Candy Claws w/ Chain Gang of 1974

Description

"Candy Claws, the Colorado-based duo of Ryan Hover and Kay Bertholf, might've met at an Evangelical church, but the hazy, amniotic dreampop they make feels like the polar opposite of the uplifting bombast you expect to hear coming out of Rocky Mountain superchurches. And anyway, these days the duo is more interested in science than religion. Hidden Lands, Candy Claws' second album (out August 3 on twosyllable), is a companion piece to Richard M. Ketchum's 1970 plant-life book The Secret Life of the Forest. The duo wrote the album entirely on keyboards, an instrument that neither member actually knew how to play. The whole thing ends up sounding vaguely alien and off, its melodies built like non-Euclidean geometry. There's enough going on in Candy Claws' music that the group had to expand to eight members for their live shows." --Pitchfork

Born in San Jose and raised in Hawaii, Kamtin Mohager is the shape-shifting singer/multi-instrumentalist behind the Chain Gang of 1974. According to Mohager, his first proper release was “all over the place, from a piano ballad to songs that sound like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Primal Scream or Justice.” White Guts, on the other hand, funnels three years of instrument-swapping, sample-splicing experience into a lean, focused listen. So while “Stop!” and the rather epic “Hold On” hint at everything from LCD Soundsystem to Talking Heads, they make perfect sense in the context of deep cuts like the synth-flecked “Don’t Walk Away” and bass-guided “Matter of Time,” shimmering power ballads that could have been on the soundtrack of Sixteen Candles or Pretty in Pink. What sets the Chain Gang of 1974 apart from other Reagan-era revivalists is Mohager’s innate sense of rhythm, a skill he acquired at an early age. And we’re not just talking about his parents’ punchy, groove-riding record collection. We’re talking about family gatherings and traditions that taught Mohager how to make a crowd of cool kids uncross their arms and dance like there’s pistols pointed at their feet. "The Chain Gang of 1974's set was entertaining ... The over-the-top delivery, unpredictable projectiles whizzing through the air, and lyrics about getting high all made for quite a show." --Brooklyn Vegan

"If we used tags this post would certainly carry the ones 'dreamy,' 'woozy' and 'wonderful' in big capitals somewhere prominent as for the last little while we’ve been giving unstoppable sticky listens to the ARCADE SOUND LTD endorsed (BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD). ‘Happy High’ takes our cloud-bothering favourite words and wears them incredibly well with its twinkling galaxy of notes and shimmering out-of-body vocals that shadow the track with a gentle detached drift." --Transparent Blog

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Link

http://www.rickshawstop.com/calendar/