*the pAper chAse to tour + SXSW showtimes!*
(the pAper chAse in Italy; photos by Sarah Capatti)
Video for SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY here!!!
The pAper chAse are touring the U.S. again in March including the Kill Rock
Stars showcase @ SXSW! They will be touring throughout Europe in May and are
working on two new albums, plus a split release with Xiu Xiu that will come out
on Stick Figure!
Desperate times call for desperate measures. (Um, we're not referring to the
Patriot Act.) Dallas native John Congleton knows desperation. He also knows
paranoia, anxiety, tension and stress. You can talk to him about it, but you can
also listen to the band he leads, The pAper chAse . God Bless Your Black Heart,
the quartet's Kill Rock Stars debut (and third full-length overall), might be
the most desperate record you'll hear in this year of desperate records: tight
knots of spiderwebbed guitar lines tangled up with off-kilter piano parts and
seasick string charts, laid over some of the heaviest drums since John Bonham
put brontosaurus bone to woolly mammoth skin. (Credit Congleton's day job as an
in-demand studio engineer/producer for the diamond-hard sound.)
Congleton stops short of calling the record an explicit reaction to current
events, but admits that exposure to the nightly news unquestionably colored his
writing. "It's an existential question album," he says. "More or less, Why are
we here? What is the motivation to really do anything good? Are people only good
to one other because they think they get a prize? I'm not a nihilist, and I'm
not saying that I believe that. But our world begs the question."
And so Black Heart asks it. It's the first pAper chAse album made of songs
Congleton demoed himself at home before bringing to the band, who shepherded his
initial ideas to full, falling-down-a-staircase life. For proof, check the way
opener "Said the Spider to the Fly" uncoils out of a click-track intro into a
lighter-waving anti-anthem, or how "The Sinking Ship, The Grand Applause" takes
on instrumental water like a pirate ship spiraling down the drain. The result
washes ashore somewhere between Big Black's super-precise math-rock, the
theatrical absurdism of Meet the Feebles and the squandered ambition of your
junior high's goth community. "It's a pretty dismal listen, I realize,"
Congleton laughs. "It'll bring you down." Not for long. We promise.
The pAper chAse tour dates:
Mar. 7:Fayetteville, AK @ JR's
Mar. 8 Springfield, MO @ Billiard’s Blue Room
Mar. 9:Louisville, KY @ Uncle Pleasant's
Mar. 10:Columbus, OH @ The High Five
Mar. 11:Lansing, MI @ Mac's
w/ Haymarket Riot
Mar. 12:Chicago, IL@ The Bottom Lounge
w/ Saturday Looks Good To Me
Mar. 13:Milwaukee, WI @ The Cactus Club
Mar. 14:St. Louis, MO @ Hi-Pointe
Mar. 15:Lawrence, KS @ The Jackpot
Mar. 17: Kill Rock Stars showcase @ Beerland
The Gossip (1:15)
Numbers (12:30)
Gold Chains and Sue Cie (11:45)
the pAper chAse (11)
Jeff Hanson (10:15)
Two Ton Boa (9:30)
The Old Haunts (8:45)
Nedelle (8)
Mar. 19: Afternoon party! @ Room 710; 12-6p
participants: touch and go, kill rock stars, chunklet magazine
- The Gossip
- the pAper chAse
- Supersystem
- Enon
- Hella
Ready, Willing, Cain & Able,
Celeste
(the pAper chAse in London, photo by Allison)
