The Wake

Panda Bear - Person Pitch

Panda Bear, whose real name is Noah Lennox, recently lost his father. The result was Young Prayer an album of soft clapping and wailing mourning, as he fights through his loss with music. “Where are you?” are some of the only discernable words, but if you listen closely, you can put together the phrase, “This is how I’ll talk to you.” The result is an album that is like dark magic, a musical limbo and oddly soothing sound of the living communicating with the dead.His sophomore album, Person Pitch is a gentler branch off of the freak-alt-folk sound of his larger band, Animal Collective. With songs like “Leaf House,” which sounds like someone …

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Matt Jennings, sibling of acclaimed singer/songwriter Mason Jennings, moved from Pittsburgh to Minneapolis in high school to play in his brother’s band. His stint as the bassist, and then drummer, didn’t last long. He opted instead to go back to school; upon graduation, he found himself traveling the world. He studied Spanish in Mexico, and then spent some time teaching English in South China and Thailand. When he returned home, he assembled a band and self-released his debut, Two Become One, in the summer of 2005. Having spent time playing in the different areas of his travel, Jennings’ guitar playing is a fusion of several different styles and cultures. The percussive strumming of opener, “The Tortoise and the Hare,” alludes to images of two combating lover as his tango cadence intertwines with long stretches of …

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Same old story, right? Behind a whirlwind of hype and accolades (recently named NME’s Best New Band), these four blokes from the U.K. released their debut album (Myths of the Near Future) on January 29th and are already off on world tours. They’ve even been assigned to and/or accredited with their own genre of music, “new rave.” Having only heard a handful of songs, and though I enjoyed them all thoroughly, I was unsure of what to expect. Would they be as good as advertised (ala Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, The Libertines, and Kasabian) or were they merely another over-hyped blog band from across the pond (think Kaiser Chiefs or The Darkness).DJ Sovietpanda, of Too Much Love notoriety, commenced the festivities with his unique brand of well-listened alternative selections transformed into one long and bumpin’ …

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Even with all of our intricately pompous systems of government and technological advancements, certain aspects of human nature remain stubbornly primitive. Take, for example, our fear of and disdain for the unknown. The Wiccan Church of Minnesota is in every way as valid a religious organization as Hillel or Bethlehem Covenant; however, because most people know little about the Pagan tradition, they assume paganism to be something funny at best, or something very dangerous at worst. On April 14th I attended WiC-CoN, an event hosted by The Wiccan Church of Minnesota, and had the privilege to gain a small amount of understanding about this oft disrespected religious path. By the variety of attendees and their relatively typical dress, it looked as though I may have been at the State Fair, with an ever-so-slight increase of …

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A decade after Spice World, Girl Power is raised from its glittery grave.Blonde Redhead, a unique three piece from New York City, may have been the big name on the bill April 15th at First Avenue, but the evening’s success was due in larger part to a wisely selected opener in Midnight Movies. Their equally intransient sounds set a relaxed mood which held strong for the duration of the evening. Another common ground was found in female front women. As captivating as Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino was Midnight Movies’ Gena Olivier. Either way, I’d score this as one successful evening for woman-kind, and a solid show in general for all in attendance.Midnight Movies, a two guy, two girl combo from Los Angeles, started out at as trio. After one album, they decided they needed another …

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“Everything is bigger in Texas;” a cliché that could not be better demonstrated than by the explosive instrumental quartet known as Explosions in the Sky. From ripping apart melodies drowned in droning feedback to quietly plucking a single string, Explosions have mastered a tension that makes for easy and enjoyable listening, even for the lyrically inclined. Starting off barely audible, the band slowly builds up the rhythm, adding guitar after guitar until the song seems like it’s going to burst. It’s no wonder that the name Explosions in the Sky fits these four Texans like a tight cowboy boot; their music is like an impressionist painting of a fireworks display. One of the best things about the band is its continuity, releasing four full-length albums that never seem repetitive and never …

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Duluth heroes, Low, have been offering sonic escape to land locked Midwesterners since the early 90’s. Their new album, “Drums and Guns,” is another step in a new direction as they continue to expand upon their trademark, minimalist sound. Breaking to electronic beats, their crashing, ethereal harmonies float into new and uncharted territories. I met recently with the trio in uptown at the Café Barbette to discuss their new album, their popularity in Europe, cake (the food not the band), and the great Beatles vs. Stones debate.Wake: Your “CD release show,” [was] Saturday at First Avenue. Why there and not Duluth? Alan Sparhawk (guitar and vocals): I don’t know why they’re calling it that. The CD’s been out for a while and we’ve been playing these songs live for a while now … who …

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Learning that 39.5 million people in the world have HIV or AIDS activates one part of your mind, but watching just one sufferer take a cocktail of medications and then retire to the couch with a lemonade will probably engage you completely. It may be a fault of humanity that a statistic alone does little for our sympathies, but by presenting issues of cultural indifference and isolation through stories and faces, art is created. The Walker Art Center’s Global Lens 2007 program presents films from the mountains of Chile to the markets of Mozambique, intending to open our minds not just to the issues, but also to the fact that there is a breadth of culture outside of the Hollywoodization of the planet.Dam Street, a film from China, tells the story of a high school …

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First Avenue’s side-room, the 7th Street Entry, is small and dark; David to the Main Room’s Goliath. Lit by an exit sign, four candles and a few colored spotlights, 7th Street is intimate and seductive. However, it can pack a mean punch. It’s an ideal venue for the highly acclaimed but sparsely known indie-pop group Headlights, who performed on April 4 with Page France and The Winter Blanket. Headlights is Tristan Wraight, Erin Fein and Brett Sanderson, three Midwesterners who wouldn’t look out of place on a European stage, the sort you find in back-alley clubs not mentioned in Fodor’s. The guitar, synth and drum trio is said to have “an uncanny knack for soaring peaks and energetic compositions,” and the bands they’re compared to is a “who’s who” list of indie-pop stardom. Their 2006 …

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We’re a spoiled bunch here in Minneapolis. American culture all too often confuses genuine hip-hop with the generic “Rap” we are spoon-fed on TV and the radio. However, we continue to sit pretty with one of the most legitimate (as in, actually music) hip-hop scenes in the states. At its origin, hip-hop is a progressive genre. It has taken the potential of music as a forum for social commentary to new and exciting heights. Although it has always enjoyed a close connection to parties and dancing, entertainment has recently turned into hip-hop’s sole purpose. Lyrically gifted MC’s are a scarce commodity in the mainstream, and the production of original beats has fallen victim to thievery and replication. As soon as one interesting song hits the charts, five similar follow, capitalizing on its success. In these …

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Who, having seen Tim Burton’s film, Edward Scissorhands, can honestly say they remained untouched? Now, the bittersweet, haunting beauty of the film has swirled its way onto the stage in a sellout UK tour and a 23-week visit to America. Directed by Matthew Bourne, Edward Scissorhands will be performed at the Ordway Theater in Minneapolis April 10-15, with tickets ranging between $38 and $60 dollars. A steep price for many Wake readers, this occasion may be worth whipping out the big bucks.Burton and Edward Scissorhand’s writer, Caroline Thompson passed Edward to Bourne confident that the Tony winning director and his brilliant team could successfully transfer the story to the medium of dance while preserving its haunting, delicate simplicity.“Matthew [Bourne] is Edward’s perfect conduit,” Thompson says in a press release, “His is a brilliant wit. …

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When Jewel crawled out of her minivan and onto MTV, warbling the song “Intuition,” her fans probably felt that something was off. Gone were the screams of “ugly girl—you want to kill her,” reminiscent of John Lennon is his primal therapy days. In their place was a crappy, pseudo-Middle Eastern beat and an album full of tracks inspired by text messages, like “U and Me = Love.” She had self-admittedly sold out, betraying her fan base of vegan fourteen-year-olds.Many people seem to fear that their indie “pet” band will follow Jewel’s path. As one after the other appear on the O.C. soundtrack, we lament the days when we could enjoy The Shins without being asked whether we had seen Garden State. With the release of their newest album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even …

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It’s not everyday that fifteen dollars lets a person see eight different bands in concert. Even less often is a clue-driven chase across the city included in the price of the ticket. On Saturday, March 24th, participants in March of Madness: Bands on the Run! went on a citywide search for eight local bands that were to perform at four undisclosed locations. Organized by local artist Michael Gaughan. Bands on the Run! was the sixth event of its kind.“I like using the imagination to think of something fun and have it actually come to life,” said Gaughan. Gaughan, with the help of 12 teenagers on the Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council (WACTAC), designed a musical tour of Minneapolis that lasted for nearly nine hours. The group of eager participants was instructed to meet in …

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Take a mental note of all the ways you keep track of yourself, the ways you record, tag, and publicize your life: MySpace, Flickr, your personal website, your blog. Consider who’s watching. Imagine filling a theater with the clique you share your digitized life with, the strangers, lovers, exes, friends, enemies, and weirdoes who access your online production of yourself. In the minutes before Week 18 of Suzan-Lori Park’s 365 Days/365 Plays took the stage at the Suburban World Theater on Saturday, March 17th, I thought about the bars in Uptown, filled with St.Patty’s Day celebrants whose tipsy photos would be regurgitated onto the Internet in the morning. I thought about my own affinity for documenting myself through blogs and photo-sharing sights. I thought, as the show was about to begin, about lifelogging, which will …

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There are certain fleeting moments that are so full of sun, there’s no room for cynicism. As clouds cleared, light and warmth suddenly filtered through the greenhouse’s glass dome, flooding a gratifying display of red tulips, yellow lilies and blue pansies. A semi circle of children sat around the fountain watching the carp, who watched the Terzetto string trio, who pierced the humid air with Vivaldi. On the weekend of Mar. 24, Como Park celebrated a shamelessly tackily named Spring Fling Weekend, commemorating the beginning of spring and of their Spring Flower Show. Nobody can ignore the spring and Como Park provides the perfect, relatively inexpensive location for those who want to forget life for a day and be shamelessly, tackily happy. For those in our readership still capable of such primitive emotion, this is …

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