Blockhead + Yppah with Arms & Sleepers
Nectar Lounge
∙
Seattle
Thursday, December 6 at 8 pm PST
EDM
Serves Food
Outdoor Patio
Concert Venue
Bar
Rap / Hip-Hop
Thursday, December 6 at 8 pm PST
EDM
Serves Food
Outdoor Patio
Concert Venue
Bar
Rap / Hip-Hop
Entry Options
VIP Tables
Book Now
Details
Description
12.6 Thursday (Trip-Hop)
Nectar & SolidSound present:
BLOCKHEAD
YPPAH
Arms & Sleepers
$15 adv
8pm, 21+
Nectar Lounge
412 N 36th St
www.nectarlounge.com
BLOCKHEAD
Bandcamp
Tony Simon, a/k/a Blockhead, has been making and releasing utterly distinctive, funky and emotive music for the last two decades. Blockhead grew up in downtown New York City. As the son of an artist, surrounded by visual culture, he early on found that his passion was for music, for the sonic. A fan of a whole range of sounds, especially hip-hop, Blockhead steadily built a tremendous collection of tapes and later CDs from innumerable artists, a quiet accumulation of knowledge and know-how. After a brief stint as a rapper, he realized his calling was behind the boards and not on the mic – and from there he began to produce beats. Since making that decision, he's kept pretty busy: carving a niche as a sought-after underground beatmaker that people call when they want something special. Blockhead produced nine tracks on Aesop Rock's critically acclaimed album “Labor Days.” Additionally he produced half the tracks on Aesop's follow up EP, “Daylight.” He has also worked with other indie giants Atmosphere, Murs, Mike Ladd and Illogic. In between, he found time to complete a break beat album entitled “Blockhead's Broke Beats,” with ten hard-hitting instrumental tracks, which was released on Mush Records, the US home of cLOUDDEAD.
To understand Blockhead’s Stateside presence and gravitas – look no further than the fact that he has also contributed three tracks (including the first single) for Cage’s “Hell’s Winter” on Def Jux. The other producers on the project are DJ Shadow, El-P and RJD2. All this occurred simultaneously to his debut album on Ninja Tune, “Music By Cavelight,” described as “one of the most fantastically good albums you’re going to hear this year” (Sunday Telegraph) and “a beautiful record” (Metro), with Blockhead himself tipped as “definitely one to watch” (Touch.) Blockhead returned in 2005 with “Downtime Science,” another set of deep, emotional instrumental hip hop tracks, this time dedicated to the downtown area of Manhattan where he grew up and has lived his entire life, encompassing all the attitude, anger and edginess of the neighborhood. This expansive album also features some melancholy reflections upon failed relationships and the promise of future loves.
"The Music Scene," was released in 2009 to both critical acclaim and commercial success – launching Blockhead on a global string of headlining dates ranging from Pittsburgh to Poland – where he participated in the world famous Zubroffka festival, providing a live score for some of Charlie Chaplin’s earliest films. Blockhead followed this album with “Interludes After Midnight,” further showcasing his development as a solo artist with a unique voice.
This brings us to 2014 and the release of “Bells and Whistles,” his last release and a bold artistic statement unlike his previous work. According to Blockhead – the naming of the album speaks to emerging trends in music he is seeking to address: “The whole idea behind the album is that music has gotten so far away from just being music. I think that whole way of thinking, relating to music and art in general, is bullshit. I don't want to use those tactics to distract people or create a buzz that's separate from my album. I want to be judged purely on the music itself – just well constructed songs with no frills...thus ‘Bells and Whistles.’”
2017 has been as busy as ever for Blockhead, with a trio of new projects. Behind the boards, he handled production duties on Billy Woods acclaimed new album, Known Unknowns. In addition, Simon teamed with with UK music publisher DeWolf Music to create The Art of Sampling. Capitalizing on Blockheads ability to twist unexpected material into new, modern music, DeWolf opened their vaults to Simon and let him go to town.
Finally, 2017 brought Blockhead’s latest solo album, Funeral Balloons. Filled with 12 new cuts of layered goodness, his new album brings the people what they have grown to expect from the seasoned beat maker in his prime!
YPPAH
Bandcamp
Yppah (born Joe Corrales Jr.) has forged a career marked by ethereality and dynamism. Brought up on equal parts My Bloody Valentine and hip-hop, he has utilized a number of instruments and techniques in forging his place in the uplifting (yet firmly grounded) world his music inhabits. Previous records (2006s You Are Beautiful At All Times, 2009s They Know What Ghost Know, 2012s Eighty One) have harnessed his cultural heritage and relentless curiosity to brilliant effect, landing placements in films (21), video games (Alone In The Dark) and television series (House, CSI) as well as taking him on tour around the globe.
Tiny Pause is informed in large part by shifts in Yppahs life since his last work. Having toured the album, moved from Texas to Southern California and transitioned into more ambitious commercial work (for trailers, sound design and music libraries), Yppah soon found himself embracing hardware in a big way, experimenting with gear constantly while writing to find the best-suited combination for his workflow. The addition of two dogs to his home and a newfound hobby of surfing round out Yppahs biggest influencers for the direction of the new record. And it all shows - the celestial dips and rises in Occasional Magic, the cascade of drums in Little Dreamer, the fractured ascent of Spider Hands, and the human-tinged glitches of Neighborhoods all point to an artist matured not only in sound but in perspective.
Arms & Sleepers
Bandcamp
The American electronic music duo Mirza Ramic and Max Lewis have compiled an impressive discography of 26 releases in their 11 year history as ARMS AND SLEEPERS. They have collaborated with dozens of prominent artists (Tom Brosseau of Fat Cat Records, Serengeti of Anticon, Philip Jamieson of Caspian, and Victor Ferreira of Sun Glitters, among others) and worked on numerous remixes (Caspian, Helios, Ef, From Indian Lakes, and many others). Their music has also been widely used in various TV, radio, and online media programming, including VICE and NPR.
While Lewis lives in the US, Ramic is currently based in Europe, from where he has taken ARMS AND SLEEPERS to stages across North & Central America, Europe and Asia mainly as a one-man show in recent years... the full live band lineup (trio) appears only on special occasions.
ARMS AND SLEEPERS originated in the post-rock scene over a decade ago, and while they still occasionally perform at post-rock festivals like Dunk!, their music on recent releases has been transcending the narrow confines of that scene, oscillating more between "chilled hip-hop beats, glitching electronics and ambient progressions” (The Huffington Post) than the typical wailing delay guitars and drum crescendos.
They have always been an act difficult to categorize