friday, may 3
RUBY RIDGE
Nearly six months after stirring up our most recent Halloween show with a striking performance as the Knife, Boston electronic post-punk duo Ruby Ridge return to the pill this Friday night at Great Scott. And they have come armed with a new EP, Abyssal, that’s another experimental journey into their mental sounds of ambient dance music and abrasive pop. Abyssal marks the latest offering in a prolific stretch for the romantic pair of John and Callan Von Bittrich, who have now released four EPs, a two-song single, a dozen podcasts and several remixes in the past year. “Owing to the duo's uncompromising philosophical predilection towards minimalism, simplicity and anti-consumerism, these have all been free, digital-only releases,” Ruby Ridge reports. They’ve also contributed the hypnotic “Don’t Turn Around” to last month’s massive Allston Pudding mixtape, which raised a shit ton of coin for the One Fund Boston, and the John of the Von Bittrich clan is no stranger to our city nor party: he was a Portland-based music correspondent for the Boston Phoenix and in a past band life with the Perennials led two of our more celebrated Halloween show performances as the Libertines and Strokes. Wrote the Boston Globe back in December, when the Ruby Ridge released their Intent EP: “The crossover between the current electronic dance music culture and British post-punk bands of the ’80s has been well documented; the Boston husband and wife duo of John and Callan Von Bittrich make that connection explicit… ‘Don't Turn Around’ is a bewitching graft of creeping vocals on top of an incongruous tempo, while ‘Intent’ stands out with its sparkling ambient twinkles of light misting over a dark bass. ‘Annie Christian’ is an industrial post-punk track that incorporates bits of all the aforementioned styles.” For this latest release, Ruby Ridge are crafting a rare physical release with a limited-run of 33 CD-Rs, which will be available this Friday at the pill. And because that’s how we roll, DJ Ken & Michael V spin the modern indie dance party before and after the band. Look sharp xx the pill.
