Hometown Sounds

Live Picks! with Tony Porreco

Who: Kitchen Noise / The Lawsuits / Birthday Punches
Where: The Velvet Lounge
When: Thursday, June 27
Song You Must Hear Today: “All In One” 

Kitchen Noise, the musical project of Cory Foley-Marsello, makes sleepy music.  Easy now, this isn’t an insult. Rather, Kitchen Noise fits comfortably alongside the ranks of other excellent artists such as Megafaun and Marissa Nadler who drape their quiet folk songs in imaginative, dreamy textures.

According to Foley-Marsello, Kitchen Nose was started as a studio project and “the fruit of throwing lots of stuff at a wall and coming away with some songs.” Ceramics, the project’s sole release, appeared last August via Bandcamp. It didn’t receive much in the way of immediate attention, which is a complete shame, because this is a truly gorgeous and sprawling full length album. In the album’s first 20 seconds, organ chords meet a handful of dancing notes from an electric guitar before being shoved out of the way by a wild guitar riff, nimbly picked acoustic guitar, some backwards-looped sound effects, and a thumping rhythm section.

This formula of a song growing from modest beginnings (most often, a repeated guitar arpeggio) and towards a multi-layered soundscape is one that comprises much of Ceramics, and it’s a winner. Most of the tracks are grounded in gentle, contemplative folk rock, but there are plenty of pop elements (especially in the album’s first several songs), such as the friendly handclaps on “All In One” or “Brand New Names” with its stuttering, hypnotic drum beat.

I’m especially curious to see Kitchen Noise because this Thursday marks the act’s first show of 2013. Foley-Marsello has assembled a four-piece band who has steadily been working on adapting the Ceramics material for live performance, in addition to writing new songs.

How this is going to sound live isn’t easily predictable, so join me this Thursday at the Velvet Lounge for what easily promises to be the most intriguing show of the week.