Grocer • Operations • Dogs in Ecstasy • Lightninging
Mon 05/20/24
6:30PM
18+
music
$12 ADV // $15 DOS
Show Lineup
Grocer
(Philadelphia, PA)
Genre: Garage Rock, Punk
Grocer is a band from Philadelphia. Lead by three distinct vocalists, each with a unique voice both on and off their respective instruments, they flicker between moments of brash chromaticism, saccharine pop sensibility, and rhythmic acrobatics. Their compositions are both meticulous and volatile, while their live performances are lauded for explosive chemistry with cheeky curiosity.
Just on the heels of the release of their formative EP, Scatter Plot, the band returned to their subterranean laboratory to further prod and pull at their musical specimens. On their new LP, Bless Me (out April 19th) the band emerges with some striking discoveries. Palpable melodic figures interact with an ever shifting landscape of rhythmic and harmonic structures.
Bless Me encapsulates the band’s enigmatic live energy like lightning in a jar. Tracked live in their own basement and further realized with mixing help from Nate Amos (Water From Your Eyes, This Is Lorelei), the final product is electric, magnetic, and radio-active. An album that attempts to reckon with the worn out “Thoughts and Prayers’ trope of the American way of thinking, Grocer envelopes a musical ferocity that pushes for change, rather than mere acknowledgement.
A notably ambitious touring outfit, the self-described “road dogs” will be touring the US in May 2024. Grocer amuses and perplexes live audiences all over the country and on their memorable Audiotree, XPN and NPR sessions. They are playful entertainers at heart, but not to the detriment of the substantive work that they create.
Operations
(Milwaukee, WI)
Genre: Indie Rock
Operations was formed by Charles Markowiak and Alisa Rodriguez (Apollo Vermouth) in the spring of 2018 while the duo were playing in the group Sundial Mottos. In Operations the pair split guitar, songwriting, and vocal duties. John Schoneman of slowcore-worship group Haunter was brought on to play drums and Sam Gargulak came in to play bass. Operations have been playing shows in and around Milwaukee since December 2018. Their first album Fog Museum was recorded on Labor Day weekend of 2019 at Jamdek in Chicago, IL and engineered/mixed by Dave Vettraino (The Hecks). The album was mastered by Mikey Young (Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Total Control).
Lightninging
(Milwaukee, WI)
Genre: Indie, Shoegaze
Lightninging comprises various members of Milwaukee’s experimental and jazz scenes and includes current and former members of Gauss, Social Caterpillar, Frenia, The Naima, and King of Salads. The group’s widely varying musical interests and exploratory outlook produce a densely layered and continually evolving sound, in which strands of rock, jazz, electronic music, experimental music, and pop music refract each other to kaleidoscopic effect. Song structures follow a sort of warped dream logic: jagged polyrhythms give way to shoegaze-y walls of sound; a jazz-indebted dirge dissolves into a noise-laced sound collage.
Lightninging’s creative ethos is similarly layered, variously involving meticulous composition, loose improvisation, and stream-of-consciousness musings, invoking both the power of collective work and intention as well as the power of spontaneity and play; the joy of building a sonic and semantic world with your friends, wrecking the foundation and sending its building blocks tumbling to the ground, only to pick them back up again and start anew.