Canary oh Canary is a study of moderation.
The Richmond-based post-punk trio — Michael Hart on guitar and vocals, Josie Davis on bass and the band's secret weapon and driving force, Noell Alexander, on drums — is a formidable combination of linear wit, melodic restraint and compositional veracity.
On their self-released debut EP, "Last Night in Sunway Knolls," the group incorporates the expansiveness of Television's "Marquee Moon" with the clipped, agitated musical economy of early Wire and the Fall to create their distinctive narratives. From the naked, "Flowers of Romance"-era Public Image-inspired simplicity of the slyly catchy "Embrace" to the subtle, unrelenting crawl of the closing title track, each note they play is gracefully placed to extenuate the unit's temptuous team-first titillations. It is powerful stuff, and their carefully measured restraints grow more intoxicating with each listen.
If you are a fan of the Gun Club's more pastoral explorations, Echo & The Bunnymen or The Cure's 1982 dark classic, "Pornography," I cannot recommend this band enough.
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Incorporating the atmospherics of modern ambient music, Polish avant-garde composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki's need for tone clusters and vintage Celtic Frost is the Richmond/North Carolina trio Gauchiste.
Describing themselves as "Ambient Isolationist Maldoror Metal," the idiosyncratic group features Tannon Penland. Best known for his guitar work with the influential Richmond hardcore/metal band Sordid Doctrine in the late 1980s and early 1990s and most recently with the brief, brutal blasts of instrumental math metal of Loincloth, Penland has teamed up with prolific Raleigh, N.C.-based electronic musicians Tomas Phillips and Craig Hilton to create a synthesis of minimalist, abstract music with the thinking man's headbang. Former Old guitarist James Plotkin is mastering the group's self-titled, seven-song debut set for Nov. 15 release on local label Little Black Clouds Records.
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Loincloth is set to release their highly anticipated first full-length album, "Iron Balls of Steel," this November for Southern Lord Records. Though the band (whose fans include members of Metallica and Slayer) no longer records with guitarist and founding member Penn Rollins (Honor Roll, Butterglove, Breadwinner), the trio of Penland on guitar with drummer extraordinaire from Confessor Steve Shelton and bassist Cary Rowells still calculates a mighty arithmetic that makes most other metal seem silly in comparison.
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Rare is the band that after 20 years of playing together is currently making the best music they've ever made. In Richmond, I can think of two of them: Hotel X and Bio Ritmo.
Multi-instrumentalists Tim Harding and Ron Curry recently celebrated their 19th anniversary as landlords of the ever-evolving musical rooming house Hotel X with an intimate performance of their universal language of groove at one of the best places in the city to get up close and personal with music, Crossroads Coffee & Tea.
Longtime Richmond salsa dance favorites Bio Ritmo celebrate their two decades of existence in fine style with the release of their most satisfying recorded effort to date. "La Verdad," released this week on the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based label Electric Cowbell, run by percussionist Jim Thomson, an original founding member of both Bio Ritmo and Hotel X, is a intoxicating modern-day blend of Eddie Palmieri melodic tempos, Dick Hyman's moog synthesized lounge and the poly-rhythmic party flavors of Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji. They were the Richmond Folk Festival before Richmond had a folk festival.
And like the good things in life, they have only gotten better with age.
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