"The last band that evening was A New Dawn Fades. I can’t say when they actually started their set. First there was droning feedback from a guitar. Then percussion instruments began to sound intermittently around the room. A metal sheet rattled in the back like an angry snake. One guy was handed a drumstick and he started beating it against a pillar. After an unsettlingly age of conceptual noise, two individuals convened on the stage.
A guitar and drums was all that was needed. The guitar spoke in an angular tongue. The drums bashed a steady beat. As the act progressed, any artifice unraveled out of the music and it became a cryptic jam session. At times, guitar lines plotted out funky scales that only made sense in reflection. Between songs the drummer harangued the audience. Was he creating a rapport?
A New Dawn Fades played that night like a two-headed monster. It was a hypnotizing experience. As the guitar writhed out shapes in the air, the rhythms created schizoid angles and weird vertices. The band managed to fill the venue more than seemed possible with their two instruments. Noise echoed throughout the room as the set redefined the audience's sense of time.
By the end, one got the unmistakable feeling that A New Dawn Fades’ act was designed to make fun of audience expectations. As the drummer and guitarist left the stage and walked away, the feedback continued. Everyone stood waiting for more. After a long pause of confusion, the drummer started guffawing from amidst the crowd. He had to inform the rest of us that the show was over."
-Daniel Crenshaw (RVAmag.com)
Having sold out a small stack of 7” releases and CDEPs on their own Cherub Records, Richmond’s A NEW DAWN FADES is set to release their album, I See the Nightbirds, on the Alone and NFI imprints this fall. The instrumental Richmond duo has been known for sticking hard to the road, where they’ve gained a reputation for wowing audiences with their improvisational and experimental performances. No stiff limbed scarecrows on stage, the band forces the audience to take an interactive part in the music, throwing out makeshift instruments like pots, bits of sheet metal or car parts, the clamor of which, in no small way, influences the direction of the band’s improvisational pieces. The boundaries between the performer and the audience are further blurred as both musicians often walk among the crowd, playing along with, and conducting the makeshift orchestra. Be warned: at an A NEW DAWN FADES show no unwitting audience member is safe from direct involvement in the performance
Six years of my life down the tubes. Do you understand the concept of TUBES, McGlothlin? Sykes? You are both on THIN ICE. Thanks for nothing, Lynchburg and points beyond.
Thruster! Anlieferung! Wir hörten, daß jemand eine große Platte voll Gesicht des schmelzenden Felsens und der Rolle bestellte. Essen Sie es herauf yum!
