urgencytobleed | The Bridges/Miranda July (Reply)

To make up for my sporadic posting as of late, here are two lovely bands/performance artists/what have you that I have never posted about before. So without further ado...

The Bridges

I haven't made a lot of extremely memorable new discoveries lately, but The Bridges is one that has been more enjoyable. Their music isn't really anything that hasn't been done before and doesn't have any deep hidden meanings or anything, but it's fun and upbeat and full of hooks and sometimes that's all that matters. If we're making comparisons, honestly they remind me a lot of Eisley and not only because of their spookily similar band lineup - a young, attractive group of four siblings and one cousin (hmm... sound familiar?). They also make the same brand of bright, sunny pop music, though with less whimsy and more of a twangy leaning. Lead singer Brittany Painter's voice brings to mind, for me, Stacy DuPree melded with, randomly enough, Natalie Gordon of Agent Ribbons, along with a good sprinkling of originality. (For comparison, if you so wish: Like the Actors and Obituary.) It is sweet and pretty and youthful without sacrificing any power or richness, very easy on the ears. Add in the glorious harmonizing of sisters Natalie and Stacey Byrd and some insanely catchy choruses and you've got yourself a very solid debut album. That album, Limits of the Sky, is out now on Verve records. While the songs are very similar sounding and never veer too far out of traditional pop territory, they are also very good. Nearly every track is a solid choice, but my favorites are "Pieces", my initial introduction, with its repetitive infectious chorus and "Under the Sun", an absolutely gorgeous and more introspective song which is probably the album's standout, vocal-wise. I predict big things in this band's future once they grow up a little bit more; they've already come very close but in one or two more albums I imagine they'll have perfected their particular sound beautifully.

Miranda July

Miranda July is probably currently best known for her 2005 debut feature-length film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, or perhaps her more recent accomplishments in the world of literature (read her short story collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You - it's brilliant). But before all that, in the mid '90s, she was known as a kooky performance artist and released two rather interesting albums of material through the label Kill Rock Stars. They are very weird, mildly pretentious, often bordering on annoying, but the one thing you can't accuse them of is being boring. Sometimes her pieces fail to hit the mark and just come across as random and eccentric for the sake of being so but when they do work, they really work and the stories they tell are both strangely touching ("The F-A-T-E") or just flat-out strange ("Medical Wonder"). Despite the fact that she has toned down and streamlined her work since then, each piece is so genuinely Miranda July-esque that there is no way they could be performed by anyone else. They are an oddly fascinating - and unexplainably addictive - look into the mind of a crazy, hyper-creative woman before she completely grew up and became famous. A lot of people will probably be completely turned off but I find them to be very endearing and interesting, probably partly because I'm just a bit obsessed with her as a person right now. Now, go read that book! It's like these performance pieces but written with a more mature voice and rooted more in reality and basically completely awesome.