2014-10-21

Back to the Present - MALE GAZE profile

MALE GAZE @ KO
Male Gaze at the Knockout

Felt compelled to take a break from my slow excavation of my live recordings to share this with you, as it beggars belief how terrific this group Male Gaze is.  Longtime readers (all three of you) won't be surprised to hear me say this, but I actually hadn't heard them properly until last week...a couple of months back I played "Cliffs Of Madness", thought it was pretty good if a little abtuse, and then promptly went back to whatever it was I was doing.  Only recently, with a chance to catch them in the act, did I start paying closer attention...and finding nothing but brilliance as I've been playing the hell out of the songs they've put out so far...which are:

Cliffs Of Madness
Think Twice          

Both courtesy of Unpianomusic, in their last ever post!  Per the site's policy, I've removed the direct links to the songs that I had.

As well as:

Smog Dawn (09.28.14)

The first two tracks are out on a Mt. St. Mtn 7", I'd urge you to pick up this black-and-clear beauty before the pressing of 500 is sold out.

Certain reviews have made references to the vocals reminding one of a certain mister I. Curtis or D. Bowie.  I don't really hear that, as flattering as that I'm sure was intended to be, but vocalist/guitarist Matt Jones' vocals *are* quite striking, with a quease-inducing warbling vibratonics interspersed with high-pitched harmonies.  It was one of the things that I loved from his previous band, Blasted Canyons.  Here, the approach is more angular and buzzzzzed/fuzzzzzed out, and as good as jams like "Ice Cream Man" and "Get High" were, they are Saturday morning cartoons compared to the grunge-cum-psych-raj exhibited here.  Props should also go out to ex-Mayyors Mark Kaiser, providing probably the scuzziest basslines I've heard in quite a while.  Rounding out the lineup is ex-Mall drummer Adam Cimino.  If this doesn't make you want to take a deep dive through the Mayyors and Mall back catalogs, you're a better person than me.

Since they'll be putting out a disc on Castleface records early next year, I'll leave you to discover them the same way I did, watching them play at the Knockout recently (put on by the fine folks at Savoir Faire) along with Landlines and The Woolen Men (both superb products of PDX) and another local outfit, Michael and the Strange Land.

However, I did snag a clip of them performing CoM that I will share...




Update:  I just found a live track (unknown title) they did at the Witch Room in Sacramento back on 4/18: