Reader, we here at Kindness of Ravens sincerely hope that you—like us—had a restful, exciting, explosion-filled holiday week, making merry with friends, glimpsing the tip-tops of fireworks from Brooklyn roofs (damn you, Bloomberg and your Hudson-only pyrotechnics), being hit by shrapnel from your downstairs neighbor’s bottle rocket (that was totally being aimed at your head), biking around previously abandoned military island outposts, and lounging on the sun-drenched, tattoo-filled beaches of New York. Or something along those lines.
Alas, the most sobering aspect of enjoying oneself so much is—after hitting the snooze button for the fiftieth time—waking up post-holiday Monday morning and finally getting back to the grind, as they say, even for those of us with what we consider to be the coolest jobs in the world.
But, thank the gods, we live in New York, where thousands of awesome people, places, and happenings are just around the corner, figuratively and literally. Case in point—tomorrow’s Celebrate Brooklyn benefit show in Prospect Park with one of the most exciting line-ups we’ve seen put together in a long, long time.
Not only are the weirdly winding new-wop sounds of the Dirty Projectors headlining the bill, but said Brooklynites have wisely chosen two of our favorite bands to open up for them—Baltimore emotive folk-rock duo, Wye Oak (who we caught two CMJ’s ago and wrote up last February), and Montreal electronic artsy duo, Purity Ring (who we first wrote about last fall). We’ve been lucky enough to catch Purity Ring a few times now and are excited to again witness their awesome (near-performance-art) live show with its coordinated lights and illuminating bass drum (hit with tribal grandeur by singer, Megan James) punctuating their beautifully enticing and wholly original songs. But we haven’t seen Wye Oak since their pre-signing days when they entirely impressed not only with their wonderfully written songs, but also with the sheer depth and breadth of sound they were able to create with two individuals.
As of writing, tickets are still available to the show, which takes place in the Prospect Park Bandshell and is being catered (as with all Celebrate Brooklyn shows again this year) by the Farm on Adderly, which has a few veg options. In the meantime, check out the two brand new tracks from Dirty Projectors + Purity Ring (who have new albums coming out tomorrow on Domino USA + July 24th on 4AD, respectively). And I’m sure Wye Oak is working on something new for us some time soon but you can check out their site to tide you over.
Photos by Jason Frank Rothenberg (Dirty Projectors), Natasha Tylea (Wye Oak), and Landon Speers (Purity Ring).
Note: Songs posted to this blog are kept online for a limited period of time out of fairness to the artists and, you know, our server. So if this is now an older post, the links may well be dead. Buy more music!
