Frankie Rose • SRSQ • Choke Chain
Thu 06/01/23
7:00PM
18+
music
$15 ADV // $18 DOS
Show Lineup
Frankie Rose
(Brooklyn, NY)
Genre: Indie Rock
Ex-Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls and Crystal Stilt
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After spending years as a major presence in Brooklyn’s thriving music scene, Frankie Rose relocated to her familial home of Los Angeles for 18 months. Frankie’s intent was to establish yet another moment in her storied indie rock métier. Gradually, she found herself short on sleep, funds, and optimism. “I moved to L.A., drama ensued and I ended up on a catering truck. I was like, how can this be my life after being a touring musician and living off of music. I had really lost my way and I thought I was totally done.”
Through sleepless nights of listening to broadcaster Art Bell’s paranormal-themed archives, Frankie’s thoughts had turned to “who am I, I’m not cut out for this business, it’s not for me.” She continues, “I was literally in my room in L.A., not knowing how I was going to get out. But out of it all, I just decided to keep making music, because it is what I love and what I do – regardless of the outcome.”
Towards the end of her time spent in Los Angeles, Frankie reached out to Jorge Elbrecht (Tamaryn, Gang Gang Dance, Violens) and began sketching what became the basic outline of what felt like a new album. Then, rather fortuitously, Frankie ended up back in Brooklyn with the realization that “in the end, I’m on my own. I have to do these things on my own.”
The months that ensued meant basically working with no budget and finding ways to record in-between days. This time enabled Frankie to experiment musically with a variety of people that ultimately changed the way she worked. “I got a lot of input from people like Dave Harrington (Darkside), who was helpfully reconstructing the songs, adding dynamics and changing up the rhythms.”
The result of this existential odyssey is Cage Tropical, Frankie’s 4th album. It is awash with vintage synths, painterly effects pedals, upside down atmosphere and reverberating vocals. It evokes a new wave paranormality of sorts that drifts beyond the songs themselves. “My references aren’t just music,” says Frankie, “I love old sci-fi. They Live is one of my favorite movies ever, same with Suspiria. 80’s sci-fi movies with a John Carpenter soundtrack, with silly synths – that makes it into my file, to the point that I’ll write lyrics incorporating that kind of stuff. It’s in there.”
Beginning with the shimmery, cinematic and percussive sparkling of the album’s opening track “Love in Rockets,” the song’s refrain of “a wheel, a wheel of wasting my life; a wheel, a wheel of wasting my time” immediately alludes to those darker circumstances that led to the creative origins of Cage Tropical. “It’s all essentially based on what happened to me in Los Angeles and then a return to Brooklyn,” says Frankie. “Misery turned into something good. The whole record to me is a redemption record and it is the most positive one I’ve made”
“I feel like I am finally free from worrying about an outcome. I don’t care. I already lost everything. I already had the worst-case scenario. When that happens, you do become free. In the end, it’s about me rescuing myself via having this record.”
SRSQ
(Dallas, TX)
Genre: Alternative, Dream-Pop, Shoegaze
SRSQ (pronounced seer-skew) is the moniker of singer, musician, and elemental force Kennedy Ashlyn. From foundational years as co-founder of visionary shoegaze duo Them Are Us Too (alongside the late, lamented Cash Askew) through her growing body of solo work on Dais Records, she has steadily honed her multi-octave range and moodswing songcraft into an increasingly potent poetic voice. 2019’s celebrated debut, Unreality, showcased a deepening gift for melodic dynamics and emotive exorcism – a mode she half-seriously coined “griefwave.” The album’s passionate response prompted extensive live dates, further sharpening her natural performative instincts.
2022 further confirms Kennedy as an essential generational talent, able to synthesize private struggles and sorrows into stirring, redemptive anthems. Hers is a music of tumult and triumph, darkest night breaking into brightest dawn, where anguish blurs and becomes acceptance. SRSQ’s seeds have only just begun to bloom; looming tours, videos, and more will inevitably hasten an already radiant refinement.
“Dedication to my work will be my saving grace, and ultimately I’ll destroy the bullshit ideas of who I am or how I have to be, and experience true freedom.”
Choke Chain
(Milwaukee, WI)
Genre: Electronic
Choke Chain, founded in 2018, is the solo project of Mark Trueman. Melding together the dancefloor stomp of EBM and Industrial, the darkness of Goth, and the in-your-face attitude of Punk, the project creates something uniquely punishing and intense.