WCPO Lounge Acts

With a layered and deeply texture sound, San Fermin stands out in the current indie pop scene with its eight-member ensemble that utilizes trumpet and saxophone and violin and guitar and trombones and synth.

The project is the brainchild of composer Ellis Ludwig-Leone, who writes and arranges all of San Fermin’s music.

The Brooklyn-native formed San Fermin in 2011 and the band made its self-titled album debut in 2013, followed by "Jackrabbit" in 2015. The band's third recording, "Belong," came out on April 7 of this year.

New Yorker magazine music reviewer Jia Tolentino wrote San Fermin's new album "often sounds like a wall of flowers blooming at once. It feels lovely, just now, to be swallowed up by a baroque arrangement, in a rush of sweetness and sincerity."

Ludwig-Leone said on the band's bio page that his songwriting has evolved from stories about fictional characters into explorations of themes and issues personal to him.

“As I’ve become more confident as a songwriter, I decided that I could drop some of the artifice and write something more direct," he said. “Anxiety is something I’ve dealt with since I was a kid, but on this album I talked about it more explicitly than I ever had before."

Set list:

• Cairo
• Bride
• - interview -
• No Promises
• Belong

Mixed by John McRae

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Indie synth pop trio DYAN took a few years to settle into their own songwriting from scoring film and TV projects, but once they did, people paid attention.

The title track of their July 2016 debut album "Looking for Knives" topped a half-million plays on Spotify's Viral Chart within a month's time.

Frontwoman Alexis Marsh (vocals/guitar/bass) had been composing film scores out west with Samuel Jones (guitar/synths), but she told Billboard she moved back to Cincinnati to focus on writing "Looking for Knives."

"I was getting anxious about having this open-ended project so I took some time out," Marsh said. "I had thought writing the songs would be a type of exorcizing of memories. ... at a pivotal moment of anguish, my grandmother told me I didn’t owe my happiness to anyone else. There’s so much freedom in not giving a damn."

Alexis & Sam's transformation into DYAN was complete when they brought on Dan Dorff Jr. (drums/synths), who Marsh knew from attending the University of Louisville.

The resulting 12 tracks are filled with self-described minimalist synths, atmospheric guitars and driving rhythms.

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Set list:

• St. James
• Days Upon Days
• - interview -
• Looking for Knives
• What Fiction is For

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At a time when raucous, highly produced pop, amplified arena rock and jittery electronic jams are the musical currency of the day, Azniv Korkejian is a tranquil pond. The Hollywood-by-way-of-Aleppo folk singer is a throwback strummer whose tour de force single “Solitary Daughter” contains what might be her mission statement: “I don’t need your company to feel saved… I don’t want your pity, concern or your scorn/ I’m calm by my lonesome/ I feel right at home/ Leave me alone to the books and the radio snow.” 

Think about how punk rock that notion is as you ponder the latest outrage from Washington or headline about a deadly natural disaster. Fittingly, Korkejian has adopted Bedouine as her stage name, a feminized version of the word used to describe nomadic Arab tribes who traditionally live in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East. 

And, as you will notice when she plays at this weekend’s 2017 MidPoint Music Festival and visits WCPO’s Digital Lounge on Saturday morning for a Lounge Acts set, she is a one-woman tour de force who doesn’t need rattling studio tricks to drive a point home. A serene singer whose calm nature is an antidote to the over-caffeinated popular music of the day, she chose the name as a symbol of her own peripatetic life.

"Moving around so much caused me at some point to feel displaced, to not really belong anywhere and I thought that was a good title,” she explains in her bio. Born in Aleppo, Syria, to Armenian parents, Bedouine grew up in Saudi Arabia before her family settled in Boston and then Houston. Los Angeles; Lexington, Kentucky; Austin, Texas; and Savannah, Georgia were all stops along the road before she moved back to Hollywood to work as a dialogue and music sound editor. 

"I just kept meeting the right people, who were professional musicians, and even though they were going on these big legitimate tours, they were still coming back to this amazing small scene, still demoing at home, and I immediately felt welcomed to join in on that. L.A. actually made me less jaded," she says.

It was the constant motion, the inhalation of so many cultures, sights and sounds that inspired the classic 1960s folk-meets-1970s-country-soul sound on her self-titled debut, which was released in July on singer Matthew E. White’s Spacebomb label. The gauzy album has hints of bossa nova and clear inspirations from Joni Mitchell’s forthright storytelling to Brazilian samba singer Astrud Gilberto’s groove and the melancholy of Nick Drake and Leonard Cohen. 

It was crafted with a crack team of side players, including longtime Beck/Tom Waits guitarist Smokey Hormel and bassist/producer Gus Seyffert (Beck, Norah Jones). But it is 32-year-old Bedouine’s clear-eyed, confident storytelling that rises above the lush arrangements.

"While the rest of the record dazzles with sweetness—'like a lamp in the light of day/Drowning in summer rays,' as she puts it—the centerpiece is a haunting protest song," writes Sam Sodomsky for Pitchfork of the song emotional “Summer Cold,” Bedouine’s reaction to America’s role in the chaotic civil strife in her native Syria. To drive the point home, the singer uses sound samples she found to sonically recreate her grandmother's street in Aleppo.

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Set list:

• One of These Days
• - interview -
• Nice and Quiet
• Solitary Daughter

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ClockworkDJ, born Garrett Uddin, got his start more than 16 years ago DJing at his high school dances. He moved his way up to playing parties and clubs while attending the University of Cincinnati and eventually landed a world-class gig as rapper Mac Miller's DJ.

He has traveled around the world in the years since, but Uddin is brimming with excitement about showing off a whole new look for his hometown friends and fans.

"I'm really psyched about what I call my 'hybrid' DJ set," said the former Corryville resident, who now calls New York home. "I've been going around the world, practicing in the lead-up to Ubahn, so for me to showcase this in Cincinnati … I'm hella excited. A lot of people haven't seen me rap in Cincinnati."

Clockwork said he came up with this new concept a year ago while on the road and he has been working out the kinks ever since on a set in which he DJs his own performance.

"I DJ, but I'm also blending my own records. And then I run to the front of the stage to perform, and then I go back to DJ," he explained. "It's just me on stage, but the way I figure it out is I have a pretty smooth way of running the show."

Although the School for Creative & Performing Arts alumnus attended Ubahn last year, Clockwork has never performed at the festival. He said he can't wait to show the city his musical growth and possibly debut some tracks from his upcoming full-length independently released debut, due out next month. The album, not yet titled, will, of course, feature his pal Mac Miller, as well as Speed and other hometown friends.

"I take Cincinnati with me wherever I go," he said. "I just got back from China a week ago, I'm going to Australia next month, and everyone that knows me knows I'm Cincinnati. I want them to see that this is someone who came from Cincinnati, and I'm coming full circle to bring it back to you at the main stage at Ubahn Festival!"

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Unhurried, buzzy guitar melodies noodle their way through 11 songs on Keeps' debut album "Brief Spirit," which Cincinnati's own Old Flame Records dropped in March 2016.

Gusti Escalante and Robbie Jackson, both on guitars and vocals, bonded over their shared fear of falling into Music City's pop-country trap when they met on freshman move-in day at college. They wrote a song together each day for the week after, drawing inspiration from classic artists like Bowie, Echo and the Bunnymen and The Jesus and Mary Chain, according to Old Flame Record's website.

The second track, "Translucent Girl," digs into the tragic phenomenon of loving the concept of something more than the reality of it. "Reality is lost to me inside her mystic gaze/ Then suddenly I'm heavy. My own thoughts reflecting/ Why even try? She'll never be mine," Escalante croons through the reverb-saturated choruses.

"It’s definitely not based on anyone in particular, OK? Please stop asking, mom," Jackson told Paste Magazine.

Even though he dodged on the real-life source of all this self-doubt and deprecation, we've all been there.

Two tracks down on Brief Spirit, this theme re-emerges in "Everyday," which the duo also turned into their first music video. They'd always been terrified by the idea of music videos, they told The Fader, but that's exactly why a song about how intense self-doubt "can cloud the entire purpose behind what it is you're doing" was perfect for the task. Keeps recruited their musician friend Josh Gilligan to produce what was also his first music video.

"We knew he’d be the right man for the job because he'd able to help create something goofy and ridiculous. We recorded the whole thing in the matter of a day, and are really pleased with how it ended up. Hopefully just the right amount of cheese," Keeps told The Fader.

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Set list:

• Spine Writing (unreleased)
• Everyday
• - interview -
• Pride (unreleased)
• Translucent Girl

Hosted by Austin Fast

Engineered and mixed by Brian Niesz

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Lillie Mae has yet to climb out of her mid-20s, but the singer/songwriter has already spent more than a decade fiddling her way through the honky tonks of Music City’s Lower Broadway and backing Jack White.

Just a couple months ago, she stepped out on her own to drop her debut solo album “Forever and Then Some” on April 14.

“What isn’t interesting about her?” Stacy Vee asked a Los Angeles Times reporter. Vee is director of festival talent for Goldenvoice, which organizes the Stagecoach Country Music Festival. “Seriously, the way she’s singing, the way she presents her art, I haven’t seen it performed like that. … It’s completely fresh, it sounds way older and way newer, masculine and feminine at the same time. It’s going to be a really fun project to watch develop.”

Back in 2008, Lillie Mae fronted the four-piece string group Jypsi alongside two sisters and a brother as they released an album on Arista Nashville and then played South by Southwest, Stagecoach and Bonnaroo.

After Jypsi broke up, Lillie Mae supported White’s solo project until she journeyed into White’s Third Man Records studio with few expectations.

“There was no plan to make a whole album,” Lillie Mae told the Los Angeles Times. “He asked me to come in and record a few songs, and after we got done with three, he said, ‘You got any more?’ ”

Indeed she did. The album ranges across 11 tracks, many of which feature backing instrumentals from her musical family members and interspersing more traditional country licks with rugged rock riffs born out of her time with White’s band. 

“I was spending time with hip-hop drummers, crazy psychedelic keyboardists, classical, unbelievable (players). If I didn't get that gig, I never would've met those people or been turned onto so much more music. It's just this huge, eclectic variety of musicians,” Lillie Mae told WXPN’s World Cafe.

Set list:

• Wash Me Clean
• Honky Tonks and Taverns
• -interview-
• Loaner
• These Daze

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In 2006, brothers Chris Wood (upright bass) and Oliver Wood (guitars) joined forces after years of playing (respectively) with Medeski, Martin and Wood and King Johnson. They eventually added a third member in drummer and all-purpose instrumentalist Jano Rix.

"Chris and I had such a great time playing together and realizing that we’ve been doing the same job for the last 10 years. I think that was a turning point, we realized that we wanted to do this together. So we started writing songs together and it turned into something more,” Oliver told The Daily Gazette in Schenectady, N.Y.

The most recent result of their collaboration, 2015’s “Paradise,” digs into how our longing for fulfillment ironically keeps it just out of reach.

“That’s why we chose that image of the donkey and the carrot (for the album cover),” the band told David Dye on the World Cafe. “I don’t know for sure, but sometimes we think it’s only when you give up on trying to get rid of your desire that you find salvation. You just accept it, so in a way that’s what the image can express.”

The trio’s ongoing Wheels of Soul Tour has them playing alongside Tedeschi Trucks Band and Hot Tuna, which Oliver said is winning them new fans who truly value their music.

"It’s when people come up to you and say ‘Wow, you really got me through a tough time’ or ‘Your concert made me so happy,' you realize that there’s healing powers to the music and that there’s compassion in the music that really connects people,” Oliver told The Daily Gazette. "It’s not about the glory, it’s about the connection.”

Setlist:

• Chocolate on My Tongue 
• Keep Me Around
• - interview -
• Pay Day
• Twitsted

For more on the Wood Brothers visit thewoodbros.com

For more Lounge Acts visit wcpo.com/LoungeActs

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For most punk rock bands making their home in Washington, D.C. now would probably be a particularly opportune time to rage against the machine.

Especially if your previous work had a decidedly political bent and you prided yourself on taking a stand against injustice and inequality, which is why the first full-length album from D.C.'s Priests, January's Nothing Feels Natural, was a refreshing but surprising new take on the band's strident sound and message.

Speaking to the Guardian recently, singer Katie Alice Greer said the group was frustrated by critics who insisted that the lyrics on the album -- with sharp, spiky songs entitled "Pink White House," "Leila 20" and the crackling, post-punk title track -- were some kind of a reaction to the current political climate, especially since the group -- which also includes drummer Daniele Daniele, bassist Taylor Mulitz and guitarist Jaguar -- started working on it in 2014.

The band has waded into political territory before with songs about the corrupting nature of power and the difficulties of navigating a consumerist culture on their two previous cassette releases and an EP, but on Nothing they turn their focus inward a bit, along with adding some new flavors to their smash-face, notoriously take-no-prisoners sound courtesy of oboes, piano, saxophone and a few disco beats.

Their DIY nature comes naturally as owners of their own label, Sister Polygon, but be careful about trying to lock Priests into labels like "feminist punk" or even "punk," for that matter.

"I don't have weird feelings about accidentally commodifying a subculture that benefits me way more than it benefits the subculture," Daniele told Spin shortly after the album's release. Mulitz added, "I think we isolated ourselves for a while out of distrust of not wanting to be used as a tool to sell the idea of counterculture or the image of it. But if anything, through making this record we've come to learn that it's OK to let your walls down."

In short: Don't label Priests, just sit back and let their throbbing musical attack wash over you.

Setlist:

• JJ
• Pink White House
• - interview -
• Lelia 20
• Nothing Feel Natural

Mix by Brian Niesz. Hosted by Gil Kaufman.

For more on Priests visit 666priests666.com. For more Lounge Acts visit wcpo.com/LoungeActs.

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For their WCPO Lounge Acts session, Surfer Blood performed an acoustic set of songs new and old.

Indie-rockers Surfer Blood saw a huge buzz breakthrough with “Swim” in 2009 before hitting a rough patch as frontman John Paul Pitts’ dealt with personal drama and the tragic loss of 27-year-old guitarist Thomas Fekete to his battle with cancer.

The February release of their fourth album "Snowdonia" represented a fresh start as Pitts and drummer Tyler Schwarz added high school buddies Michael McCleary and Lindsey Mills into the mix as guitarist and bassist. Pitts wrote specifically with the new member’s talents in mind.

Set List:

• Frozen
• Floating Vibes
• [interview]
• Into Catacombs
• Matter of Time

To read more and find videos from this session visit: bit.ly/2rVBvL4 

For more on Surfer Blood visit: http://surferblood.com

For more Lounge Acts visit: http://wcpo.com/LoungeActs

Recorded and mixed by Brian Niesz in the WCPO Lounge in Cincinnati, OH on June 22, 2017.

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Garage punk group Le Butcherettes debuts new material for WCPO Lounge Acts.

Mexican-American songwriter Teresa Suarez Cosio made a name for herself performing splattered in blood, most often fake but apparently once a real pig’s blood at a Mexico City gig in 2009. 

It paid off, though, quickly leading to tours with big-name acts like The Flaming Lips, Iggy Pop and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Much of the garage punk band's inspiration, including its French-sounding name, comes from outrage about women's treatment in Mexico and the horrors of female circumcision.

It’s not all feminist angst though for 26-year-old Suarez, who performs under the alter-ego Teri Gender-Bender. NPR’s Tiny Desk describes her as a curious, engaging young woman who transforms "from a soft-spoken and insightful person into a rock 'n' roll beast on a dime." She even confessed to The Los Angeles Times that she sometimes worries fans expect ever-more-outrageous onstage antics and feels occasional “guilt that her rock ’n’ roll activism isn’t yet changing the world.”

Le Butcherettes have swapped out quite a few members and dropped three albums over the past decade, but Alejandra Robles Luna on drums and Riko Rodríguez-López on bass guitar now round out Suarez’s vocals and guitar.

Set list:

• Malcolm (unreleased)
• Spider Ways (unreleased)
• La Uva
• Sold Less Than Gold
• [interview]
• Shave the Pride

To read more and find videos from this session visit: http://bit.ly/2sTHRdj 

For more on Le Butcherettes visit: https://facebook.com/LeButcherettes

For more Lounge Acts visit: http://wcpo.com/LoungeActs

Recorded and mixed by Brian Niesz in the WCPO Lounge in Cincinnati, OH on June 22, 2017.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.