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.

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.

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.

REVIEW: Jordaan Mason explores identity, community, and mental health in a depressing, confusing time on “Earth to Ursa Major”

There’s a moment two-thirds through Jordaan Mason’s earth to ursa major, on the reprise of “it does not get better,” that acts as reiteration, reversal, and progression all at once. The first “it does not get better” on the album is filled with uncertainty, a plea for companionship in a time where “it just gets heavier” the more time passes and the more dreadful circumstances the world piles on. But the reprise of this song culminates in a twist of the refrain to a more hopeful slant: “if it does not get better / at least we’ll be together.”

PHOTOS + REVIEW: Anamanaguchi, Meesh at Cyclorama

As the first notes to “Endless Fantasy” boomed throughout Cyclorama, you could see the crowds waiting around the arcade cabinets spill over to the middle of the room, ready to dance. This was how both shows Anamanaguchi played in Boston at the tail-end of March began, and the energy didn’t let up after this killer start. The mostly instrumental chiptune pop-rock band has been prepping their upcoming album [USA], but much of these shows were dedicated to playing a variety of songs across previous releases, even stretching back to 2006’s Power Supply EP.

PHOTOS + REVIEW: Jeff Rosenstock (acoustic), Anika Pyle at Silent Barn (A Fundraiser for ELM)

In between different legs of touring, Jeff Rosenstock played a late-announced acoustic set at the soon-to-be-closing Silent Barn in Bushwick, where Rosenstock has played a number of times in the past. The show fell on the same weekend as the physical release of Rosenstock’s latest excellent album POST- (a weekend which also involved scavenger hunts to find test pressings of the record in a handful of major US cities) and also served as a fundraiser for Bushwick’s Educated Little Monsters, a local grassroots youth program working to provide artistic outlets and economic opportunities to Brooklyn youth of color. (The organization, which had been using Silent Barn as its headquarters, is currently raising funds to take over the first floor of the building rented by Silent Barn.)

REVIEW: Ezra Furman, Anna Burch at Great Scott

The title to the first song of Ezra Furman’s set this month at Allston’s Great Scott set the perfect tone for his stage presence throughout the evening: “Come Here Get Away From Me.” Touring for his excellent recent album Transangelic Exodus, Furman transformed an already poetic and impassioned collection of songs detailing a “queer outlaw saga” into a performance full of even more fervor than the recordings. From the very beginning of the set, Furman laced his more melodic leanings with ear-shattering screams, putting as much emotion possible into the most heart-rending moments of his music. Even as his lyrics skewed poignantly human, Ezra Furman kept infusing their delivery with bite.