Halloween, Alaska and Haley Bonar with Hildur Victoria
Hallelujah! Two nights of Halloween, Alaska and Haley Bonar, hale and hearty in the main hall of the Cedar--no hallucination! Tonight, it's Halloween, Alaska's turn to headline. Halloween, Alaska 's new album is called Champagne Downtown, but this is not a band bent on velvet-rope postures or boozy indulgence. Instead, these men specialize in the passionate dismantling of such cliched themes. When singer James Diers gently croons, "I say we burn down the Hollywood Sign and tear apart the judges with our bare hands," it's not a battle cry, but rather an affirmation, a call to embrace the radical notion of simply being who you are. Diers is joined by Bill Shaw on bass and sampler), Jake Hanson on guitar, keys and vocals, and Dave King (The Bad Plus, Happy Apple) on drums.
If Halloween, Alaska 's self-titled 2004 debut was a critically anointed indie gem--scoring wider notoriety via TV's The O.C. --and 2005's Too Tall to Hide was hailed as a "jittery jungly and swooningly melodic" (All Music Guide) follow-up, then Champagne Downtown is both a worthy successor and a welcome evolution. Mixed by Grammy-winning engineer and audio guru Tchad Blake (Tom Waits, Peter Gabriel, Elvis Costello, Pearl Jam), it's a gorgeously layered showcase of the band's half-electronic-half-organic palette. Real drums mingle freely with their mechanical counterparts. Warm synths tangle with edgy, textured guitars. Brainy lyricism unfolds in a tandem of winsome melody and unabashed rock hooks. From the get-go, Champagne Downtown dares to cast off the political fixations of its native America, waxing instead on a collective psychology that pervades states of all hues. Lovers, losers and omniscient narrators alike cling dearly to a defiant, sometimes irrational optimism.
Haley Bonar is twenty-four years old, and already on her fourth album. Her most recent album, Big Star, is a watershed moment for her—a record like a Cormac McCarthy short story: simple on the intake, but revealing universal truths with a powerful emotional impact as it sinks in. In the words of filmmaker Ali Selim (Sweet Land) "Her voice is an invitation to amazing places." Haley was born near Winnipeg, raised in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and cut her teeth on the winters of Duluth, Minnesota. After calling St. Paul home for several years, she recently relocated to Portland, Oregon. Big Star is loosely themed around the struggle of wanting something that elicits both dislike and desire—whether it be fame, success, or love. The album received several "Best of" nominations, including City Pages best albums of 2008, and Minneapolis Star-Tribune #3 best local album of 2008, and has brought Haley's music to an ever-broadening sphere of listeners. Welcome home, Haley!
Opening tonight will be ambient/experimental folk/rock band Hildur Victoria.
Tickets are on sale now from the Cedar Ticketline (612-338-2674 ext 2), Cedar outlets, and online at Ticketweb.
Haley Bonar is a 25-year-old from South Dakota. She spent the last eight years in Minnesota, but has recently moved to Portland, OR. She plays folk-indie music on the guitar and the Fender Rhodes. Her most recent album, "Big Star", was released in...
Halloween, Alaska is a Minnesota-based band consisting of James Diers (voice, guitar), Ev (keyboards, voice, programming), Matt Friesen (electric bass guitar), and David King (acoustic and electronic drums). All of the group's members live in the Twin Cities...
