Guitars
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Guitars

Band Country Avant-garde

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"Don't let the smooth taste fool you..."

If your ears are bored with your current music selections, invest some time in discovering Guitars

On the debut EP, “Faster," the Brooklyn band brilliantly incorporates shakers, clapping, foot-stomping and other non-traditional forms of music making into each track to create a sound that is all its own.

It’s definitely hard to fit the she/him duo of Shanna Perez-Hill and Kenric McDowell into a strict musical category. They describe themselves as performers of “minimal psychedelic country, blues and soul." The pair share singing duties on every song, and create a signature sound by harmonizing vocals while repeating lyrics.

The first song, “Make Your Way," starts off slowly with a strumming acoustic guitar. As the momentum builds, the tambourine is brought and you will be swaying aloing in no time. On “My Bad!," the duo compliments each other while singing over a layer of guitar and handclapping.

Perez-Hill shows off the true strength of her voice on the bluesy “Sad Machine." The electric guitar makes its first appearance on the EP and brings its own strength to the song. The steady guitar and drumming during the last minute of the track will have you hitting “repeat."

The chanting on “As So So As" might remind you of Native American spiritual song. There’s also a little bit of foot-stomping and this time around, Guitars bring in the shakers. McDowell might be trying to take the lead with his deep voice but he is overshadowed by Perez-Hill’s fluid vocals.

You can download some of the “Faster" tracks from the band’s website.

Guitars will be playing Brooklyn’s Union Hall for a record release party on May 26 - playvicious.com


Discography

Faster EP released on Overlap.org May 2008
available for free at FasterEP.com

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Bio

What if Bob Dylan and Neil Young took Amazonian psychedelics together and started a mystical art rock band? They might sound like Brooklyn duo Guitars is what.

West coast transplants Kenric McDowell and Shanna Perez-Hill share birthdays with Bob and Neil respectively and the hippie mysticism and ‘70s country rock fetishism don’t end there. Guitars’ first collaboration was at Kenric’s MFA show (he was making juice, she was playing ocean sounds on 7” records) and their first recordings (mostly chanting) were made in a casita outside Santa Fe, NM. After the two participated in a Peruvian Yagé ceremony their fates were sealed — the music started flowing and they played their first show at NYC’s Lit on the winter solstice of 2007.

Guitars’ lyrics reflect these mind-expanding roots. Esoteric chants (“No Key, No Cage”) and meditations on the relationship between language and death (“Folklore”) meet sincere and absurdly dark comedy (“Everything is fine / big or small / it is all / part of a design / or not...”)

The music is equally pleasant and confounding. Bittersweet pop gems (“My Bad”, “Keep In Mind”) sit alongside minimalist folk (“Kiss My Fist”) and raw repetition (“As So, So As”, “Sad Machine”)
The intimate connection between the two members of Guitars and the way they delicately handle intense subject matter is refreshing to some. But others find it challenging. One person assaulted the band after a “meat ceremony” at an art show, sending Shanna to the hospital with a wound over her third eye and a busted nose. That really happened. No kidding.

Thankfully, Guitars’ musical good will has not been dampened by violence and they continue to perform minimalist, psychedelic country that is charming, entrancing and beautiful. Guitars’ musical rhizome keeps expanding, folding elements of bluegrass, noise and drone music into an enchanting and psychically charged vortex of country goodness.