left to right: Ben, Scott, Leslie. Photo by Valerie Martino.
Tonight’s episode is Milk Vetch, the first of three special podcasts recorded live at Betty’s Bar and Grill on Sunday, January 16th. Milk Vetch features Ecstatic Peace artist Leslie Keffer (The Laundry Room Squelchers), Ben Marcantel (Forrest Bride and T.I. podcast Pulse), and Scott Martin (Lambchop, Hands Off Cuba, Hobbledions, Cortney Tidwell). I’ve been trying to get these three performers on the show for a long time now, and they sound fantastic together! Scott plays percussion; Leslie, Chaos Pad and sequencer (panned slightly right); and Ben, keys and synth (panned slightly left).
Leslie Keffer is throwing a record release party at Betty’s Friday, January 21st for Give It Up, her new Ecstatic Peace record as well as Hold You To It, a split with Outmode and Silver Bridge, a reissued split with Robedoor. Give It Up also features Valerie Martino who performed in the third Betty’s Live improv as Unicorn Hard-on. We’ll release that episode, a duet with Lazer Slut, very soon. Keep your ears pricked for the second Betty’s improv with Tommy Stangroom (Square People), Lawrence Crow, and Stephen Molyneux (Horsehair Everywhere) even sooner.
Theatre Intangible interviewed Leslie Keffer a while back about the Nashville experimental music scene and her method.Here’s what Escstatic Peace has to say about her new record:
Leslie Keffer has been one of the most startling and provocative practitioners of 21st century USA noise music since her first harsh emanations on the cassette underground in the early 2000s. Ecstatic Peace released her first full length LP Feels Like Frenching a few years back and it was hailed as a cornerstone in new blood noise exploration. Boomkat.com reported, “she’s beating the noise-boys at their own experimental game and winning…Keffer had me at hello.” And Performer magazine heard the LP as “a dense series of coded subconscious messages sent from some buried cerebral cortex.”
On this new 12”, which has been waiting to be issued or near on two years, she joins forces with local Nashville rockers John Eatherly (Be Your Own Pet, Jemina Pearl), Steve Poulton (Paul K and The Weathermen) and fellow noise artist Valerie Martino (Unicorn Hard-on). These two tracks are a departure from the pure noise action Leslie is known for and present her current trajectory into hypno dance dub psychosis with waves of junk filtered radio wash and siren chants. As with the LP the artwork by Adriane Schramm is astounding.
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:27 — 36.1MB)