How do you feel about stumbling into a haunted mansion inside Disneyland, all inside an artist-run venue in downtown Baltimore? Think of the convenience! This Thursday, April 27, join us at Le Mondo for an evening of shape-shifting music from Detroit, NYC, and Baltimore.
WHEN
Thursday, April 27
DOORS: 7:30PM
SHOW: 8PM
WHO
Mezzanine Swimmers (Detroit, MI)
Painted Faces (Brooklyn, NY)
Screwy Lewy (Baltimore, MD)
Pony Bones (Baltimore, MD)
MORE ABOUT THE PERFORMERS!
Mezzanine Swimmers
Detroit, MI
Mezzanine Swimmers is a one-person band with elements of pop, psychedelia, and noise; filtered through rhythm, repetition, and improvisation. It is the solo project of Mike Green, who has played in numerous noise / experimental / rock groups in NYC, and is currently based in Detroit. He has releases on Fire Talk and Already Dead, and his latest EP "Miserable Miracle" is out on Already Dead in spring 2023.
"Getting lost in a Mezzanine Swimmers piece is more like a drug trip than a workout. Much like the ever-morphing work of Eric Copeland, Green's music bends reliable structures into unpredictable shapes, proving beats can be as pliable as any other kind of sound."
-Marc Masters (Bandcamp)
"A really, really dirty Can"
- Ryan Hall (Goldrush / Tome to the Weather Machine)
"The experimental offering blends together no-wave manipulation, noise music, and steely post-punk into something indefinable, most undeniably interesting and explorative...there's a sense of humanity deep in there, but it's been distorted, detached, and reshaped, coming together as something new, primal, and sonically deranged"
-Dan Goldin (Post Trash)
Painted Faces
Brooklyn, NY
Painted Faces is the long-running voyage of weirdo David Drucker, which began in Florida in 2009 and decamped to NYC in 2011. It has sometimes been a loose band in the past with a revolving lineup of outsiders and interlopers (known as The Freak Band), but is usually a solo endeavor.
"When you listen to Painted Faces what you’re hearing is a mind at work [...] a unique brand of free form expression and clever pastiche [that walks a line] between unpredictably risky experimentation and skillful songcraft."
"When Drucker begins to write and record, every dumb sign, bad horror movie, seemingly innocuous turn of phrase, petty embarrassment, transcendent joke, and musical influence are drawn together like iron filings to a magnet. What results is a document of a particular point in time for the artist. There are infectiously haunting hooks and raw atonal passages, cheap synths (and as time goes on less cheap ones), simple but effective chords, ramshackle percussion (a plastic toy maraca passed among audience members that refuses to die), and a host of other elements that all add up to something very special and deeply personal. It’s a portrait of the artist as a freak. But, funnily enough, as Painted Faces produces record after record, those who refuse to “get it” appear to be the weird ones."
"[Painted Faces' latest album] Normal Street is a fractured collection of songs, sounds, ideas, sometimes brief and other times delicately sustained; its stream of consciousness mischievousness bringing to mind Zappa and the Mothers filtered through the angst of bedroom pop and tape label minimalism. Many artists hope to embody Drucker’s “Outback Steakhouse” approach (“No rules. Just right”) but few have achieved such consistently fun results."
-Writer/musician/film maker Chris Shields
File under: Psychedelic/outsider folk/experimental
Screwy Lewy
Baltimore, MD
Armed with tape loops, a few pedals, and a mic, Screwy Lewy is something off-centered to gyrate to. Their psychedelic, melancholy grooves laced with earnest, lighthearted lo-fi samples serve whiffs of The Books or even Club d’Elf.
Pony Bones
Baltimore, MD
Pony Bones is a visual artist and musical improviser scraping violin strings and metal things to make contact with other dimensions. Noises become environments become portals to the unknown. Step in!