Hometown Sounds

This has been a delightfully resurgent year for Chad Clark and his quintet Beauty Pill. After recovering from long and well-documented struggles with health, Clark released the full length album Beauty Pill Describes Things As They Are just in time to play one of the final shows at Arlington’s exciting but problematic venue Artisphere, the location Clark choise to record the album in its early days of 2011, before it closed for good. Clark enlisted director Jeff Sheven to create videos for 3 singles from the album, all sharing similar visual themes of focusing on the singer’s face. We could have chosen the better known singles “Steven & Tiwonge” or “Afrikaaner Barista”, but instead the #2 DC music video of the year is the first that came out, the atmospheric “Dog With Rabbit In Mouth Unharmed”. The song and video work together so well, allowing us to focus on singer Jean Cook, whose assured vocal contributions to Beauty Pill refuse to be dominated by Clark’s unique delivery. Beauty Pill’s amazing record made it onto so many year-end best-of lists, so if you haven’t already, it’s time to get to know it well. They’re back at the Rock & Roll Hotel on February 6th.