Damon and Naomi w/ Michio Kurihara + Richard Youngs w/ Damon Krukowski (drums)
No Longer Available
Damon & Naomi celebrate their 25th year as performers together this year with an unexpectedly joyous, upbeat and strident new LP 'False Beats and True Hearts' in May 2011 - their first album of new recordings in four years.
An album of lush possibility and
depth, False Beats and True Hearts fuses the skill of music veterans with the fervor of artists continuing to create at the top
of their craft. For this concert (and on the record) Damon and Naomi are joined by Michio Kurihara whose elegant guitar playing - a thick and resonating psych sound has been a part of Damon & Naomi's music since their collaboration with the Japanese band Ghost (With Ghost back in 2000).
Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang started out as two thirds of Galaxie 500, a Boston group who formed in 1987 and included Dean Wareham (Luna). A somnambulant answer to The Velvet Underground’s looser moments, Galaxie 500 built simple songs out of relaxed chord progressions and standard rock
song structures. And yet, they were a revelation. While the Pixies were across town playing immediate, skittish pop, Galaxie let their songs settle into your mind like hometown memories, developing and clasping hold while hardly seeming to be there at all. With three albums, all mentored by
erratic producer genius Kramer and released on Rough Trade, the band’s influence has been like
their sound – wispy and ephemeral on the surface, yet solid and vast when seriously considered.
The dissolution of Galaxie 500 saw them throw their energy into Exact Change - a independent publishing company that has published some of the best writing of the surrealists and wider avant-garde including Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Antonin Artraud, Denton Welch, Fernando
Pessoa, John Cage, Morton Feldman and numerous others.
However the returns to music at the encouragement of former Glaxie producer Kramer, and 1992's More Sad Hits was the beginning of a string of beguiling duo records marrying rock ambience and folk and on Sub Pop records thoughout the 90s and collaborations with some of the most adventurous rock musicians playing today (Ghost, Michio Kurihara, nmperign, Wayne Rogers).
“Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang have mastered the art of intimacy." -- Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune
"Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang have slowly, steadily, stealthily made themselves into one of the most consistently
interesting cultural juggernauts on the contemporary scene.” -- Byron Coley and Thurston Moore, Arthur
"Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang are acid-folk's under-sung progenitors" -- Keith Cameron, Mojo
RICHARD YOUNGS
Richard Youngs is one of Britain's most consistently inventive musicians and distinctive voices. A prolific recordist, his music spans the heartbreaking song cycles he has released on JagJaguwar, electronic pop, spare yet striking electric guitar and vocals, progressive rock (Ilk), acapella singing and exploratory electronics. For this performance he will be joined by Damon Krukowski on drums.
