For Your Consideration: Ezra Furman’s Twelve Nudes as Multifaceted Depiction of What It’s Like to Be Trans

This piece was originally published as part of the Indieheads forums’ annual Album of the Year write-up series, where users write about their favorite albums from the year that passed, on December 14, 2019. In this piece, Co-Editor Nat talks about their personal link to local Boston-area musician Ezra Furman‘s thunderous Twelve Nudes and how it resonated with her experience living as a nonbinary transgender person.

PHOTOS + REVIEW: Devon Welsh sings sparsely powerful songs about “True Love” at Lilypad Inman, with Abandon and St. Nothing (11/10/19)

While audience members chuckled softly over Devon Welsh’s preamble to his set — where he took his time with expressing that what he was about to say was his “greatest desire” to eventually arrive at saying this desire was for the audience to arrange tables they sat on into a semicircle and sit in the space between them — what the request seemed to actually express was Welsh’s very real desire to have performance space become a form of quiet emotional intimacy.

ALBUM REVIEW: Le Butcherettes deliver anthemic punk on the dualism of struggle and strength on “bi/MENTAL”

The moment it all clicks into place for me comes midway through the album, on a track called “in/THE END.” This, itself, is an irony onto itself, putting a song with that title smack into the middle of the tracklisting. But the real moment of truth, during my second full listen of the album, happens as the song transitions from its modest opening stretches — a filtered harmonization, between two voices made to sound somewhat childlike, backed by soft distorted guitar and light keyboard, already an anomaly among the album’s guitar-heavy slant backed by deep synths — into a boldly expansive mid-tempo rock ballad. It’s unexpected, but fits in entirely with what Le Butcherettes do as a whole on bi/MENTAL.

For Your Consideration: Young Fathers’ Cocoa Sugar as 2018’s Soundtrack of Mournful Rage

For Odd Blue Fruit’s “End of the Year” coverage, our writers will discuss in detail albums that meant a great deal to them in 2018 along with their “best of” lists. In this write-up, Co-Editor Nat Allais discusses Young Fathers’ incredible latest album Cocoa Sugar, its place in the band’s career, and how the album fits into 2018 at large.

PHOTOS + REVIEW: Ezra Furman brings “a night of pain and a night of celebration” to The Sinclair, with support from OMNI

Coming to the stage smiling and waving while holding an orange he would later peel onstage, Ezra Furman took his position behind the mic at the center as the lighting shifted, the dim fill lighting changing to sheer spotlights illuminating the whole stage for the entirety of the set. As Ezra first addressed the crowd after his band propelled into a killer opening 1-2 of “Cherry Lane” and “I Wanna Destroy Myself,” the meaning behind this lighting design became exceedingly clear: in times shrouded by darkness, Furman aims for his show to be a beacon of light.

PHOTOS + REVIEW: Django Django make a triumphant return to New York on the release day of their new EP, with support from The Shacks

In the packed basement performance space of Le Poisson Rouge this past Friday, British alt-rockers Django Django took to the stage on anything but an ordinary Friday night for the band. Not only was it their first New York show in two years (for which anticipation could be tangibly felt leading up to the set from many in the crowd who expressed gratitude at finally being able to see the band), but the gig also doubled as a release show for their new EP Winter’s Beach, which supplements their third LP Marble Skies also released this year.

PHOTOS + REVIEW: Sidney Gish’s first headlining hometown gig of 2018 proves why she’s Boston’s favorite rising DIY star

Last year, we at Odd Blue Fruit recapped the last show Sidney Gish played in the greater Boston area in 2017 at O’Brien’s Pub in Allston. Gish had been a big DIY staple in the local music scene throughout the year, opening for the likes of Xenia Rubinos and Margaret Glaspy, releasing the stellar debut album Ed Buys Houses, and garnering some nominations from the Boston Music Awards all while studying at Northeastern.

FESTIVAL RECAP: Everything We Saw (and Drank) at Octfest

With the summer festival season over and done with, what remains as we enter the last relatively warm weeks in North America for the coming months acts as an alternative for the sunny days and hectic three-day-lineups much of the festival season thrives on. Enter OctFest: an alternative to traditional music festivals created by Pitchfork and beer magazine October.

INTERVIEW: Jordaan Mason talks writing about trauma, astronomy, and the empowerment of processing through creation

Jordaan Mason is a Toronto-based lo-fi folk singer-songwriter who writes about mental illness, trauma, and queerness. Their latest album, earth to ursa major, came out in May of this year and weaves all these subjects with overarching astronomy imagery to tell Mason’s story about trying to find a place where they belong. Following a recent European tour Jordaan did with Crywank, our Co-Editor Nat interviewed Jordaan all about the new album.