Artrocker Live Review Soon after, I catch what turns out to be my favourite band of the day, the deceptively languid Von Haze. Travis Caine and Katherine Kin gradually draw a rapt crowd for their incredibly glacial take on shimmer-pop. The duo's swathes of guitar, synth and barely audible vocals seemingly never go faster than 15RPM the whole while. And yet they are mesmerising, their very minimal sound focussing concentration until there is nothing else in the world except us and Von Haze. It's an impressive trick.
After taking in some of Lasers From Atlantis doing their noise-scape thing in the main room, it's over to New Yorkers Von Haze. Radiating intensity from a place carved somewhere between ice and smoke, fluttering like a choir of ghosts. More and more punters are slowly drawn into their web, and then stand there quite unable look away. We are the moth, they are the light bulb. And how Sad Girlsburns you up! Sick Of The Radio This article is not about The xx. It is about a band that is better than The xx. Von Haze is a Brooklyn male/female duo of Travis Kaine and Katherine Kin. They are inevitably compared to The xx due to their slow, electronic sound and their sexy, overlapping lyrics and I don't intend to ignore this fact. But while the music from The xx seems to be made for the radio (particularly college radio) Von Haze produces a sound that is made for the live show. The former tend to do a lot Chris Isaak-icizing-making use of long, twanging guitar strums and sensitive-straight-man vocals-that is often dangerously close to the music they are referencing. But Von Haze offer a sound that is more their own. Take, for instance, the track titled "Get Me Alone." The song unfurls its fronds of breathy vocals, chainsaw guitars and a slow stomping drum machine. Taking time to get established, the song fills the space it has created for itself with a slow motion repetition and gradual building of synth chords. On the finish, it self-destructs, carrying though a series of dissonances that end in a barely-audible screech over a weakly-popping beat. How's that for a sexy song construction? One can only imagine the kind of tension these two can fill a venue with. If Caine and Kin update their Facebook page as much as most musicians do, they haven't played a show in over a year. Give them an audience, music lovers. Here is a band with a more genuine potential than their mainstream counterparts. They are also decent photographers, as featured on their website. They are in the studio right now, recording their follow up to last year's Von Haze EP, that is set for release later this year.
Debut ep from this Brooklyn based boy girl duo who traffic in gloriously blissed out, slo-mo, witch house-y synth-wave nu-gaze dream pop, the sound super minimal and stripped down, like Portishead crossed with oOoOO, a bass and synth heavy electro brood, that creeps and drifts, smoldering and sexy, swirly and darkly abstract. A series of glacial electro ballads, that pulse and throb, washed out dark wave slither slipping sinisterly from cold wave, to new wave, to trip hop and back again. The basslines thrum, the synths whir and wheeze and shimmer, all beneath deep, smokey chanteuse like vox, each track, a thick undulating synthscape, minimal and moody, skeletal and spidery. Here and there arise bits of psychedelic squall, of metallic buzz, and effects drenched swirl, but for the most part the record drifts moodily and dreamily, the perfect late night, last drink, dark bar, drift off, lights low, bliss out, come down jam. The first track on the B side mixes things up a bit with a blast of feral post punk energy, sounding a bit like a more fiery Strokes, lots of guitar crunch and real drum pound, distorted weary boyvox, the whole thing sweaty and fuzzy and intense, and then as if to make up for that sonic transgression, the rest of the record is dialed even further down, mostly just synths and vocals, various keyboards, wheezing organs, a droney minimal dreampop drift, softly buzzy and druggy, like a disembodied, even more stoned Velvets or Spacemen 3, perhaps a bit more modern and electronic, but just as lysergic and laid back. Super thick vinyl, nice heavy full color gatefold and printed full color inner sleeve.
Von Haze's Travis Caine and Katherine Kin may be in love, may just be musical partners, maybe they hate each other. It's hard to tell on "Outside The Night," from their Richard Fearless-produced self-titled EP. They probably do not hate each other, since they've been working together for ten years (in Virginia, now Brooklyn). They sing "Outside The Night" in unison, but despite the fatalist/romantic lyrics, they don't sing to each other — their drugged-up voices each live inside their own little spheres, removed from one another. Even the instruments — the drums, the watery organs — are distant and out of focus. It's hypnotic stuff:
ESPN's Chris Berman, here's your new favorite spooky synth act. Presumably taking their name from 1980s big-league All-Star outfielder Von "Purple" Hayes, the Brooklyn duo of Travis Caine and Katherine Kin go in for epic (albeit homespun) ominousness on "Sooner or Later", all narcoticized female vocals, perversely chintzy synths, and buzzsaw guitar drone. "Love grows," Kin intones, as the track slowly does, too. Fans of similarly eerie electronic outfits like Salem and White Ring should take note.
Need some new minimal psychedelic rock in your lives? Then be sure to check out Brooklyn duo Von Haze! Got sent their 6 track self titled EP the other day and I am loving it! Minimal, dark psychedelia a la bands like xx and such. Really great stuff! Seems they are already creating a buzz in NYC with people in the know, so get into them before everyone is on the bandwagon. Here are a couple tracks that have been cleared for posting. The excellent 7 and a half minute scorcher 'Sooner or Later' and their latest acid tinged single 'Sad Girls'. Both amazing tracks! In addition here is their trippy video for 'Looking Down' also from the EP and also really good!
The big joke about people living in New York is that when they try to talk about living in New York, they sound like assholes. We've definitely done it before at some point in our lives, and if you live here you probably have too. It's a common enough thing that The Office once even made an (extended) joke about it. You'd think that with all the talk about the WILD NEW YORK NIGHTS and ENDLESS ARRAY OF UNDERGROUND CLUBS etc. etc. etc., we'd all be out all-night, every-night raging in underground clubs with, like, white tigers and small bears with humans on leashes just chilling and wandering through the multiple cavernous rooms. But that's not really the case, and we're generally okay with that 99% of the time we're awake. For that other 1% of our brains, we have this Blondes remix of Von Haze's "Outside the Night," which recasts the original's warbly creak as a hypnotic thumper that would be right at home in the super secret club underneath the shoe area of Century 21 that we just invented. |
Boomkat - E.P. review A seven-song album of captivating synth-gaze and lo-fi, basement-dwelling drone-pop from new label, Hippos In Tanks. Von Haze are a Brooklyn duo made up by Travis Caine and Katherine Kin and straight away the duo set out a hipper-than-thou brand of slowed down glo-fi stylings via the glacially cool 'Get Me Alone'. The barely conscious bpm level rises slightly for 'Sooner Or Later', which chugs along with a bleakly no-fi drum machine pulse while strips of grotty bass team up with whispered, barely conscious vocals. As effective as Von Haze are in this kind of vaporous and supine form, they make for a great darkside electronic pop prospect on 'Sad Girls' - a track that's halfway between The Jesus & Mary Chain and Crystal Castles. Continuing to assert a rawer, more energised sound, 'Everyway' opts for an untamed, punkish feel, piling live drums into the mix while Caine (presumably) pulls off a bit of a Julian Casablancas impersonation on the mic. An altogether more sedated highlight, 'Looking Down' is like an organ-propelled Jason Pierce song, providing the album with a weary yet soulful ending. Recommended.
Other Music E.P. Review NYC duo Von Haze have released a debut six-song mini-album that varies from moody, hazy and druggy, to driving lo-fi synth rock, propelled by the drum machines, throbby bass and distorted guitar found in bands ranging from Bowery Electric to Moon Duo. But Von Haze approach their songs with a more decadent groove; whether driving or molasses-slow, the band lace Suicide synth and drums with the drawling haziness of bands like Brightblack Morning Light as well as the dopesick 'tude and male/female vocal duets of Royal Trux. (See the nodded-out "Get Me Alone" and the funeral organ dirge (meets Eno landscape) of "Looking Down," the ethereal "Outside the Night" or the dungeon doom of "Sooner or Later".) Guitar jams like "Sad Girls" and "Everyway" inject a bit more rock with a dirty dose of the Stooges. Recommended.
Mad Mackerel - E.P. Review Von Haze play a dark-tinged, sultry psychedelia that has echoes of the goth giants of yesteryear such as The Cure, but also has its feet planted firmly in the current, also calling to mind indie darlings such as XX.Swirling, gloomy synths, staccato drum beats and minimal downbeat vocals are all married together to create an atmosphere of foreboding and drug-induced fatalism. Rather like the soundtrack to an Italian horror flick from the early 70s, you know it isn't going to end well for someone! Their debut self-titled EP was released last week on Hippos In Tanks. The write-up mentions crows pecking on a corpse which just about sums it up. Sad Girls is a more upbeat offering from the EP, but no less desolate in message with a surprising John Lydon-esque vocal in places.
When two sensual entities such as Von Haze and Blondes cross paths, the result has got to be an ultimate sex music. This take on Von Hazes' Outside The Night, off their upcoming EP on Hippos IN Tanks which is available now for pre order and digitally from July 22nd, takes the AM bedroom-mirror comedown of the original and jumps back to four hours prior, standing in front of the bathroom mirror amongst a crowd of other people, makeup and appearance is still intact but a sense of doubt annoyingly inconveniencing from within. Nothing has happened, you're still in control, yet somehow the nights conclusion is an inescapable one.
"Part Brightblack Morning Light-style organ meditations, part goth rockers. The song 'Sooner or Later' goes in another direction with 7 minutes of flickering metallic beat underneath lightly harmonized voices."
"Sonically we are in a place that might have existed if the early Human League had been more influenced by Gram Parsons than Donna Summer, drifting between the corrupted love ballads of Throbbing Gristle and SALEM's lingering flame. Add the nicotine packed sex of (miss you) HTRK and we are there, waiting for the other shoe to drop while the particles of dust settle on the deserted streets of a ghost town, suddenly, the ominous click of the gun being cocked."
Von Haze's live show carried a distorted edge that's often winked at but never quite fully unsheathed in their recorded material, which often skews towards more minimal pop. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. The raw, kinetic energy they manifest onstage is a grand departure from the stereotypical - manbot meets ladybot and they stand still onstage while you and your friend take turns whispering in each other's ears - dynamic that many bands seem to accept as the de facto stage presence for performing any music that involves a drum machine. Trading off vocals from song to song, Travis Caine and Katherine Kin's disparate vocal styles give them license to explore the fringes of their aesthetic. Have a good hunch the kids in London are going to fall for their vicious guitar sounds and purring synth lines on their upcoming UK tour.
In a way, it's kind of convenient that this Brooklyn duo Von Haze have the word "haze" right in their band name, as it serves as kind of a suggestion toward the mind-frame ideal for their music's consumption. I found that in a post-coital euphoria, their dark, pulsing, minimalist come-ons sent my mind spiraling rather pleasantly into the ether with thoughts of accidentally walking in on a naked goth chick in costume antlers crying in the bathtub. Then, almost out of embarrassment, having her feed me pills and fuck me savagely to alleviate her own deep-rooted mental instability. It's kind of like a bleaker urban version of the brilliantly simplistic Brightblack Morning Light, Von Haze further demonstrate why sometimes the simplest shit ends up being the coolest. When these cats really strike their groove, it's with little more than a slow motion drum machine beat, some sparse keyboard and guitar arrangements, and breathy female vocals drenched exotically in swaths of subtle reverb. The few tracks where the band kick up the tempo a notch, let the dude sing, and saunter into more straight-forward garage rock territory tend to be the least interesting in my world, although they're not throwaways by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that I could listen to their hypnotically spacey slow jams for an eternity, letting my perverse fantasies wander unfettered toward their natural conclusions.
Woo. That is quite the mouthful. So: Von Haze made a song, White Car did an edit of it, and then Salem remixed that edit. If we hadn't already heard the previous versions, we'd just assume the original was just someone blowing on a jug for a couple minutes or something. But no—the Salem remix is actually a harder, darker variation on Von Haze's original version (which you can watch and hear up above). Both of them make us want to curl up in a ball and stare at a wall for the rest of the day, but Salem's makes us feel like we also need to punch the wall while doing it. Nothing like getting aggression out through moping and listening to jams.
Von Haze. We italicize to make it look and read as ominous as their music sounds, because the hi-hats in "Sooner Or Later"-these coarse, rigid, pitched-down hammer falls-are the definition of ominous (as are the murky bass synth and barely conscious female vocal). This song keystones Von Haze's self-titled debut EP, which descends from its black cloud on June 22 via L.A.'s Hippos In Tanks (wow). Lamping on the beach in leather and boots beside an out-of-it Dalmatian is the only metaphor we really need, so thanks for that, guys. |
