began building a studio in his parents’ basement, adding new elements with each paycheck. Since then his songs have been championed by many, including Jack Saunders at BBC Radio 1 and Elton John on his Rocket Hour show on Apple Music - whilst also picking up fans in Clairo and actress, Florence Pugh. He performed live at Pitchfork Paris and London, as special guests to labelmates Let’s Eat Grandma, as well as playing sold out headline shows in New York and London.