Almost exactly one year ago some friends and I put on a show. It was outside on a deck in L.A., up in the hills near the top of Mulholland Drive. The weather was sublime, as was the view. Midway through the evening our host appeared with a bag of psychedelic mushrooms the size of a pillow-case. He offered them out like hors d'oeuvres. "Help yourself," he said.
There were a handfull of marvelous performances that night (and hell, even mine turned out), but none approached the devastatingly gorgeous haunt of Emily Kokal's. A clip:
Kokal, a born Eugenian, returns tonight with Warpaint, a group drawing more attention by the day. And while Warpaint's spacious, hazy swirls of bass driven grooves and echoing arpeggios are darkly evocative, it's worth pointing out what Kokal and company can do with more stripped, earthy tones. In a recent interview Kokal mentioned that the group's new work is moving towards these more acoustic territories.
And it's for the better—Warpaint's debut EP, Exquisite Corpse sometimes dissolved into its own haze. Blending that ether with a more tactile, wilting folk, however, has the potential to become something very special indeed.
TONIGHT: Warpaint, w/ The Very Best & Zola Jesus - 9:00PM @ Holocene - $15