Nightlands and The Building with guests

Age: 19+

Tickets

Cost: $12.00
Find tickets: here

Nightlands:
The son of a genetic engineer, Dave Hartley has eschewed his father’s profession but decidedly inherited his analytical proclivities and love of “the lab.” As Nightlands, Hartley is a scientist trying to create and understand art through analytical process. Here, with sophomore album Oak Island, his follow up to 2010’s superb Forget the Mantra, new questions are explored: what happens when the human voice is layered exponentially? Is the sum more man, or more melancholy machine? In seeking these answers, Nightlands takes us on a spirit quest through lush forests down into The Uncanny Valley. Each distorted, silver-voiced melody is wrapped in the sounds of 70s AM gold — plucked acoustic guitars, trumpets, dulcimers and hand percussion. In using these pop touchstones, the songs become something close to memories, the faded feelings that tide in and out of you when conjuring the past. To this end, virtually every chord played on Oak Island is a major-7th, the most nostalgic harmonic grouping. Seals & Croft produced by mid-70s beetle-voiced Brian Eno. Crosby, HAL and Nash.

Beneath the analytics and technical experimentation lie 10 pop songs about sadness and love; this silvery robot has learned what it means to be human and paid a great cost. The elegant, lunar bossa-nova of album standout “So Far So Long,”with its distant trumpeted satellite signals, offers a slow, confident lilting and wilting, as Hartley considers traversing space and time.

Hartley is a prolific sideman in many notable bands in and around Philadelphia and the extraordinary bassist of The War on Drugs (he played bass on Sharon Van Etten’s epic, in Sondre Lerche’s touring band, and sings in The Silver Ages). Listeners expecting a simple side project, however, will be surprised by the boldness and scope of his vision–Nightlands is the Chuck Close painting to the The War on Drugs’ De Kooning.

The Building :
The Building is brothers Anthony and Angelo LaMarca from Youngstown, Ohio. They released their first album ‘The Swooshy Businessman’ in 2012. The songs dealt with the brothers’ search for positive male influence in their life. Someone who hadn’t lied, cheated, given up, left, walked away…

In May 2015 Angelo and Anthony started recording a new album called ‘Reconciliation’ with Gary Rhamy at Peppermint Recording Studio in Youngstown, a place made famous by their multiple Grammy-award winning Polka recordings. Some of the songs they were working on examined some of the choices their dad made in his life while dealing with an MS diagnosis in his late twenties. Questioning how people deal with tragedy, whether they know it is coming or not. A few months later Anthony found out he had Multiple Myeloma (bone marrow cancer), throwing him into the same situation he had been writing about. They finished the record by the end of the year, half recorded before knowing what was wrong and half after, with the health news obviously influencing the songs. It can be an intense listen; dealing with confusion, fear, not knowing what’s coming or how it will work out, death… Their goal though was not to provide more problems, but to find peace in the situation, to try and navigate this all with consideration and patience. The goal is to get rid of all fear, especially of inevitable situations.
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Anthony LaMarca currently plays in The War On Drugs, sometimes with Dean & Britta, and previously with St. Vincent. He has a perfect wife named Megan and also a wonderful German Shepherd named Petra. His favorite grocery store is Giant Eagle.

Angelo LaMarca currently teaches art at two different Youngstown schools. His paintings are featured on the ‘Reconciliation’ packaging. He and his wife Andra have a daughter who is full of light and loves to point at things. Angelo is a big advocate for early 21st century Dodge Caravans.
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