Jan

28

Stone Forest Ensemble Stone Forest Ensemble

with Julia Easterlin, Evolfo, Stone Forest Ensemble & special surprise guest

Wed January 28th, 2015

7:00PM

Main Space

Minimum Age: 18+

Doors Open: 7:00PM

Show Time: 7:00PM

Event Ticket: $15

event description event description

Soundfly Sessions comes to (le) poisson rouge with an immersive one-night music festival—a lineup of distinct musical voices sharing their unique sounds and stories. The audience will find themselves in a downpour of diverse genres, from Delicate Steve‘s indie Afro-pop to Julia Easterlin‘s ethereal vocal loops, Chesney Snow‘s orchestral beatboxing to Soundfly Sessions are curated events designed to educate, celebrate, and inspire the musician in all of us. Our mission is to help audiences find their own unique sound and allow them a rare glimpse into each artists’ creative process.
 
Come out for a truly unique show that is the perfect cross between a block party and MTV’s unplugged, with a host of musical surprises popping up between acts and conversations with the musicians about how they found their unique sound. You don’t have to be a musician to attend, but you should expect to leave as one.
 
About Soundfly: Soundfly is a music education movement that is committed to developing new and better ways to learn music through videos, interactive quizzes, one-on-one lessons, practice incentives, and weekly challenges. At the core, we believe in empowering our community by nurturing creativity and promoting the belief that anyone can be a musician. We’re here to help find your sound and share it
 
This is a general admission, standing event.

the artists the artists

5

Delicate Steve

Delicate Steve official site | Delicate Steve on Facebook

When the world first met Delicate Steve in 2011, Steve Marion and the band he principled were an artfully crafted fiction. Tasked with introducing Wondervisions, Delicate Steve’s beguiling debut record of highly evocative and emotionally concise guitar-driven songs, Luaka Bop, the seminal David Byrne-owned New York indie label, balked. There was the music to get to; itself essentially reference-less and unqualifiedly unique. But what of the guy who created it? The guitarist who wrote the whole thing, who played every instrument. An enormous unknown talent without an attendant backstory to match the spectral and boundless qualities of his music. Enter Chuck Klosterman. The celebrated writer was brought on to completely fabricate a biography based on a band and album he was asked not to listen to.

While the record racked up high praise from outlets including The New York Times and NPR, nearly everything music fans read about Delicate Steve was a fiction. Listeners were left to the music alone to determine who Steve was.

As is often the case, some of the first people to recognize Delicate Steve’s music were fellow artists who became vocal supporters, as the young guy from upstate New Jersey began to develop a growing fanbase in small New York clubs like Glasslands, Union Pool, and Mercury Lounge. Following the 2012 release of Positive Force, Delicate Steve had cornered the status of ‘your favorite band’s favorite band’, as Steve himself became a fixture in and an on-demand collaborator among disparate scenes, players, and bands, making some of the most celebrated and forward thinking music today: Co-signs and work with David Byrne, Dirty Projectors, tUnE-yArDs, Mac DeMarco, Dr. Dog, and elder statesmen like Lee Ranaldo and Built to Spill. Likely the only guitarist alive who will cut records with Sondre Lerche and Death Grip’s Zach Hill. Handpicked to open a sold out North American tour for Tame Impala. And most recently, providing guitar on Paul Simon’s new record.

These wild artistic relationships came to be because Steve happens to be one of the most talented songwriters and guitarists currently working. But they are also a direct reflection of the person, the soul of a guy any artist or fan who’s met him will identify immediately. It’s the same soul that fills his songs.

This is Steve, Delicate Steve’s first new record in 4 years, and first for the ANTI- imprint, is an articulation of this spirit. Joy. Love. Positivity. Perseverance. Meditation. A general communion with the people and world around him. Easy to call such things hackneyed in this cynical time, but in Steve’s case, it’s very hard to separate the person from the art. It’s real. It’s pure. This, is Steve.

Melody begins with the needle drop on This is Steve, and it’s this hallmark as a songwriter on display in tune after tune that has defined all of Delicate Steve’s work. It’s his incredible capacity to write wordless songs that are impossible not to sing along to. He works in no genre, there are no words, but there is never a question as to what he is saying.

Tunes like “Animals,” “Help,” and “Nightlife,” establish their hooks immediately, and drop you with Steve as he runs alongside leopards, scales a Western peak, nurses a boozy Kingston come-down, before clocking out at under three minutes and depositing you somewhere else on a technicolor continuum. Throughout the set, Steve’s guitar melodies rise and crest, unguarded expressions of wonderment and positivity.

Steve produced and played all the instruments on this record. He created it as an introduction from himself to you, and named it appropriately. If there is a question as to who This is Steve’s creator is, you’ll find it imbued in these ten songs. As he has done from the start, Steve lets the music speak for itself. Without a word.

Mat Hall
August 22 2016

Julia Easterlin

Julia Easterlin is one part Bjork, one part Regina Spektor, one part loop scientist; a sophisticated musical mind that can wield composition, production, and soaring performance in one fell swoop. Her music is majestic yet delicate, beautiful and brooding. Julia has recently been collaborating with rising jazz luminary Kris Bowers and with world music icon Vieux Farka Toure as well as working on her second solo release due out this year.
 

Julia Easterlin official site
Julia Easterlin on Facebook
Julia Easterlin on Twitter
Julia Easterlin on Youtube

Evolfo

Evolfo official site | Evolfo on Facebook | Evolfo on Soundcloud | Evolfo on Twitter | Evolfo on Instagram

What began in 2011 as a basement-party band in the pits of BostonMA exists today as the Brooklyn garage-soul group, Evolfo. Characterized by a three-piece horn section and a connection that only old friends can share on stage, Evolfo is reputed for their live show. And yet, even with all the glitter and upbeat energy of their performance, there is darkness — an almost imperceptible stain — in the collective soul of Evolfo. Like Robert Johnson or Faust, their past dealings remain shady at times; the status of their eternal soul is debatable. They write from the other side of a vision quest, armed with unsayable truths they work to define through song. Evolfo’s music is not nostalgic, but one could say that they are not afraid to dig into the past for textures that suit the tales they have to tell.

The 7 boy-men met while attending college in BostonMA. Several debaucherous months of loud music, late nights, cheap beer, bloody noses, and run-ins with the police made the group inseparable. It was guitarist and singer, Matthew Gibbs, who initially suggested they form a band to go out and play shows. The goal was to cram an army of stylishly garbed people on stage; energy and bombast was number one. This large ensemble outfit was refined after hundreds of shows and what remains is a close-knit group exploring the deep reaches of sonic Earth. In the beginning they called themselves Evolfo Doofeht, which spells “The Food of Love” backwards, but the name has since been mercifully shortened to Evolfo: three simple syllables of mystery.

Fueled by their reputation for performing, Evolfo has completed extensive tours of the US.  Their most notable festival appearances include CMJSXSW, and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Evolfo shows have become gatherings for the seekers of the weird and those who expect more than the average band. Ghosts pour out of a shrieking saxophone while Beelzebub sits smiling on a stack of amplifiers. Shrouded figures bang on the ivory fingers of skeletons. The rhythm section sounds out an ominous rhythm and the brass men navigate sweet passages of longing and euphoria.

Stone Forest Ensemble

The Stone Forest Ensemble is Hip-Hop. Is Classical. Is African Drums. Is Chinese Lute.
 
The Stone Forest Ensemble is the huddled mass of MCs freestyling by the corner store in Brooklyn. The string quartet tuning back stage at the Manhattan conservatory. The hundred pairs of hands in the drum circle beating the body of one rhythm. The sharp fragments of sound flickering from the Pipa and filling the space that stretches from the tunnels of the NY subway to the palaces of Beijing.
 
The Stone Forest Ensemble is from America. Is from China. Is from Sri Lanka. Is from Russia. Is from Japan.
 
The Stone Forest Ensemble is the people of New York City as a symbol of the people of the world.

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