Palm Provide Sonic Snack at Hometown Show

Palm – Music Hall of Williamsburg – November 30, 2022

I have waited long and patiently for the return of Palm, the abstract art-rock foursome whose debut full-length, Trading Basics, oh so quietly blew my mind in 2015. Thank the good and many gods that the band has returned — not only to recording music, with this year’s Nicks and Grazes, but also to playing live. On Wednesday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg, Palm put on a stunning and intoxicating show so delectable that you could nearly see the crowd salivating.

Vocalists Eve Alpert and Kasra Kurt, bassist Gerasimos Livitsanos and drummer Hugo Stanley hadn’t put out a studio album since 2018’s aptly named Rock Island, a balancing act of jagged and oppositional time changes, loops and dreamy psych-like vocals that have been stretched and pulled like taffy. The band drew quite a bit from that album on Wednesday, playing “Composite” early on to whoops and shouts from the crowd. Kurt’s vocals — not to mention his lyrics — are deeply reminiscent of droned-out Beach Boys: “God only sees it from both sides / Take a chance to clean His foggy eyes.”

On “Composite,” as on “Dog Milk,” as on “Heavy Lifting,” as on … well, a great much of what Palm played last night, the music warps and twists midway through, like a real-time record scratch, which is simply tantalizing when performed live. The foursome’s jammy outro on “Heavy Lifting” (Rock Island) was exhilarating, as was the build on “Feathers,” off Nicks, which started slow, soft and doomy and worked up to a percussive, near-danceable tune: “Make it up,” Alpert sang, “like a performer.”

Despite their adventurousness, Palm have managed to carve out a truly distinct sound, often punctuated by steel drum. That’s carried over into Nicks, on songs like “On the Sly,” which smacks of Animal Collective and Deerhoof. The live effect was one of buoyancy, keeping the room’s energy lifted all evening. But Livitsanos’s bass kept the floor in sight. Stanley’s drums are just a feat to behold, like a mathematical proof that has somehow been through the looking glass of a Pollock painting. The band encored with “Ankles,” the hit off Trading Basics, an angular, math-y classic of their genre that rippled across the room. Palm playing live is such a special sonic snack. Leave your expectations of form at home, though, and open your brain portals to some seriously excellent music. —Rachel Brody | @RachelCBrody

Recommended Album: Palm - ‘Nicks and Grazes’

Amiss to much in the current musical landscape is taking what’s universally topical and relevant to our ongoing existential struggle and applying them to sounds equal in revealing how our mental discord transfers over wonderfully to the sonic canvas when pressed to its limits. Nicks and Grazes, the third studio effort from Philly pop experimentalists Palm, takes on that challenge, and fittingly after reaching their own point of creative burnout. Smashing together philosophy, color and synesthesia, rock noise and electronic devices, vocalists and guitarists Eve Alpert and Kasra Kurt alongside drummer Hugo Stanley and bassist Gerasimos Livitsanos come alive in their newfound freedom of approaching their art while becoming hyper-aware of the outside obstacles that brought the four-piece to this point. It’s pop extracted from every high and lull of emotion, but unlike one meant to imitate anything beyond the moment its consumed.

Highlights: “Feathers”, “Glen Beige”, “Tumbleboy”

Nicks and Grazes by Palm

Palm’s Nicks and Grazes will be released October 14th on Saddle Creek.

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(▶︎ Nicks and Grazes | Palmから)

Nicks and Grazes by Palm

Palm’s live performances are revered for their uncanny synchronicity; one gets the sense that, on psychic levels unseen, the members share an intuition unexplained by logic. But as the Philly-based band has grown up and moved on from the sweaty basement shows and self-booked tours of their formative years, the costs of maintaining such intense symbiosis started to build. “I used to think of Palm as an organism, a single coherent system, and at a younger point in our lives, that seemed like the ideal way to be a band,” Eve Alpert reflects. “I’m realizing now that it’s unrealistic, that for this band to grow we had to tend to ourselves as individuals – little pieces – who create the whole.” To confuse parts for the whole is inevitable with Palm. Drummer Hugo Stanley, bassist Gerasimos Livitsanos and guitarists/vocalists/high school sweethearts Alpert and Kasra Kurt started making music together as teenagers, and spent much of their twenties in the kind of proximity unusual for adults, outside of touring bands and the International Space Station. For a number of years the band consumed the lives of its members to a point of exhaustion: “To be honest I think we got a little burnt out. There were times where it wasn’t clear if we’d make another record,” says Alpert. It was only after multiple freak injuries followed by a pandemic, forced a pause - from touring but also from writing, rehearsing, even seeing each other- that the four were able to regroup and see a way forward again. On their latest effort, Nicks and Grazes, Palm embrace discordance to dazzling effect. “We wanted to reconcile two potentially opposing aesthetics,” Kurt says. “To capture the spontaneous, free energy of our live shows while integrating elements from the traditionally gridded palette of electronic music.” In order to avoid what Kurt refers to as “Palm goes electro,” the musicians spent years educating themselves on the ins and outs of production by learning Ableton while also experimenting with “the percussive, textural, and gestural potential” of their instruments. To this end, the band continued the age-old tradition of instrument-preparation, augmenting guitars with drumsticks, metal rods and, at the suggestion of Charles Bullen (This Heat, Lifetones), coiling rubber-coated gardening wire around the strings. The unruliness of the prepared guitar on songs like “Mirror Mirror” and “Eager Copy” contrasts with the steadfast reproducibility of the album’s electronic elements. While Palm cite Japanese pop music, dub, and footwork as influences on this album’s sonic palette, they found themselves returning time and again to the artists who inspired them to start the group over a decade ago. “When we were first starting out as a band, we bonded over an appreciation of heavy, aggressive, noisy music,” Alpert reflects. “We wrote parts that were just straight-up metal.” Kurt adds, “I found myself rediscovering and re–falling in love with the visceral, jagged quality of guitars in the music of Glenn Branca, The Fall, Beefheart, and Sonic Youth, all important early Palm influences.” Returning to the fundamentals gave Palm a strong foundation upon which they could experiment freely, resulting in their most ambitious and revelatory album to date. “Music isn’t about things. It is things,” Richard Powers wrote in his novel Orfeo. While making Nicks and Grazes, Kurt found himself returning to this quote as a guiding philosophy as Palm spent days and months on end working out songs together in their practice space. Though a single narrative remains elusive, Stanley points out echoes of the members’ individual and collective experiences in the use of samples. Snippets of conversation on tour in Spain, the blare of a Philly high school marching band’s early morning practice, and the refracted reverberations of Palm’s friend Paco Cathcart performing as The Cradle are just a few examples of daily sonic flotsam the band incorporated with instrumentation to create a new communal experience. The album’s titular track is a prime example; Anderegg combined the band’s disparate field recordings into a diaristic kaleidoscope of sound, as much a collection of memories as it is its own composition. “We’re constantly grabbing at sounds that move us,” Stanley says. “In a sense, the record is cobbled together from these pieces of our lives.” クレジット2022年10月14日リリース Producer: Matt Anderegg Mixer: Matt Anderegg and Matt Labozza Recording Engineer: Matt Labozza Mastering Engineer: Ryan Schwabe Composed by Eve Alpert Hugo Stanley Gerasimos Livitsanos Kasra Kurt Performed by Eve Alpert Gerasimos Livitsanos Hugo Stanley Kasra Kurt Matt Anderegg

# 3,549

Omega Radio for September 26, 2020; #241.

Beije “You Got It Dude”

Kasra Kurt “Rough Rug”

Beth Israel “Seventh-Inning Strays”

R.M.F.C. “Connector #1″

Angels In America “Keep The Aspidistra Flying”

Tropical Fuck Storm “Planet Of Straw Men”

Vacation “My Fake Life”

Blue Ray “Smack Me”

Dan Drohan “Pretty Sure”

Mezzanine Swimmers “Kneelin’ On A Knife”

Duchess Says “I Repeat Myself”, “Talk In Shapes”

Indian Jewelry “Eva Cherie”

Ariel Pink “Stay Here With You”, “Chapter 8 Some Tutorials”

Territorial Gobbing “A Shopping List Of Sorts”

Golden Ivy “Delta”

Transfix “New Fix”

Crickets “Elastic”

Really Big Pinecone “Go Hoping, Go Big Time”, “High Speed Drifting”

Sneaks “Someone Like That”

Naked Roommate “Mad Love”

Erasers “Pass You In The Night”

Immolation “Mango Seals”

Treble Clef “Chillin’ Wave”

Bruce Gilbert “Eline Cout II”

Brainiac “Fresh New Eyes”

J. Zunz “Circle Of Time”, “Four Women Of Darkness”

Wild card broadcast.

SEPTEMBER 26, 2020 (#241)

Beije “You Got It Dude”

Kasra Kurt “Rough Rug”

Beth Israel “Seventh-Inning Strays”

R.M.F.C. “Connector #1″

Angels In America “Keep The Aspidistra Flying”

Tropical Fuck Storm “Planet Of Straw Men”

Vacation “My Fake Life”

Blue Ray “Smack Me”

Dan Drohan “Pretty Sure”

Mezzanine Swimmers “Kneelin’ On A Knife”

Duchess Says “I Repeat Myself”, “Talk In Shapes”

Indian Jewelry “Eva Cherie”

Ariel Pink “Stay Here With You”, “Chapter 8 Some Tutorials”

Territorial Gobbing “A Shopping List Of Sorts”

Golden Ivy “Delta”

Transfix “New Fix”

Crickets “Elastic”

Really Big Pinecone “Go Hoping, Go Big Time”, “High Speed Drifting”

Sneaks “Someone Like That”

Naked Roommate “Mad Love”

Erasers “Pass You In The Night”

Immolation “Mango Seals”

Treble Clef “Chillin’ Wave”

Bruce Gilbert “Eline Cout II”

Brainiac “Fresh New Eyes”

J. Zunz “Circle Of Time”, “Four Women Of Darkness”

Tonight on Omega Radio we showcase our now-annual* 'second chance’ special. Sounds we discovered over the course of the year that didn’t fit our usual deluxe broadcasts have their one and only time of the year to shine. From d.i.y., lo-fi, electronic, and the abstract, all tracks on tonight’s show are experimental in nature.

New sounds from Dan Drohan, Mezzanine Swimmers, Territorial Gobbing, Crickets, Naked Roommate, and J. Zunz.

Next deluxe Omega airs October 10, 2020 (10PM, New York City). Next bonus Omega airs October 12, 2020 (midnight) when we fill-in for Purple Starlight for our fourth and final vinyl / resonance broadcast of the year.

Thanks to all tuning in to Omega.

Music Review: Palm - Rock Island

Palm Rock Island [Carpark; 2018] Rating: 3.5/5 The quartet of Philadelphian post-punk Dadaists called Palm locate the point of confluence between the inscrutability of noise rock and the directness of pop music on Rock Island, the group’s second album and Carpark Records debut. Bright, chiming guitars and steel drum loops tangle into heterodox time signatures and undergird brash, yet opaque vocal non-melodies, with a centrifugal, hiccupping deconstruction of easy listening. At the fore of this freak-pop paradox is the Janusian vocal duo of Eve Alpert and Kasra Kurt, whose distinct singing styles occasionally convene in harmony, but more often than not provide two markedly different approaches to vocalization. “You only like me in my most peculiar state,” sings Kurt on “Composite,” enunciating with a guilelessness that hearkens back to the bright-eyed cooing of Beach Boys golden child Carl Wilson. Alpert, on the other hand, sings with far more furtivity, often subjecting her vocals to studio manipulation. On closing track “(Didn’t What You Want) Happen,” Eve sings, “Now we’re out of step, but you don’t ever seem to mind,” with her voice buried in the instrumental mix and compressed nearly to the point of incoherence. Never at odds with one another, Kurt’s and Alpert’s vocals explore the poles of sincerity and self-effacement present in both pop and experimental music. The album begins with a percolating processed drum salvo akin to the sounds on Death Grips’ Bottomless Pit or Government Plates. And like the Sacramento trio, Palm display a propensity for off-putting experimentation that confounds unfamiliar listeners and rewards the patient ones. Yet where Death Grips unrelentingly employ images of ultraviolence and anomie in their music, Palm’s lyrics instead conjure innocuous, nondescript touchstones of modernity. In other words, Death Grips seek to normalize radicalness while Palm work to radicalize normality. The song “Bread,” with its plainly unpretentious title and 35-second false-start, cultivates an unassuming atmosphere that allows Kurt to promulgate his quotidian conceits of societal disarray: “A population of people who deal in clichés/ And there’s no punctuation to grant you relief.” For Palm, bread, dog milk, and open-plan offices are the stuff of chaos, wreaking as much havoc as MC Ride’s divinations of internet hackers and culture-shocked psychopaths. Rock Island is a work of vitiated beauty and entrancing disaffection. Disquieting but somehow quite familiar, the record contorts the warm sounds of yacht rock and island music into something primal yet alien. The end result is a sound that you’d swear has been done countless times before in the avant-rock pantheon, but in reality, its direct musical forebears are few and far between. And though Palm’s excursions into experimentation at times feel more rote than inspired (particularly the instrumentals “20664” and “Theme from Rock Island”), the group maintain a relatively consistent style on Rock Island, offering a unique take on the possibilities of contemporary indie rock. http://j.mp/2BMwj0D

Palm (band)

Palm is an American experimental rock band from Philadelphia. Palm was formed by songwriters, guitarists and vocalists Eve Alpert and Kasra Kurt, who recruited bass player Gerasimos Livitsanos and drummer Hugo Stanley from Bard College in New York. [1]

Palm's music often features abrupt time changes and unconventional song structures – in a positive review of their Shadow Expert EP, Pitchfork referred to their dualing melodies and intertwined vocals as "constantly communicating in esoteric shorthand, often in several cross-talking conversations at once." The New York Times, which called the band "one of the most ambitious and promising acts in today’s art-rock scene," described Palm's music as "teeming with unorthodox time signatures, unexpected bursts of guitar noise, and other trapdoors and tricks." [2] NPR described the band's songs as "jagged edges and complex, interlocking pieces ... that demands – and rewards – your full attention." [3

Palm’s “Walkie Talkie” Is Colorfully Chaotic Art Rock

Palm are carrying the torch for freaky art-rock. The Philadelphia band build harmonies from coarse, atonal punk, reviving the noise of vintage Black Dice and eccentric song structures of Dirty Projectors. “Walkie Talkie,” the first single off their Carpark Records debut Shadow Expert, is a colorfully chaotic introduction to their world.

“Walkie Talkie” avoids traditional verse-chorus song structures, which could sound disorganized, but instead their songs have the calculated illogic of an M.C. Escher painting: dissonant chords, constant tonal shifts, and calculated percussion. The song’s tempo is unstable, held together by guitarists/vocalists Kasra Kurt and Eve Alpert’s prickly chords and wonky singing. Alpert rotates between sugary falsettos and stubborn shouts, avoiding harmonies with Kurt, who in turn trips over himself to finish her sentences. The guitars follow in a similar pattern, their plucks chasing after each other. On “Walkie Talkie,” Palm sprint through the musical equivalent of a three-legged race and manage to stay nimble the entire way.

Palm – “Walkie Talkie”

Palm – “Walkie Talkie”

We named Palm a Band To Watch in advance of the release of their 2015 debut album, Trading Basics, and the Philadelphia band is as enigmatic as ever on “Walkie Talkie,” the lead single and opening track to the crew’s forthcoming Shadow ExpertEP. It features a characteristically intense interlocking groove and urgent trade-off vocals from singers Eve Alpert and Kasra Kurt, and it sounds like the…

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Palm - “On the Sly”

Photo by Daniel Patrick Brennan

“On the Sly” is a pop explosion where you can’t quite tell where the source of the sound is bouncing off of. It’s the Philly experimental rockers’ most resoundingly hyperactive preview from their new album, Nicks and Grazes, and presents to its listener a labyrinth of guitars, glitching effects, and vocal orbs to pursue for those curious to venture down the rabbit hole. “Are the thoughts obstacles are you not tangled on the sly? / Have you got cavernous apertures fixing for another angle?,” sing Kasra Kurt and Eve Alpert in a twisted morbid unison. “End it all / I forgot to want to end it all.” Perhaps this mystery is safer left not finding out, but it's fun to try...

Directed by: Richard Smith

Palm’s Nicks and Grazes will be released October 14th on Saddle Creek.

Palm - “Parable Licker”

Photo by Eve Alpert

“Brother, I'm the reckon collector / But I'm full / I'm your undivided attention / But I'm gone / Tension / When I'm not,” waxes Palm vocalist Kasra Kurt over a tropical detour accented by hyperactive Midi guitars on “Parable Licker”, the second preview off the Baltimore experimental rocker’s new album, Nicks and Grazes. These are the kind of moments in art where being obtuse comes to one’s benefit, because who knows what the fuck the true meaning of those words may be, although it wouldn’t be far-fetched to acknowledge you’re entering an altered zone where the political and dogmatic wrap realities. For those merely looking for warmer climates for the weird and the lackadaisical of early Animal Collective, there’s that, too.

Palm’s Nicks and Grazes will be released October 14th on Saddle Creek.

# 3,416

Omega Radio for May 9, 2020; #228.

Misster Spoon “Heatwave”

Sophrosyne “A Thousand Wounds”

Strangling Glass “Grained N Brained”

Ye Gods “Configuration”

Yokel “Pappa’s Got A Brand New Cornea” (f. Franco Franco)

Half Nelson “Sweet Sensation”

Calles “Nnux”

Kah X McKenzie “Decree For A Refugee”

Giant Swan “Architectural Hangover”

Lanark Artefax “Corra Linn”

Gladio “Fist Of Gladio”

KL/BE/DH/RS “Land”

Kasra Kurt “Tumbleboy”

Corporate Park “Benevolent Surveillance”

G.S.O.H. “Interlude 1″

Nick Klein “Microscopic Cop”

Scandinavian Star “Regal V”

Daniel Avery “Glitter”

Burial “Claustro”

Bvrth “Warden”

Christoph De Babalon “Raw Mind”

Lurka “Choke”

Ossia “Hell Version”

Rezzett “100%Profit”

Pedazo De Came Con Ojo “Maybe Don’t”

Debby Friday “Neight Fictive” (f. Chino Amobi)”

Powell Tillmans “Feel The Night”

Flying Lotus “Auntie’s Harp” (Rebekah Raff RMX)

All electronics volume.

MAY 9, 2020 (#228)

Misster Spoon “Heatwave”

Sophrosyne “A Thousand Wounds”

Strangling Glass “Grained N Brained”

Ye Gods “Configuration”

Yokel “Pappa’s Got A Brand New Cornea” (f. Franco Franco)

Half Nelson “Sweet Sensation”

Calles “Nnux”

Kah X McKenzie “Decree For A Refugee”

Giant Swan “Architectural Hangover”

Lanark Artefax “Corra Linn”

Gladio “Fist Of Gladio”

KL/BE/DH/RS “Land”

Kasra Kurt “Tumbleboy”

Corporate Park “Benevolent Surveillance”

G.S.O.H. “Interlude 1″

Nick Klein “Microscopic Cop”

Scandinavian Star “Regal V”

Daniel Avery “Glitter”

Burial “Claustro”

Bvrth “Warden”

Christoph De Babalon “Raw Mind”

Lurka “Choke”

Ossia “Hell Version”

Rezzett “100%Profit”

Pedazo De Came Con Ojo “Maybe Don’t”

Debby Friday “Neight Fictive” (f. Chino Amobi)”

Powell Tillmans “Feel The Night”

Flying Lotus “Auntie’s Harp” (Rebekah Raff RMX)

Springtime for Omega Radio is on its way to a close. For now, it’s unloading two hours of current non-straightforward electronics as always.

New sounds from Calles, Rezzett, and Pedazo De Came Con Ojo.

Recent sounds from Lanark Artefax, Gladio, Corporate Park, Nick Klein, Burial, Bvrth, Christoph De Babalon, Ossia, and Debby Friday with Chino Amobi.

Also featuring sounds from the Avon Terror Corps roster.

Final Omega Spring 2020 broadcast airs May 23, 2020 (10PM, New York City).

# 3,063

Omega Radio for November 30, 2019; #213.

Black Marble “One Eye Open”

Duchess Says “I’m An Idea”

Xiu Xiu “Scisssssssors”

Men I Trust “Norton Commander (All I Need)”

Kasra Kurt “Are We Technical?”

Ariel Pink “So Glad”

Red Fetish “Spanish Meths”

Ice Cream “Receiver”, “Plastic”

Exploded View “Dark Stains”

Stereo Total “Einfach Kompliziert”

Low Red Center “Olive Shaped”

Operators “Come And See The Radiant Dawn”

0th “Crazyhorse”

Knife Wife “Fruity Void”

Odwalla 88 “What The…”

Final Autumn broadcast of the season, Year Seven, and the decade; also ends WUSB’s broadcasting week and month.

NOVEMBER 30, 2019 (#213)

Black Marble “One Eye Open”

Duchess Says “I’m An Idea”

Xiu Xiu “Scisssssssors”

Men I Trust “Norton Commander (All I Need)”

Kasra Kurt “Are We Technical?”

Ariel Pink “So Glad”

Red Fetish “Spanish Meths”

Ice Cream “Receiver”, “Plastic”

Exploded View “Dark Stains”

Stereo Total “Einfach Kompliziert”

Low Red Center “Olive Shaped”

Operators “Come And See The Radiant Dawn”

0th “Crazyhorse”

Knife Wife “Fruity Void”

Odwalla 88 “What The...”

It’s our final Autumn broadcast of 2019 and for Year Seven of Omega WUSB.  We also end WUSB’s programming week, month, and season. It’s a dynasty of moves that have never been done before on this show.

We find and audition endless amounts of artists, new music, and other discoveries for all of our shows. There’s many selections we found along the way that struck our interest and wanted to feature, but somehow didn’t fit into any deluxe broadcasts. For our final Year Seven show, it’s our first-ever ‘second chance’ broadcast as we give these tracks their own moment to shine. Synthwave, drum machines, electronics, d.i.y., and experimental sounds are all played here, with special contributions from MNDR, Yasmine Kettles of Tearist, and more.

New sounds from Black Marble, Ariel Pink, Stereo Total, Operators, and Knife Wife.

Recent sounds from Men I Trust, and Exploded View.

Our first Winter 2020 and Year Eight broadcast airs December 14, 2019 (10PM New York City) for number one of two Best Of 2019 shows. Our first Year Eight bonus broadcast airs December 9, 2019 (midnight New York City).

Omega WUSB and Ω+ would like to thank all of its listeners, supporters, and followers; as well as everyone involved at WUSB, our Long Island record stores, and the many music sites it follows who keep us up to date. We wouldn’t be here without all of you. See you for Year Eight.