The Unapologetic Hipster's Guide to Cool New Music Coming to Northampton in IHEG's BREAKOUT! Emerging Artist Series

 Polica

Zulu Winter
Saturday, March 31st 10PM
Iron Horse
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Last summer, Ryan Olson and Channy Casselle – whose previous collaboration, Gayngs' 2010 LP Relayted, was a mesmerizing slab of cheesed-out neo-soul that featured Bon Iver – wrote Give You The Ghost in only a month's time. Quickly, a band was assembled and sent into the studio, fully fleshing out the forlorn, ruminative R&B experiment, and Give You the Ghost was born. The songs are of a piece with Olson and Casselle's previous work, yet slower, more tender – less sharp tongue and more soft cheek. Casselle's focused, tender voice cascades over dense fields of minor-key electronics, backed by with funked-up bass and a swarm of percussion. It’s sound of heartbreak and celebration happening simultaneously. (Pronounced POE-LISA)

honeyhoney
Monday, April 2nd 7PM
Iron Horse
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In a brave new world where vintage American has helped the likes of Mumford & Sons and the Avett Brothers achieve headliner status, Los Angeles duo honeyhoney (Suzanne Santo and Ben Jaffe)  provide the common pop thread between alt. country, spaghetti western soundtracks and swampy blues. They deftly mix elements of folk, soul, country, pop, and rock, evoking California’s hippie Dust Bowl fringe. There is a strong pull of Woody Guthrie-esque folk, vintage Buffalo Springfield, glints of Gram Parsons and bits of Bonnie Raitt’s early blues.

 Madi Diaz
Jessica Freeman
Tuesday, April 3rd 7PM
Iron Horse
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Madi Diaz is based in Nashville, but her sound is anchored in pop music. This bright young star on the rise has a new album full of catchy melodies, Plastic Moon.  Diaz grew up in Lancaster, PA, where she was home schooled by her Peruvian mother, Nancy, a proponent of early childhood development and the visual arts, and her Danish father, Eric, a woodworker and musician. Madi began piano lessons at age five, as her father was a keyboard player in the Frank Zappa tribute band, Project Object. In her early teens, Diaz switched from piano to guitar and attended Paul Green School of Rock in Philadelphia, where she was featured in director Don Argott’s 2005 documentary about the program, Rock School. 

 Emily Wells

Live Footage
Wednesday, April 4th 7PM
Iron Horse 

Emily Wells has long been turning heads with her unique songcraft. The performer, producer and songwriter trades in a striking mix of classical instrumentation, folk rawness and hip-hop production anchored by her haunting combination of voice and violin. Her burgeoning reputation owes as much to her hypnotic live show where, working a looping pedal, Wells becomes a one-woman orchestra, playing live drums, guitars, analog synthesizers and beat machines as well. It's that same blend of deft composition and hand-wrought quality that deeply colors each of Wells' albums, and which also caught the attention of Partisan Records, who ultimately signed her to the label. Wells' latest album, Mama, is set for an April 10th release date on Partisan, and the striking first single "Passenger" is available now for a free download. 

 Perfume Genius

Parenthetical Girls
Friday, April 6th 10PM
Iron Horse

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Even though he is only in his 20's, the story to date of one Mike Hadreas, aka Perfume Genius, has the peculiar twists and turns of a person who has lived through at least several lifetimes, and has seen rather more darkness than most. "I spent my whole life hiding from the things that happened to me, to my family and friends", Hadreas explains now. "The entirety of all these experiences: abuse, addiction, suicide...all that cool stuff. I couldn't bear to look at it". Now, as Perfume Genius, Hadreas is not only turning an unforgiving mirror on those demons that have beset him, but somehow managing to make breathtaking, utterly heartbreaking music out of them. Opening the evening are Portland's Parenthetical Girls, the project of singer Zac Pennington and a revolving cast of friends, are true musical alchemists - despite all their  experimental elements, everything always transmutes into smart, baroque pop gold that, at its best moments, sounds almost like a decidedly dark, even more self-conscious Belle and Sebastian.

 Quilt

Monday, April 9th 8:30PM
Iron Horse
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Quilt's founding members, Shane Butler and Anna Fox Rochinski, were visual art students at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, but bonded over their mutual love of weird, experimental jams and classic pop harmonies. Drummer John Andrews joined later. Like their namesake, Quilt's music feels handmade and stitched-together, as though its creators were sifting through a collection of musical hand-me-downs and collating the bits that spoke to them into something new. Quilt  recalls a time when artists like Devendra Banhart and Six Organs of Admittance prompted indie music fans to snap up reissues of outsider folk records by Vashti Bunyan, Jandek, and Alexander "Skip" Spence.

 White Rabbits

Gull
Friday, April 13th 9PM
Pearl Street Clubroom
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White Rabbits is a six-piece indie rock band based in Brooklyn, NY. They have a playfulness and charm that thematically evoke more decadent and bygone eras. In concert, the members of White Rabbits click well together. They've been lauded by ESQUIRE as one of “9 Shows a Man Should See” and by NPR as “winning over fans with its energetic live shows–thanks in part to its unusual two-drummer lineup… intense rhythms and sweeping, melodic choruses… catchy and often sinister.  The band’s follow-up to 2009’s critically acclaimed It’s Frightening is called Milk Safe, recorded in Austin.

Coming Soon:

Buxton Thu. 3/29 10PM Iron Horse
Jonny Corndawg, Shovels & Rope, Robert Ellis Fri. 3/30 10PM Iron Horse
Sun Parade "Yossis" album release show Sat. 4/7 10PM Iron Horse
Neutral Uke Hotel, Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library, Golden Bloom - Wed. 4/11 8:30 Iron Horse
Mike + Ruthy - Thu. 4/12 7PM Iron Horse
Shabazz Palaces- (Sub-Pop Hip-Hop) Thu. 4/12 10PM Iron Horse
Passion Pit- Mon. 4/16 8PM Pearl Street
Lucero - Wed. 4/18 8PM Pearl Street
The Lumineers, Kopecky Family Band - Wed. 4/18 7PM Iron Horse
Jason Anderson - Sat, 4/21 10PM Iron Horse
Good Old War, Belle Brigade, Family of the Year- Tuesday 4/24 8PM Pearl Street
Rhett Miller of Old 97s Tue. 4/24 7PM Iron Horse
Cults- Sun. 4/29 8PM Pearl Street
Shpongle, Phutureprimitive Tue. 5/1 Pearl Street
Xiu Xiu, Dirty Beaches, Father Murphy - Mon. 5/7 8:30 Iron Horse
The Feelies Fri. 5/11 8PM Pearl Steeet
Fountians of Wayne, Winterpills Sun. 5/13 (Mother's Day)
David Mayfield Parade, Adam Faucett Sun. 5/20 7PM Iron Horse

Tickets for all Iron Horse Entertainment shows are available online 24 hours at IHEG.com by phone at 413. 586.8686 and in person at Northampton Box Office (NBO) located at 76 Main Street in Northampton - Monday through Saturday from 9:00 am - 6:00 pm and Sunday Noon to 5:00 pm.