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Event
Shana Cleveland (of La Luz) wsg Emily Roll Sunday 5/31 at UFO Factory
Shana & the Sandcastles
Shana Cleveland is a rare artist who seems dismissive of time. She's been
performing with a rotating batch of musicians tagged as The Sandcastles for over six
years, and yet Oh Man, Cover The Ground is their first proper album. It would be easy
to chalk up the delay behind the debut to a slacker lifestyleOh Man, Cover The
Ground's laid-back vibe certainly suggests an extremely casual approach to
songcraft. But Cleveland is no slacker. In the years since she first started playing out
under her own name, she's helmed a number of other music projects; most notably
her revered Girls In The Garage-inspired band La Luz. In her downtime, she's crafted
a set of 37 trading cards dedicated to obscure acoustic guitarists and a calendar of
drawings depicting rock bands of yesteryear. The glacial pace of Oh Man, Cover The
Ground's development has little to do with work ethic and everything to do with
doing things in a way that feels right. "I don't really think of it as a proper band,"
says Cleveland. "The line-up has been different for almost every show depending on
which arrangements I thought would be best for the atmosphere. Some shows I
played alone; some with bass, clarinet, and backing vocals; some with the addition
of drums, cello and piano. We've played shows really selectively throughout the last
few yearsjust sticking to shows that I thought sounded really interesting. Like, I'd
rather play these songs for people in their bedrooms or in a field at night than on a
three band bill at a bar." In an industry fixated on striking while the iron is hot,
getting an artist in front of as many people in as short of a time as possible,
Cleveland's insistence on atmosphere over arbitrary numbers is a bold move.
Oh Man, Cover The Ground's softly-stated melodies and breezy air operates on it's
own sense of time. Though the songs still settle comfortably into three-minute
parcels, their gestation bucked at the convention of pop music's stringent time
format. "I'm really into meandering, fingerpicked open-tuned acoustic guitar, like
John Fahey and Robbie Basho," says Cleveland. "I started playing guitar in that style
during a year right before I moved to Seattle when I was lonely and bummed out in
the San Fernando Valley and found solace in spending long afternoons fingerpicking
slow moving improvisations." This casualness is evident in the musicyou can hear
it in the airy ambience of album opener "Butter & Eggs", the gentle piano and strings
accompaniment on the title track, the particularly Fahey-esque explorations of
"Itching Around" and "SPATM". But even the timeline of the album's development
seems to defy the ephemeral haste that permeates so much contemporary music.
The bulk of Oh Man, Cover The Ground was recorded in 2011 in Shana's basement. "I
wanted it to sound casual and kind of loose like my favorite folk albums, so we
didn't practice much before recording and a few of the musicians were playing the
songs for the first time." Four years later, Suicide Squeeze Records is proud to
announce that these recordings will finally be available to the public.
Time is of the least concerns for Shana Cleveland & The Sandcastles, and that
insistence on operating outside of its pressures and tedious reminders has enabled
Cleveland to make something that feels, well timeless. Oh Man, Cover The Ground
came together according to its own clock and calendar, and consequently feels
removed from the bustle of everyday life. "I think these songs have a lot to do with
the weirdness of being inside your own head all the time in the outside world. Sort
of an internal monologue of thoughts I have but wouldn't say. It's about laziness, and
lust, and wanting to eat other people's food when it looks better than mine."
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LocationUFO Factory (View)
2110 Trumbull St
Detroit, MI 48216
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 18 |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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