Clock-Out Lounge Presents: Julia Shapiro (of Chastity Belt) w/ No. 2 Record Release,Floored Faces
with Julia Shapiro, No. 2, Floored Faces
Sat
September 10, 2022
Doors: 8:30 pm
/ Show: 9:00 pm
PDT
$12.00
Clock-Out Lounge Presents:
Julia Shapiro (of Chastity Belt)
No. 2 Record Release (ft members of Heatmiser, Calamity Jane & Eyelids)
Floored Faces
Sept 10th 8:30pm doors 21+
$12adv/$15 dos
Zorked (adj.) - what happens when you end up thunderbaked, as in extremely stoned–or in any situation where you feel not sober. You can feel so tired you’re zorked. In fact, any state, so long as you’re a little out of it, qualifies. And Julia Shapiro, of Chastity Belt, Childbirth, and Who Is She?—much like everyone on this earth with a pulse—was zorked on more than one occasion in 2020. In March, she packed up her things and traded Seattle’s late-winter gloom for the perennial sunshine and seemingly endless opportunity of Los Angeles only to be forced into near-total isolation. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, she began working on her second solo album, Zorked. On the resulting batch of songs, we’re given Julia’s vision of Los Angeles: a wasteland melting in slow-motion, a place to commune with ghosts and warped legacies.
Living within earshot of a man who spent his entire 2020 singing karaoke for over 10 hours a day, Julia could write, record, and play an album’s worth of instruments without fear of noise complaints. Her roommate Melina Duterte (Jay Som) transformed their house into a viable home studio, making it easy to fully realize the sound in her head, even at the height of a global lockdown. Taking things a step further, Melina agreed to co-produce the record, pushing Julia to make these new songs sound less like Perfect Version, her first solo album, or like the songs she performs in Chastity Belt. At the peak of her uncertainty and discomfort, she jumped into the deep end in search of something new—and found power in heavy sounds.
This is evident in the first few seconds of album opener “Death (XIII).” Taking newfound inspiration from the namesake Tarot card, drone metal, and shoegaze, Julia layers walls of guitars, bass chords, and programmed drums. “Come With Me,” the album’s lead single, takes inspiration from a mushroom trip gone bad. “Take me to awful places now,” she sings, envisioning heat death as her own eyes stare directly into the sun. On “Wrong Time,” shimmering guitars smolder and levitate, yet she finds herself “stuck inside this hole I’ve dug.” That said, these songs aren’t unbearably sad, nor has Julia become any less of a merciless observer of human behavior. By album closer “Hall of Mirrors,” she’s come full circle. Over fingerpicked guitar, the sense of lost identity becomes all-encompassing. It’s the sound of a life lived in servitude to digital screens and the psychic damage invisibly done along the way.
Though Julia Shapiro found herself in a near hermit-like existence, writing and recording almost all of the album’s instruments herself and struggling to navigate her place in a city and world rendered nearly comatose, she maintains a sense of humor about all of it. At the very least, “It’s funny to force people to have to say Zorked out loud. Any other title sounded pretentious.”
https://juliashapiro.bandcamp.com/
Zorked (adj.) - what happens when you end up thunderbaked, as in extremely stoned–or in any situation where you feel not sober. You can feel so tired you’re zorked. In fact, any state, so long as you’re a little out of it, qualifies. And Julia Shapiro, of Chastity Belt, Childbirth, and Who Is She?—much like everyone on this earth with a pulse—was zorked on more than one occasion in 2020. In March, she packed up her things and traded Seattle’s late-winter gloom for the perennial sunshine and seemingly endless opportunity of Los Angeles only to be forced into near-total isolation. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, she began working on her second solo album, Zorked. On the resulting batch of songs, we’re given Julia’s vision of Los Angeles: a wasteland melting in slow-motion, a place to commune with ghosts and warped legacies.
Living within earshot of a man who spent his entire 2020 singing karaoke for over 10 hours a day, Julia could write, record, and play an album’s worth of instruments without fear of noise complaints. Her roommate Melina Duterte (Jay Som) transformed their house into a viable home studio, making it easy to fully realize the sound in her head, even at the height of a global lockdown. Taking things a step further, Melina agreed to co-produce the record, pushing Julia to make these new songs sound less like Perfect Version, her first solo album, or like the songs she performs in Chastity Belt. At the peak of her uncertainty and discomfort, she jumped into the deep end in search of something new—and found power in heavy sounds.
This is evident in the first few seconds of album opener “Death (XIII).” Taking newfound inspiration from the namesake Tarot card, drone metal, and shoegaze, Julia layers walls of guitars, bass chords, and programmed drums. “Come With Me,” the album’s lead single, takes inspiration from a mushroom trip gone bad. “Take me to awful places now,” she sings, envisioning heat death as her own eyes stare directly into the sun. On “Wrong Time,” shimmering guitars smolder and levitate, yet she finds herself “stuck inside this hole I’ve dug.” That said, these songs aren’t unbearably sad, nor has Julia become any less of a merciless observer of human behavior. By album closer “Hall of Mirrors,” she’s come full circle. Over fingerpicked guitar, the sense of lost identity becomes all-encompassing. It’s the sound of a life lived in servitude to digital screens and the psychic damage invisibly done along the way.
Though Julia Shapiro found herself in a near hermit-like existence, writing and recording almost all of the album’s instruments herself and struggling to navigate her place in a city and world rendered nearly comatose, she maintains a sense of humor about all of it. At the very least, “It’s funny to force people to have to say Zorked out loud. Any other title sounded pretentious.”
https://juliashapiro.bandcamp.com/
Julia Shapiro
No. 2
On September 9, JBR will present First Love, the band’s brand new third album, produced by Joanna Bolme (Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks) and mixed by Gary Jarman (The Cribs) and Tony Lash (Heatmiser). The album was recorded over 3 years in studios and basements across Portland, OR and finished in a boathouse in Connecticut during Covid. Special guest Rebecca Cole (The Minders, Wild Flag) shows up on keyboards here and there.
Racing through queer anthems, noir grooves, and more under and over ground rock references than a Quentin Tarantino movie, First Love bursts with all the infectious chemistry that made the band so much fun in the first place.
credits
Racing through queer anthems, noir grooves, and more under and over ground rock references than a Quentin Tarantino movie, First Love bursts with all the infectious chemistry that made the band so much fun in the first place.
releases September 9, 2022
No. 2 is singer/guitarist Neil Gust (Heatmiser), singer/bassist Gilly Ann Hanner (Calamity Jane) and drummer Paul Pulvirenti (Eyelids)
No. 2 is singer/guitarist Neil Gust (Heatmiser), singer/bassist Gilly Ann Hanner (Calamity Jane) and drummer Paul Pulvirenti (Eyelids)
Floored Faces
Their new album 'Kool Hangs' explores the absurd yet tangible fantasy of an apocalyptic world where the only personal belongings that remain are a motocross bike and a cassette copy of Monster Magnet's 'Dopes to Infinity', and a shotgun.But there's more than that."Shoot the Ground" begins this fantasy journey as the main character scavenges for food and other people; strapped with a shotgun he vents his frustration of hours, days and weeks of loneliness. "I'd Be Broke" is about time slipping away from the main character of this fantasy as "Now You See It" explores mentally going against the norm, and the heartbreak of going insane. Kool Hangs is pure fantasy staring down the band's collective, real-life trauma. It's genuine, sincere and has no pretense, a Holy Diver meets Bleach mind-melter of an album that the band cannot wait for the world to hear.
credits
released November 12, 2021
