A night of experimental, psychedelic, trance, circuit bending, weirdcore! You'll have to be here to know what we mean!
"American Cream is the brainchild of Twin-Cities musician, Nathan Nelson. The project exceeds all attempts at definition: it is an experimental assembly, an alchemical escape, a shambolic rock band, a scene of weirdos, a dance party, a poetry reading, a spiritual awakening. In practical terms, Nelson convenes groups of musicians, sometimes rehearsed in advance, sometimes just hours before a show. With bits and pieces of loose guidance as the parameters, the musicians—many of whom are regulars to the project—typically swim on their own in performance, living in the moment, working to channel anarchic music from the unknown. What began as an experimental solo project over a decade ago has since grown into a sprawling phenomenon that encompasses seven releases, dozens of collaborators, and nearly a hundred shows. As it continues to evolve, American Cream questions ever more deeply what music is, what freedom is, and why we collectively keep showing up for no real reason at all."
Mar Habrine (a.k.a. Soaking Rasps, Smoldering Wreath, and member of Mpls. groove-noise trio Skoal Kodiak) delivers nine totally crucial and meditative tracks of distinct slippy-dubby electronics and deep murk-gurgle jams. Minimal non-beats and hard stereo panned gargling, loopy lazer beam hymns and deep tone-load zoners. This is heavy head music. A jungle of filters and leaky capacitors conjures invisible bass players playing invisible grooves, soaring zurna mantras, hissing tea pots and hypnotic electro-grizz rhythms that demand involuntary body movement.
Celica is the solo project of Minneapolis musician and photographer Sho Nikaido. Conceived in the winter of 2010, Nikaido recorded the lyrical, dystopian psych album Bouquet for the Sunset U’ve Never Seen in a single-room apartment on an 8 track. Lo-fi but meticulously arranged, moody but warm, and with a peculiarly distorted Japanese sense for pop, it traverses folk, punk, and electronic. Bouquet was first self-released on CD, and after two years of playing shows that converted the bedroom tone of the record to an ecstatically loud, cathartic rock show with a full band, Celica will release Bouquet on Seated Heat Records in the Fall of 2018. As with the CD, the vinyl will be accompanied by a small newspaper book featuring grainy reproductions of Nikaido’s previously exhibited photographs that mirror the dark and at once wistful and celebratory tone of the record. Having moved from Japan at 18, Nikaido’s artistic output—which includes legendary punk act Sweet JAP and Mute Era—is built around the exhilaration and pain of translation, and recalls the lyricism buried in artifice of such acts as Vincent Gallo and Shintaro Sakamoto. The design element of Celica, informed by Nikaido’s study of photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York, is always made accessible by the kind of reaching out that only a true outsidercan make.
