mandy brownholtz

brooklyn based writer reach me: [email protected] instagram: @mandilion1 twitter: @mandybrownholtz

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AUDIOFEMME FEATURE: Opening Elsewhere

1.5.2017

Every ounce of stress has been worth it though, outweighed tenfold by pride in every victory and excitement over what’s in store. In the two months since our Halloween opening, so much has already happened: Mayor Di Blasio signed the repeal of the much-detested Cabaret Law on our Hall stage. Swedish pop star Tove Lo played a surprise show in pasties; emerging queen of Brooklyn house Yaeji continued her ascent to the top of the scene with a sold-out set in the Hall. We’ve booked all three members of the Detroit techno Belleville Three, and hosted the triumphant return of London soul-funk collective Jungle. It’s been a trip to watch people take in the space, overhearing their comments and questions – Where does this door go? What is this room? – and it’s felt great when they’ve loved it as much as we’ve wanted them to.

Read more: http://www.audiofemme.com/af-2017-in-review-opening-elsewhere/

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AUDIOFEMME REVIEW: Yumi Zouma, Willowbank

10.12.2017

The Kiwi quartet have already returned with follow-up Willowbank, a subdued collection of dreamy songs that explore the fundamentally modern confusion between perception and reality. So much of life these days is defined by how we wish to be perceived by others – the endless highlight reel that is Instagram, the urge to appear “chill” to friends and lovers despite internal floundering. Yumi Zouma expertly deals in what-ifs and hypotheticals on this record, floating in the gap between what we wish for and what we have.

Read more: http://www.audiofemme.com/album-review-yumi-zouma-willowbank/

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AUDIOFEMME REVIEW: Alvvays, Antisocialites

9.12.2017

If Alvvays’ eponymous first record articulated a quintessentially modern fear of commitment, then newly released follow-up Antisocialites captures the next logical step, which is an ambivalence about it.

Read more: http://www.audiofemme.com/album-review-alvvays-antisocialites/

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ALT CITIZEN VIDEO PREMIERE: Sloppy Jane, “Mindy”

8.23.2017

Sloppy Jane is the brainchild of artist Haley Dahl, newly relocated from L.A. to Brooklyn. Known for her wildly subversive on-stage antics that hedge on performance art, she’s reestablished the band in New York with new members and is set to drop a first full-length record in the coming months.  

With that, the washed-out fever dream that is the video for single “Mindy” serves as a perfect introduction to the band. Set to Dahl’s nightmarishly girly vocals layered over heavy, dark guitar riffs, she takes on the myth of the tooth fairy, but perverts its childhood innocence: the tooth fairy himself is a lecherous-looking old man, who leaves money under Dahl’s pillow as she gleefully shoves the bills in her mouth and uses pliers to pull her teeth out to earn more.

It’s unsettling in a magnetic way, forcing us to question our bodies as commodities and what exactly we’ll do to earn a quick buck.

Link to original: http://altcitizen.com/video-premiere-sloppy-jane-mindy/

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CLRVYNT ALBUM STREAM: Tica Douglas’ ‘Lady Star’ Normalizes Millennial Ennui

5.1.2017

“Douglas understands that young adulthood essentially feels like drowning in indecision. It’s hard to discern whether life’s imperfections are beautiful in their realness or ugly in their immovable inevitability, or to make a choice when to take one road is ultimately a rejection of the other. It’s all enough to make any of one of us feel oppressively alone, a feeling that surely resonates enough with Douglas that they feel compelled to remind us of its universality. On “Lost/Left Behind,” they sing, “You find other lost things that will keep you company.” ​Our Lady Star of the Sea reminds us that to feel lost isn’t an indication of personal failure, but rather totally normal collateral damage for coming of age in the 21st century.”

Read more: http://clrvynt.com/tica-douglas-our-lady-star-stream/

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AUDIOFEMME REVIEW: Charly Bliss, Guppy

4.28.17

“Any type of entertainment deemed “girly” or otherwise dominated by young women gets treated with a shocking paucity of respect as art. Okay, maybe it’s not that shocking, given the genre’s post-Nineties trend toward pre-packaged Disney-fication. What makes Charly Bliss so enticing is that they’ve revived this style, adding their own dark humor and smarts to package it up for grown-ups. The macabre turns the lyrics can take balances out the sweetness of frontwoman Eva Hendricks’ vocals. Paired together, they’re brimming with irony and sarcasm – a Glossier-pink commentary on the reality of millennial womanhood.”

Read more: http://www.audiofemme.com/album-review-charly-bliss-guppy/

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CLRVYNT FEATURE: The Storm Clouds Are Clearing for Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield

http://clrvynt.com/katie-crutchfield-feature/

4.24.2017

“Touching back on her declaration that the album was about self-preservation, self-care and finding your own autonomy, I ask what self-care looks like for her. The expression has taken on buzzword status, article after wellness article instructing us how to achieve “self-care” through yoga or clean-eating or oil-pulling or whatever else we’re supposed to do to preserve our sanity when life turns upside down. For Crutchfield, though, it was the act of writing and recording Out in the Storm. It was a deeply therapeutic process that helped her to find not only the self she had lost in the depths of that toxic relationship, but the self that had disappeared in Waxahatchee’s journey from bedroom project to major label powerhouse.

‘I think really the writing process was super important,’ she explains. ‘I feel like I had worked with the same people on the last two records, on Cerulean Salt and Ivy Tripp, so I knew I wasn’t going to do that. And I was sort of back to just me, in a room with a guitar and recording demos, and when I was finished, just going for a walk and listening to them by myself, and sending them to my sister. It was just like the whole process of that — I came back on the other side of it just exactly the same as I was, the process just as it was. It was all the magic of writing songs. It’s so sacred for me, sitting there writing, and working, and putting everything together, and then there’s a finished product, and it’s just the best feeling in the world.’”

Read more: http://clrvynt.com/katie-crutchfield-feature/

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AUDIOFEMME REVIEW: Future Islands, The Far Field

http://www.audiofemme.com/album-review-future-islands-far-field/

4.12.2017

“After all of this – the idealization, the denial, and ultimately the self-realization and forgiveness – the greatest irony of all is that the last word on The Far Field is “stay,” leaving us to wonder what it would be like if life actually worked that way. It’s a moment of terrifying realization: that no matter how much we say we’ve gotten over it, our past is still a vital aspect of who we are and it’s nearly impossible to truly let anyone go. It may seem as easy as asking them to stay, but Herring’s lyrics remind us that life’s beauty resides in the complications.”

Read more: http://www.audiofemme.com/album-review-future-islands-far-field/

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AUDIOFEMME REVIEW: Sorority Noise, You’re Not As _____ As You Think

3.28.17

“Hartford emo band Sorority Noise released their third full length record, You’re Not As _____ As You Think, this week. It’s so self-aware it’s like the Scream of emo records. It’s formulaic as far as pop punk records go, but the band almost points it out ironically, trying to hedge out a comfortable space in the period between pimply adolescence and grown adulthood. They intersperse these moments of realization in the lyrics, layered over pretty standard (albeit well-done) pop punk, so that it captures these growing pains.”

Read more: http://www.audiofemme.com/album-review-sorority-noise/

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AUDIOFEMME REVIEW: Planning For Burial, Below The House

http://www.audiofemme.com/album-review-planning-for-burial-below-the-house/

3.20.17

“Below The House is the latest offering of musician Thom Wasluck, who has been recording and performing as Planning For Burial since 2005. Romantic and devastating all at once, the record is about nostalgia and the pain of loss – a prime example of how an artist can meddle with various genres to add emotional nuance to their sound. Wasluck seamlessly intertwines thundering doom riffs with lyrical elements of post-hardcore. The arresting force of doom adds weight to the romance of the record’s emo-tinged lyrics, so that it feels painfully realistic and all too familiar, without feeling dramatic. It reminds us that it hurts to ruminate in the past, because oftentimes our fallible memories make it so we can only remember the good.

The nostalgia of this record becomes apparent the second you look at the album art; the coziness of the snowy houses juxtaposed with the cold greyness of the winter sky, like you’re on the outside looking in. The first track, “Whiskey & Wine,” opens with a heavy doom riff, before Wasluck screams, “It’s true, I couldn’t keep my hands off of you.” Couldn’t, past tense; the introduction of a “you,” the counterpart of the failed relationship. Wasluck layers twinkly bell percussion over the brutality of the riffs to illustrate the unbearable weight of remembering. This remains consistent throughout the record, drifting into the next track so faintly you can hardly tell the song changed.”

Read more: http://www.audiofemme.com/album-review-planning-for-burial-below-the-house/

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Le Butcherettes @ Saint Vitus 3/21/17

photos: Jeanette Moses

http://www.popgunpresents.com/gallery/le-butcherettes-saint-vitus-march-21-2017/

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AUDIOFEMME REVIEW: Witch Coast, Devil Vision

http://www.audiofemme.com/ep-review-witch-coast-devil-vision/

2.13.17

“Witch Coast’s relevance rests on their spot-on interpretation of early adulthood ennui, born on their earlier releases and rounded out on this newest EP: working hard but making no money; the flat state of mind achieved only from getting stoned to treat a merciless hangover; allowing your existential worries about relationships, rent, and life in general consume you until you feel physically sick, or better yet, feel nothing at all. Weiss achieves this lyrically, but the vocal distortion is so heavy that these feelings are captured largely in the sound – lo-fi, nearly indecipherable vocals, heavy reverb, wonky psyched-out riffs. The lyrics serve more as a fourth instrument than anything else. The sound can come across as sardonic and darkly comical – the upbeat tracks layered under Weiss’s frantic vocals and lyrical emotional exhaustion. It feels like the white noise of racing thoughts, coming at you so relentlessly you either have to scream or shut down.”

Read more: http://www.audiofemme.com/ep-review-witch-coast-devil-vision/

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POPGUN PRESENTS INTERVIEW: ExSage

http://www.popgunpresents.com/artist-features/interview-exsage/

2.21.17

Kate Clover and Tim Foley once performed music as Cobalt Cranes, a Lolipop Records band highly visible in the LA underground scene. The project dissolved upon their romantic break-up. Within months, however, they ran into each other in the California desert, and decided to give it another go. And so they’ve returned as ExSage, a sludgy, lo-fi rock project that crosses a “Nick Cave ominousness” as Noisey put it with a coolness reminiscent of The Kills. They put out their debut EP, Out Of The Blue, back in the fall, and play Sunnyvale on Thursday with Desert Sharks and LOVER. Here the two answered a few questions about reuniting, recording the new EP, and the cosmic effect all of this has had on their sound.

How do you perceive the ExSage project as different than the Cobalt Cranes project?

Kate: Spiritually and sonically it’s a complete departure. In order to mark a change sometimes you need to tear it up and start again, and we did.

What was it like to work with Alain Johannes to produce the new EP? Having worked with such distinctive artists as PJ Harvey and Queens of the Stone Age, did anything in particular rub off on your sound?

Kate: Alain is in touch with the cosmos, he operates creatively on another level than anyone I’ve ever met. He really helped me disarm myself of my own judgments and to focus on capturing a great performance. It was therapeutic in a way I’ve never felt recording. I was drained by the end of it, I really put myself into every second of that EP.

Read more: http://www.popgunpresents.com/artist-features/interview-exsage/

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#NowPlaying Blackbox by Nana Grizol

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AUDIOFEMME REVIEW: Priests, Nothing Feels Natural

2.8.2017

“What makes Priests’ work so potent is their ability to seamlessly tie together the personal and the political. They shift back and forth between themes, illustrating the ways that our political policy affects the moral climate of our society at large as well as the dynamics of our interpersonal relationships. On the first track, opening like a call to arms with its sparse, precise drumming, Greer sings “You want some new brutalism? You want something you can write home about.” This is true; it’s easy to wonder how vitriolic they’ll get in this present political climate, when they were already warning us about America’s rotten core of white male hegemony back in 2013.

But, surprisingly, they don’t go for the overtly political or rabidly angry. The tone is understated, anger served with sarcastic lyrical slights rather than direct address. This album is a testament to the way that toxic masculinity in our public policy and pop culture sifts through layers of influence until it directly affects us in our everyday lives. On “Jj,” the opening riffs are super surfy, and Greer’s vocals are softer and coy. She recounts the beginning of a relationship, and how, as it often does, something changes instantly and everything’s ruined. The moment she finishes wailing “I thought I was a cowboy because I smoked reds,” the tone of the song shifts. Suddenly the surfy riffs are gone, replaced by way more nostalgic, soaring ones. Greer cries, over and over, “You thought I was disgusting,” moving on to say “I wrote a bunch of songs for you but you never knew and you never deserved them.” She does something inherently unfeminine, and that somehow affects Jj’s perception of her, the beautiful perfect creature she’s supposed to be. Every one of us has felt this way. It’s all so familiar — the emotional labor, the self-flagellation, but also the realization of power.”

Read more: http://www.audiofemme.com/album-review-priests-nothing-feels-natural/

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CLRVYNT FEATURE: The Collective Unconscious of Kristina Esfandiari

2.18.17

“This would be a time to interject, “But you’re King Woman!” She says these things without a hint of feigned humility. It makes sense, if you think about it, to hate the product of facing your own emotional turmoil. To slog through heavy, hard emotions, only to meet the darkest shadows of your inner self, and then to have it all packaged up on vinyl to return to whenever you want. And yet, this is all part of letting go, the process by which we become the people we are meant to be. Esfandiari has done this, through both King Woman and Miserable, by examining all the sides of herself and offering them up to us as universal tools to achieve our own self-discovery. She shared the darkest parts of herself with us so that it might be easier for us to face our own, all the while embracing the cache of strength and power she has gleaned along the way, so that maybe we too can find that same strength in ourselves.” Read More: http://clrvynt.com/kristina-esfandiari-feature/?trackback=tsmclip

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#NowPlaying Take On Me by Cap'n Jazz