July 21 * 7pm * Partly outdoors, weather permitting * TICKETS
Washington, D.C.-based instrumental group Requiem has announced their upcoming album, POPulist Agendas, set for release on August 11th via Mutineer Records. Drawing inspiration from post-rock giants such as Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and Bowery Electric, Requiem’s sound is characterized by immersive soundscapes, deep synthetic bass, and dynamic percussion.
The core members—veteran musician and multimedia artist Doug Kallmeyer, visual artist Monica Stroik, and guitarist/soundscape designer/conceptualist Tristan Welch—came together during that heady pandemic summer of 2020, motivated by a desire for a new creative outlet during destabilizing times. Tristan, a lifelong punk kid who grew up listening to bands like Rancid but has more recently become known for a string of acclaimed ambient/drone releases, met Doug, a longtime audio engineer and music lifer who spent decades on the road handling sound for Blonde Redhead, Phantogram and many more, through the D.C. underground music scene. Monica and Doug were running a label, Verses Records. All felt like perennial outsiders.
When Requiem performs in concert, it’s not an ordinary show. The D.C. group’s hypnotic multimedia experiences, which involve real-time visual manipulation by artist/bandmate Stroik, move audience members in profound ways. Heavily processed drums, performed by Andrew Toy, anchor the band’s songs in distorted, extraterrestrial groves.
requiemdrone.bandcamp.com/album/populist-agendas
Hotel Neon is the Philadelphia-based trio of Michael Tasselmyer, Andrew Tasselmyer, and Steven Kemner. Together they create music to get lost in: cavernous, reverberating guitars and synthesizers, matched with visual projections to create an immersive audio/visual experience. Since forming in early 2013, the group has released 7 full-length albums and several EPs. Hotel Neon has toured and collaborated with the likes of Benoit Pîoulard, The Sight Below, Simon Scott, and Marcus Fischer, filling everything from living rooms to cathedrals with their densely layered walls of sound
Since 2003, Philadelphia-based improv ensemble Kohoutek has constructed a dynamic, stylistic range of abstract sound, consisting of textural drone, atmospheric rock, harsh noise freakouts, clattering percussion, guitar heroics and alien electronics, all congealing to form a multihued psychedelic extravaganza. Inspired by such varied musical entities as Can, Amon Duul 2, Trad Gras Och Stenar, Dead C, Sun City Girls, Hawkwind, This Heat, Sun Ra, Art Ensemble of Chicago and King Crimson, they inhabit a world of murky terrain where drone, musique concrete and noise coalesce with cosmic folk, where doom and sludge metal merge with fiery jazzoid polyrhythms. All Kohoutek performances are rituals channeling untapped energy transmogrified through pure expression and response to the immediate environment.