DESTAQUES

quinta-feira, 26 de Novembro, 23h30
ALEXIS GIDEON [us]
SHELLEY SHORT [us]



Vêm os dois de Portland, Oregon, e têm estado em digressão conjunta pela Europa. Não podiam ser mais diferentes. Alexis Gideon, showman e artista multimédia, está associado a toda essa geração de freaks encabeçada por Dan Deacon, com quem esteve aliás vários meses na estrada. Trata-se mais de uma performance do que de um concerto no sentido clássico, sempre uma desbunda de boa disposição e liberdade formal. No outro extremo temos Shelly Short com as suas canções frágeis associadas a um reportório folk não muito distante de Bright Eyes (que participam no álbum de estreia), Laura Gibson, Mazzy Star ou Emmylou Harris, mas bem mais solarengo do que esse casamento de grupo possa soar. Uma estreia absoluta em Portugal, em exclusivo no Lounge.

// "One man gospel-circus, cartoon-necessary schizo-rap New York hillbilly, aged and innocent provocateur, Alexis Gideon has emerged with the craziest music currently available, which is only to say it is the most familiar. Listen to him if you like it when a stranger composes movies in song about your secret life. From joy to mourning and back again and none of it harder or easier than it has to be. The most familiar music in America. Alexis Gideon has toured nationally with Dan Deacon as well as played shows with Shelley Short, Marnie Stern, Ecstatic Sunshine, Panther, Barr, Parts and Labor, Excepter, They Shoot Horses, Zs, People, Matt and Kim and many, many others."



// "For her third album Shelley Short has assembled a collection of intimate songs, referring to them as ‘a diary of a barmy time that was 2006 and 2007”. Leaving Chicago in the wake of her widely praised Captain Wildhorse (Rides The Heart Of Tomorrow), Shelley jettisoned her band and took up residence in Los Angeles with her new love and sometime collaborator Alexis Gideon. There she picked up the pieces of a half-recorded (with Jamie Carter in Chicago) album and molded the collection into a coherent whole with recording engineer Raymond Richards. “Most of the songs were influenced by strings or webs that seems to tie everything together, and every so often you can get a glimpse of them and try to see how they work, where they go, and why they cling to the things they do.” While mixing at their home in LA Short and Gideon wisely made Shelley’s voice the centerpiece throughout, lending a campfire glow to the album. Notwithstanding, Short is accompanied by veterans Rachel Blumberg (M Ward, Bright Eyes, Decemberists) on drums, Tiffany Kowalski (Bright Eyes) on violin, Gary James on bass, and Alexis Gideon offering some clever guitar work. The instrumentation—particularly on the ballads—is inventive and surprising, taking more risks than prior albums: The subtle percolating guitar notes in “Swimming” evoke water, while the polarized frequencies of bells and kick drum in “How Grand” pique the ear. The songs are personal and dreamlike; the lyrics following a stream of consciousness more than a storyline."
"The fit between her lullabye vocals and rustic folk/pop songs is what makes her acid-flashback titled album work." - Magnet
"Short is a storyteller of nonchalant musings on the everyday, a nice break from the usual downer fare we are accustomed to. Overall, "Captain Wild Horses" is a fantastic album, and suggests that axing those art school plans was a smart move indeed. -- Billboard



www.myspace.com/alexisgideon
www.myspace.com/shelleyshort

Quinta-feira, 26 de Novembro: Alexis Gideon + Shelley Short [ao vivo, 23h30] + Mário Valente [dj set]