ILL EASE

Elizabeth Sharp (ill-ease-a-beth) has been honing her sound for a few years now. A one-woman band, she plays all the instruments herself, even live. This she achieves by playing into loops, loping around the stage to play along with herself. The gigs manage to pull off the trick of building and building into a kind of frenzy. They are not to be missed.

And the honing is evident here on her new single. Comprised of an A-side and a double-A, the two are brought together under the capsule headed 'The Whole Sha-bang!'

The first of these, 'Here Comes Trouble', showcases a new groove domination, which had been hinted at on Ill Ease's last album, 'All Systems a Go-go'.

"I don't know what I want, but I know what I like," sings Liz. Here usual themes are here: summarized as dealing with loves won and lost—quirked by Sharp's eccentric approach, which involves taking hold of a rock 'n' roll paradigm and teassing and torturing it, like a cat with a mouse.

'What Makes Your Heart Go Boom' has a fuzzy guitar and a falling-down-the-stairs loop. Why ever not, we say. - Artrocker (UK)

The atmosphere in this little community centre—where people are told off for standing up or talking—is so wearyingly reverent that we could be in church. Its the aggravating dogmatic downshot to Ladyfest's indie girl-empowerment—that all art here is of equal value, everything's amazing and if you're not with us you're against us. Which makes giving an honest assessment of the first-middle-aged, all-male, Goth band, who are awful, awkward.

Thank god then for Peepholes. A boy banging a drum and Katia—all frocked-up mentalism, smaking the crap out of anything that makes a noise and fixing yr ears with the best scream we've heard in ages. It's dance-your-guts-out HAPPY.

Ill Ease hates DRUUHM MACHEENS she hates DRUUHM MACHEENS! She smacks her snare like its Peaches' arse and makes summat joyous out of a (tongue-in-cheek?) indie girl Ludditism. You think: has she never heard Stephen Morris' kickdrum rise up, flare its nostrils and whinny in 'Blue Monday'? Has she never had even the beats of The Blow punch little holes in her heart? Yeah, probably, but Elizabeth Sharp looks and sounds amazing, deliriously slapping about a noisy drumkit over bass and guitar that she'd looped on the fly, minutes earlier. I think I hate drum machines too, and I love drum machines.

It totally sabotages all the usual being-in-a-band image bullshit. There's nothing but her, some noise-making things, and a machine that lets her layer the noises like a little kid who swapped friends for tape-recorders, and made up new, better mates by multitracking herself into a gang. There's no posing, it's all clatter. I wish everyone would do this—just make up A Thing and get up onstage and have a bit of a shout and stuff. I bet it feels ace.

plan b pic - 2Everyone things Ill Ease is amazing, especially Katia Peepholes, dancing onstage like a ragdoll throughout. But sometimes, for me, it lacks the immediacy of the ace All Systems A Go-Go! album. And she opens with her weakest idea, the one about models where she sarcastically drawls, "New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Milaaaaan" and grins knowingly cos like models are bad and stuff. "I dont give a fuuuuuhk!" she drawls, like the Southern gent she is, "just gimme the druuuughs!"

Then 'The Two Party System' which you think it's about how, like, politics is bad, until the chanted outro, "We alll get fuuuuhked!" and it turns out to be be about getting fucked again.

But just when you think she's pissing about with one-note songsketches, she brings out something like 'One Hell Of A Bender'—another bloody drugs song until you actually listen to it and you find the sweetest little love story hidden away right inside of it. It's elegant little Pavement-y songs like this and the gorgeous 'Power Turns Me On!' that I wished I'd heard more of. Songs that make lying in bed all day with a pocketful of pills and a best friend in a clothes-free summer sound like the best thing ever, sung in a clatter of drums.

Like the best Ladyfest gigs, tonight proved briliantly that anyone can get up onstage and have a bit of a shout. But Ill Ease proved that there's no point in doing it if it isn't a noise clever enough to drop your pants for. - Plan B (UK)

Brooklyn-based one-woman musical sensation Ill Ease's sixth full-length, Turn it Loose!, dropped early last month. Characterized by low-fi strumming and rhythmic drumming (not to mention a host of other musical contributions), Elizabeth Sharp's raw instrumentation and minimalist singing is a combination sure to turn heads.

Lyrics range from irreverent to simplistic and repetitive. While the words leave a lasting impact, it's Sharp's delivery style that astounds: on initial listen, one assumes they're grooving to an Iggy Pop- meets Rolling Stones-loving, testosteronedominated, indie band. It's beguiling!

Sharp's skill at seamlessly layering myriad instruments and varied vocal elements is laudable, an audible illusion if ever I heard one. Her catchy and adolescent-esque "Hate the Game" is hands-down soundtrack bound. (Think a Michael Cera "comedrama.") Sharp nods her head to history with "Here Comes Trouble," an antidote to Orbison's original "Pretty Woman." Addictive and danceable, this track inspires clapping and singing in no time.

Raucous and discordant, "When Suddenly, the Evil Twin Arrives!" offers a fun number apt to be overplayed at hipster stores everywhere. With flirty lines like "Shake it, shake it, baby! I wanna see you go crazy!" it'll have customers rocking from dressing room to register.

Seeking Southern twang? "Dear Krazy" serves up fast-paced, folksy foot tapping with a side of frenetic chorus. But don't take my word for it; peep Ill Ease's MySpace page or visit her official site, illease.com. - The Deli NYC

"...circular grooves like a moldy peach playing patty-cake with can. Bad times never seemed so good." - Spin

Filled with sly beats and overdubbed vocals, Ill Ease makes slick rock music that sexily slip and trips on itself—like a drunk friend whose word-slurring only enhances her magnetic appeal. As Ill Ease flirts wth the artistic aspects of rock music, creating soundscapes that suggest there's more to Sharp's songs than just what she's playing or saying, the end result is straight-ahead songs that feel simultaneously experimental and real.... Musically catchy and lyrically intriguing, layered enough to delight and confound, and abundantly expressive of the seductive ill ease of the woman behind the band. - Venus

The Exorcist does the tighten up on Ill Ease's shtick. Whether or not it's at the expectance of her new and larger label, Too Pure, IE maestro Elizabeth Sharp has leashed Live at the Holiday Sin's meandering muse and created her strongest set yet. That doesn't mean she's gone all pop. The same chattering and stilted percussion winds through Exorcist, but it's matched to a series of robust, tensile guitar riffs straight from a '90s indie clip-art book, and a more directly randy lyrical bent.

Opener "Jersey-O-Matic" channels the Breeders' "Last Splash" through a chintzy keyboard Cuisinart and a bunch of beguiling "ba-ba-ba"s from Sharp; it will likely surface as the soundtrack to some ridiculously hip fashion show. The tracks for "Winter in Hell" and "The Skank" are more laconic, with loopy basslines trudging along underneath simplistic drum triggers. But Sharp mumbles naughty nothings in our ear like a distracted girlfriend trying to incite jealousy. She sleeps with the boss in "Hell"; "Skank" recounts the details of an after-hours debauchery fest whose lights never reach the street. "18 to party/21 to drink...Crusty old men/And college girls on crank."

There's a bit of Peaches in Sharp's delivery and subject matter -- there's a similar co-opting of the modern hip-hop obsession with recreational substances and sex inside the urban landscape. "Walking Catastrophe" is potty-mouthed and codependent as clanging guitars steadily overtake its deconstructed rhythmic pluck, while "You Know You Make Me Want to Hate You" manufactures a trashy streetwalking groove. It's Danielson Famile turned out by Jon Spencer. The guitar/drum machine dynamic continues throughout Exorcist, supported occasionally by tinny keys or some of the found noise coloring Ill Ease's previous output, and Sharp's wavering near-whisper remains a curiously addicting amalgam of the sly and the personal.

Exorcist is a big-city album for sure. It's arch and haughty enough for the exclusive loft parties, but its homemade feel comforts the lonely would-be sex symbols stuck in narrow uptown efficiencies. - All Music Guide

"8 out of a perfect 10! A dark blend of low-fi, fuzzed out guitars, [and] thrashy hip-hop style drums." - Alternative Press