NEOpolitan: New Face in the City

ˌnēəˈpälətn/

If you asked Joseph Espinoza - bassist and vocals of Neopolitan - about what the band is trying to accomplish, he would say it's doing 80s-influenced music in a way it's never been done before. If you asked Pedro Caignet, percussion and backing keys, about the decision for the band's name, he would tell you that everyone tossed around names and eventually they chose "Neapolitan" for its reminder of the diverse town they originate from, and changed the spelling to convey the idea of something new, contemporary or avant-garde. When he was asked to describe the sound, he said, "Just funky, boogie, good times." This group of four, who came together March of this year, definitely brought something fresh and unique to us the night of August 2nd at the Sidebar on 8th Street, for their debut concert. On their Facebook page, you will find their mission: "Redefining Miami's music landscape, a live, fully electronic rhythm section which strives to revive the lost art of jazz style arrangement in dance music."

Left to right: Joey and Pedro during their first performance 'Cityscape'.

Left to right; Jorge and Andres during 'Cityscape'.

Recalling delicious chunky keytar bass, fresh electronic percussion (by Jorge Rodriguez) and charming retro synths (by Andres Nava), the three songs performed felt like extended, free-form jam sessions, yet it all still ended too soon. This is the perfect setup you would want for a night of dancing: continuous live tunes that morph and merge into each other with scarce pausing. Time really does fly when you have fun like this. It felt like a throwback to big band and lounge eras, and clearly to these four musicians, that's something Miami's cultural scene needs. Often the most ingenious endeavors end up taking cues from older styles and schools of thought. And what kind of new wave lover wouldn't mind getting lost for one night in Miami Vice-flavored nostalgia?

Check them out on Twitter, Instagram and their website as well!

Boxwood: Loop Menagerie

Sigh Kicks opened for Jose Ferrer's Moon Garage EP release party at Will Call Miami last Friday the 3rd. Their abundance of reverb, delayed phantom echoes, and playful repetition of violet and magenta tones created an all-consuming atmosphere, setting the tone for Boxwood's forthcoming ambiance. Upon meeting Ferrer, I learned of his background as an illustration major at Manhattan's School of Visual Arts, and was enchanted by the hand made packages holding his CDs. Inside two wooden squares bound by burlap and printed upon in black ink, the verso displayed small booklets of cut-up psychology textbook pages, hiding brief gems of lyrics within. The recto held the CD against a slab of grey house paint, picturing dark tree bark. He also let me take a business card: a slice of his prior vinyl record with stickers to his links. I was reminded of the business cards we were asked to make at DASH for portfolio reviews.

At midnight against a maroon velvet curtain, Ferrer began setting up electronic loops with his sampling pad by creating a beat on the wooden TV tray stand it sat on. Immediately from the island of pedals and wires he stood on came a sound from his acoustic guitar that I did not expect at all: a highly processed, distorted buzzing melody, filling the bar. He constructed an ecosystem of slow tribal beats, chattering chirping sounds, abstract lyrics and passionate cries layered upon each other, calling from all sides and corners of the building we were in. Throughout the show I saw parallels to the lushness and atmosphere of shoegaze, the anguish and abstraction of Radiohead, and the rhythms of Middle Eastern music. I've included a picture of the pedals and tools used to create a palette of smooth, electronic, gritty and crisp textures on his guitar covered in bright punchy and sliced-up stickers. A total of eight to nine songs were performed and the crowd was very responsive and loved the music. This eclectic artist is one of the few artful gems of local music, and you can go to Facebook and Bandcamp to support his craft and hear his previous work. 

UN.SUIT.ED: Perception of Contemporary Women

The Artisan Lounge is a ministry of Christ Fellowship Downtown, a leasing studio community and gallery space, seeking to bridge the gap between the faith world and the art world of Miami. Abraham Metellus is the current director.

This April's First Friday Downtown Art Walk exhibition UN.SUIT.ED at The Artisan Lounge featured the work of locals Toa Castellanos and Alessandra Santos. The women both showcased their photography, installations, prints, and work with textiles in regards to the idea of perception, judgments and their correlation to the clothing we wear. The show can seem to be women-centric although the idea extends to any person in any instance. Amongst mixed media collages of disproportionate, magazine-flat women characters, certain pieces spoke to me more clearly than others, which I will discuss here.

Photo courtesy of the author. Castellanos' Asking For It in Gallery 1.

In Gallery 1, Castellanos had hanging on the first wall a series of outfits: one for leisure out on the town, one for work, a schoolgirl uniform, a grandmother's house cleaning robe, and church-friendly attire. The title of the display is Asking For It, and below the title, a small list of statistics regarding sexual assault. Castellanos has embodied the principle that the outfit one may wear in one specific environment reflects only the environment's call for dress code and not the individual's inherent moral code or disposition. This universal fact is specifically applied to the example of female rape/assault victims and brings up the popular question: whose fault is it? Does the fact that a woman consciously dresses in a certain outfit mean she is anticipating or desiring unwanted sexual communications? Which factors feed our perception of a woman in such an outfit?

On the other side of the wall, a small row of ten wood blocks displayed greyscale photos of multiracial women in burqas, head wraps, luxurious fur coats, swimsuits or casual wear. With five photos duplicated, five have the word "freedom" superimposed on the image, and the other five bear the word "oppression". In removing color to further simplify the objective qualities of the images, Castellanos intends to show us the idea that to some a skimpy swimsuit is freedom for women, and to others it is oppression. The oppressor could be anybody from the media to the "patriarchy" to the phenomenon of objectification to social codes and expectations that say women should bear all and and be proud of their own skin. To some, a traditional burqa or veil is freedom to express religion or faith, freedom to hold tradition dear, freedom to find and build personal identity in either of these, and to some it is viewed as oppression. Did you have a certain picture of race/ethnicity or a certain stereotype come to mind when you read the first sentence of this paragraph? That's probably exactly what you would see if you were to visit the exhibition in person, and this was another point the artist wanted to make.

In Gallery 2, an installation titled Shame. Vanity. Identity. daintily hung from the gallery walls. A patchwork of various clothing templates, transparent blue and tan papers, were attached only by fabric pins and floating subtly in the air conditioning draft. These easily disposable templates, geometric curves and lines, measurements and gradients of size, are elevated to the socially-constructed significance of the clothing on the streets of Miami right now, by the fact that they are hanging as art in a gallery at this moment. Another idea presented is that of body diversity: while many agree the media focuses on a narrow set of body sizes as ideals for society's attractiveness and health, this installation reminds us that the average person in America can be a variety of body types, and that clothing manufacturers still create clothing for those bodies.

In Gallery 3, Santos' sequences of sepia photos and neatly rolled, silky fabric pieces were presented on silver pedestals low to the ground. Clothing tags, papers, seams and buttons are flipped over and displayed with the sterility of forensic evidence, as if searching for a guilty offender. The piece is called In Between: Deconstructing An Identity. The display is akin to a gory autopsy, with the structure of various blouses laid bare, vulnerable, turned inside out. The photos show loose narratives, the process of deconstruction as Santos took a seam ripper to the tops like a surgeon, capturing the various textures of buttons, frayed stitching, hair, and eyes astounded. These inanimate shirts were decapitated, separated and reassembled in a Frankenstein fashion (no pun intended). This installation speaks to the embodied personality of individual articles of mass-produced clothing; the essences and attitudes they are instilled with from the preliminary sketches of the anonymous designers at the headquarters of a franchise. Are clothes deceitful, facetious, deceptive? Who gives them that power, and who can take it away?

I am impressed with the way the topics of this show were addressed given the obligatory absence of nudity. The main purpose of clothing is to conceal distracting flesh and certain organs considered private and personal by society. My response to this exhibit, and society, is: could nudism and naturalism ever be accepted on a large scale? What kind of mentality would people need in order to thrive, feel comfortable, safe, and expressive in a nudist environment?




Save for Santos' contribution regarding the suit, this exhibit could have been in danger of being female-centric, on the surface. It is true that women currently face a lot of opposition in our culture related to clothing; and Castellanos' portfolio specifically focuses on women in society, but it sets the show apart to see these concepts presented with gender-neutral social constructs in mind as well. Or rather, with gender being such a huge factor in the creation of clothes and use of them as expression, does it matter how it is presented, or if it were to be out of neutrality removed from an exhibit like this? Otherwise, the show is quite successful.


Toa Castellanos is a resident at the Lounge in studio A7 and is a part of the collective women art group W10. You can find links to more info here.

Alessandra Santos is a resident of Miami and friend of Castellanos.

Find The Artisan Lounge on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Archival Feedback: Soundscape of the South

Archival Feedback is a collaboration headed by Emile Blair Milgrim and Thom Wheeler Castillo, collecting the sounds that characterize South Florida and inviting local sound artists and musicians to create pieces inspired by and responding to their audio collection. The full 10-track album will be available May 2, and the cassingle will be available April 14. (The cassingle was for sale at the exhibit for $5.00 as well as a handful of test pressings for $20.00.)

With Miami as my backyard as I've grown up in south Florida, Saturday's presentation of the test pressing and cassingle from Emile Milgrim and Tom Wheeler Castillo's project Archival Feedback easily immersed me in an ethereal, cosmic and very familiar realm of sound. In Locust Projects' Sounding Room, a dozen people shared plastic cups of champagne on the floor as the product of a two-year art/music collaboration unfolded.

Starting as a research endeavor, Castillo's exploration of the history of South Florida and its perception as a dual world of swamp and city turned into a "field recording" pursuit accompanied by Milgrim. Both collected environmental sounds spanning from the east to west coasts; from urban neighborhoods to traffic to beaches and the Everglades. These sounds are familiar to anyone who has lived in Miami for years or grown up here, but when taken out of context, have become arrangements of percussive patterns and mysterious melodies through a collaborative "call and response" method. On side A of the release, five field recordings create a sonic map of SoFL. Side F is comprised of five local artists' interpretations of the audio as original compositions. These five "songs" span from experiments of spatial illusion and texture to workable dance tracks. The featured artists include (in order): Felecia Chizuko Carlisle, io.ko, Fsik Huvnx, Dim Past, and Coral Morphologic (composed by Jared McKay). The cassingle includes a recording from Milgrim and Castillo titled Eleventh Street Station Whistle on side A, and an inventive, catchy track from Ortrotasce on side F.

After the test pressing played through, we moved to the front room and watched as Castillo performed Eleventh Street Station and Milgrim followed performing an improvised orchestration of sounds not on the record. Utilizing a mix of objects, traditional instruments and distortion tools, the audio experiments were demonstrated in the physical phase of the project. After releasing several editions of Archival Feedback featuring Castillo's handmade prints, Milgrim and Castillo plan to make all their field recordings public domain and continue the call and response forum to anyone who wants to create music out of their audio.

Next to the Archival Feedback setup, Felecia Chizuko Carlisle's string instrument installation hung in the front room next to several bows and drumsticks, inviting patrons to create sounds and experience what she did as she composed her response. Several thin steel strings were wrapped and clipped onto hollow metal beams in a way that allowed a variety of tones; some scratchy and loud, some smooth and radiant, some sinister and some sorrowful. Visitors were tapping, sliding, and rubbing the tools on every part of the metal surface, resulting in a cacophony of loud, haunting, unusual sounds.

Felecia is pictured furthest to the right. Before the test pressing was played, she was here explaining her thoughts about her instrument to some participants.

Emile Blair Milgrim is owner of Other Electicities label and managing partner of Sweat Records. Learn more about OE here.
Thom Wheeler Castillo is co-director of Turn-Based Press and a professional printmaker. Read about the organization here.

Look for a review of the release itself in May!
If you missed this exhibit, another one will occur May 9 in a location still to be determined. Visit Other Electricities' Facebook to keep tabs.

Girls Rock Camp: Start Them Young

On Friday March 6, the first taste of a rock revolution was offered to Miami at Churchill's Pub. Hosted by Emile Milgrim of Other Electricities and Steph Taylor of the band The State Of, several local bands brought their enthusiasm and energy to the Miami Girls Rock Camp Benefit Show. This camp is going to occur at the end of July 2015, a week-long workshop for young girls all over Miami to come meet a diverse group of peers, create a rock band, learn an instrument, and perform an original song at their first show bookending the camp. The transpiring goal of the camp is to offer a healthy outlet of expression and a channel of self-confidence for these developing ladies. A $10 cover that night from each patron will fund the camp so that the girls don't have to pay to attend. Learn more about this organization and how you may be able to help at miamigirlsrockcamp.org, facebook.com/MiamiGirlsRockCamp, and on Instagram as @miamigirlsrockcamp. You can also find videos of each performance on the Instagram as well as Facebook. Please enjoy my brief Snapchat videos of a few performances.

A few minutes after 9pm, Steph started the night with four original songs on two keyboards. Lovely electronic sound bite meditations filled the pub with great volume. Raffa Jo Harris and her guitar from Raffa & Rainer performed next, with leisurely folk-blues compositions. These women both couldn't stop smiling as they threw their energy in between electronic beats and poured their joy into the easy rhythm of strumming. This is the kind of assurance they hope to inspire in the girls who will eventually join the rock camp. Find Steph and her bandmate Nabedi at facebook.com/thestateoffanpage.

Up next was gospel-noir group Quarter Horses, who got one of the best-sized and attentive crowds of the evening. This was the first band to thunder into the pub that night with a piercing tumult of electric guitar sounds, bass that galloped through time, and a complex cascade of percussion pieces. The main vocalist's bellowing voice sung of analog angels, digital devils, sleep paralysis, sea sirens, union in matrimony, and the audacity to hope. Unlike their last previous performance - at Miami International Book Fair in October - their closing song was not cut off by a power outage, but they were able to finish with a two-minute instrumental buildup and a melodic rendition of an old Southern hymn by all three voices. Find Novy, Emile and Jon at facebook.com/quarterhorsesmia.

Photos by the author, and videos by SFBANDVIDEOS on YouTube.

Bonnie Riot, a five-piece band from Lake Worth, literally slammed into the faces of Churchill's patrons with a wall of cymbal sound and invigorated angst in the vocals of Milly La Madrid. With Andrea Salomone on bass, Josh Pono on drums, and Luis Sanabria on keys and guitar wearing an X-men shirt, the gang did an excellent job of bringing the "in your face" vibe they proclaim on their Facebook page. They had several copies of their new album Backbone, which I picked up within 2 minutes of them beginning their set. I suppose I didn't get a video or photo of them because I was literally gobsmacked by their performance and couldn't be torn away from it. Find them at facebook.com/bonnieriot and @bonnieriot. 

Album cover taken from bonnieriot.com.

Holly Hunt attracted a smaller pensive crowd of observers mostly nodding their heads to the flow of the wordless, extended, droning metal compositions. Gavin Perry stood tall and calmly in front of a tower of amps as he played, and Beatriz Monteavaro gave her absolute all, with the same confident smile as Steph and Raffa, excelling at steady powerful percussion using only one arm. I know their physical music is sold out or selling out, but I plan to purchase at some point. Find them at facebook.com/HOLLYHUNT.LTD, hollyhunt.bandcamp.com, @beatmyguest and @hollyhunt_band. 

Bleeth, a 4-piece band; Haochi Waves, with 3 members; then Sadie Hawkins closed out the show at around 1:30pm. I unfortunately was occupied at this time and did not see these groups perform in their entirety, but you can find them at facebook.com/bleethband, facebook.com/haochiwavesmusic, http://haochiwaves.bandcamp.com/, and facebook.com/sadiehawkins305. Each band included at least one female musician, as a tribute to the upcoming rock stars this camp will help nurture. If you were at the show, thank you so much for your support!

Live and Destroy LP: Votre Amour est Mon Dieu

“Minuit Machine, a synth wave band based in Paris, is the association of Hélène de Thoury’s electronic melodies and Amandine Stioui’s vocals. The project was born in September 2013. The sound of the French duo, based on powerful electronic drums and the accumulation of dark synth lines, is a mix between all their inspirations that range from minimal wave to electronic rock.” You can find them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/minuitmachine/timeline.

I learned of this band through Soir Zine's plans to publish an interview. Amandine's voice is andric, and her performance on Live and Destroy is rounded, full and soaring, with a gentle emotionality. Hélène chose an interesting sonic range for the texture of the keys. This LP, released in October 2014, bleeds out the deepest colored sanguine. Its pulse changes often, taking a shot of adrenaline one minute then slowing down to a phlegmatic cadence. Upon first listen, the album sounded too similar amongst its songs. However, I noticed they are all subtly different, although with Hélène's characteristic progression of dark and brooding chords. Profound, full of sonic and lyrical depth, the melodies throughout subtly shift and change to give each song its own character but similar effeminate, damaged spirit. This is perfect music for dancing in the shadows. I purchased a signed vinyl copy from Desire Records, autographed in silver. The color of the disc is a beautiful marbled black, resembling an iris, with a white halo in the center. The signed copies are probably all out by now, but you can still purchase a physical copy on https://www.facebook.com/pages/desire/249426295197 or a digital copy on http://minuitmachine.bandcamp.com/.

The cover reads "Hope you enjoy! Helene" and "Much love, Amandine". The vinyl copies also come with a digital download code.

I have a bit to say about each track, so I will provide a one-by-one commentary. The ladies posted the full lyrics to Live and Destroy on Facebook, so here is the link to that: https://www.facebook.com/notes/minuit-machine/live-destroy-lyrics/834449993263614 .

1. Love is God: A soaring, profound track to start the wounded, considerably downtempo Side A. Some words can be mistaken for other words, but being that Minuit Machine tends toward ambience, the fact that Amandine's vocals sometimes get lost in the sound adds another dimension to the meaning of the actual and misheard lyrics. I heard “Save me from my sins” and

"Your love is God
I was just a pagan
Makes me wanna hope
I will never fall again..."

2. Ego: A song anchored by deep tones that sound like rattling metal pipes, against graceful, airy keys. It chronicles a dialogue between two people, the narrator of the song talking to the other with punitive, arrogant language, befitting the song’s title. One has to wonder if the attitude behind these words is more defensive than aggressive.

“You’re just a fraud

I was your ego

Don’t wanna be your dog

Don’t wanna make you proud…

You want me… Unwant me

You love me… Unlove me...”

3. Comedown: The pacing of this song demonstrates a pushing and pulling between lethargic and urgent force, even within the lyrics of desperate craving. Synths dart back and forth like lasers. Two wills battle within the mind, and this song is like an anthem to rejuvenate those fighting who are exhausted.

“Daylight, don’t leave me hanging

I’m innocent, why don’t you kill me now?”

4. Trauma: Amandine's vocals glide and echo over dark glistening synths like shadows passing over forms. A calmer tempo with shuffling sounds of percussion, the melodies slink around in the dark. The lyrics embody bitter regret and dismay regarding someone. The narrator wishes she was numb, but the musicality of this track - and the entire record for that matter - to differ.

“As I lay in my bed

I wish I could feel pain

But I stay wide awake

With this hole in my head…”

5. Midnight Love: One of my favorite songs off the record. Grandiose, throbbing and imposing, it uses subtle wailing melodies throughout that recall sirens. The narrator gently coaxes someone close to stop resisting and to let her win over their will. Her voice rings out and is swallowed up by the melancholic instruments.

"Follow me love into the light
Forget the day, embrace the night
Just one more ride before the dark
I’ll take you home before midnight..."

6. Alienation: Side B is considerably more urgent and impending overall. Amandine chants and wails out this simple hook throughout the song, on top of organ-like synths, giving the song a bellowing vampiric atmosphere. Slightly more rapid but in the same strain as Comedown, the latter being the more melodic of the two.

" I was lost out of space
Floating out of myself
Falling into the air
Stranger in my own head..."

7. Ghost: This is lyrically my favorite track, moreso because the concept of the song has to do with ideas I'm pursuing in my own art. Amandine sings this one with a tender, subdued, desperate passion for the object of her affection. Melodically it is similar to Midnight Love, but not as commanding. The pre-chorus and chorus are memorable and ripe with emotionality.

"Don’t push me away, I just wanna stay
Promise I’ll let you sleep, you won’t know that I’m here
Promise I’ll let you breathe, I just wanna be close
I will not smell your skin, I will be like a ghost..."

8. Sabotage: With a similar hasty desperate spirit as Ego, it reminds me of a spy movie for some reason. The song could be discussing sabotage in the sense of someone sabotaging one's own happiness or what's best for them.

"What is it that makes you want
To go back to that place
When you were wandering around
Searching for your fate?...”

9. Toi et Moi n'existe Plus: A sizzling, deliberate track that stomps through the dull siren-like synths. This is the only song on the album with lyrics spoken rather than sung in French. I have always been fascinated with the way French translates into English, so I will provide a translation (which may sound a little clumsy with the verb tenses, but I tried to fix it from Google Translate. That’s part of the charm of the translation, to me).

"Dimanche, 6 heures du matin/Sunday, six a.m.
La nuit s’achève et j’me sens pas bien/The night ends and I’m not feeling well
Mes souvenirs n’ont plus aucun sens/My memories no longer have any meaning
Enfin je réalise les conséquences.../Finally I realize(d) the consequences…”

10. Apologies: With slightly more elaborate percussion filling the spaces and leaving some, this is a heartfelt song about repenting to someone the narrator has hurt when she had not been acting like herself. This song explores the disowning between the old and new selves, if there is indeed a difference.

"Bring me back, out of sight
I have lost track of time
Please don’t ask me why
I know I’ve caused so much pain
I was losing my head
But I’m back again..."

11. Agoraphobia: If this sounds familiar, it’s from their EP Blue Moon (available on their Bandcamp), and the songs on Side B are more similar to this EP than anything else. This track compiles the general theme of the album: identity, losing it and finding it, all catalyzed by relational disaster, most likely of romantic nature. I can tie this back to Love is God: there is the declaration of worshiping someone’s love toward her, then the rest of the album follows the emotional downfall due to the failure of her god, ending with Agoraphobia's comparison of old and new self as well.

"Now I’m afraid I can never be whole again
I try to face it but it’s starting all over again
I used to love being surrounded by the crowd
I used to hate the smooth comfort of my bed..."

Even if some of the songs sound too similar to each other and even if lyrical content becomes repetitive, it doesn't have to be a problem because the overall sonic character of the album is just so pleasant and deliciously dark to listen to. I can personally relate to the conceptual premise of this album, and if anyone else can, one can appreciate this lovely coldwave release.