Is/Is

Is/Is – This Happening (Guilt Ridden Pop)
Minneapolis raises the bar again (have a look see at the Skittish review if you will), with this marvelous EP from an all-girl power trio who look as if they might do you some harm, but only if they feel like it.

What we have here is a Jesus and Mary Chain for the new generation – and being females only adds to the allure. They make a wall of sound/noise/rhythm, with vocalist Sarah Rose dropping a fuzzy vocal over it all, not unlike Brittany salted butter spread on thick white toast, which is just perfect on these four tunes.

They’ve re-imagined the same dense Mary Chain approach, with a cracking bass assault, and the tempo they’ve chosen (best described as a saunter – there’s no rushing here) suits the sound down to the ground. Indeed, it appears that the sound is being dragged along by the scruff of the (guitar) neck, as if the energy of the band is bleeding out – but they’ve just enough left to complete the task, before flowing to a halt.

So, a stunning opening salvo from these three young women, and I hope it leads to a cacophonous whole when they tackle a full album. Bring it on, girls, bring it on!
www.guiltriddenpop.com
Kev A. - Leicester Bangs

Guilt Ridden Pop just released the sweetest EP you’ll ever hear from the Minneapolis three piece called Is/Is. Every track is sugary hazy shoe gazey pop bliss that will melt your little heart. Every track is absolutely killer, but only one could be WUSB’s jam of the day. Eating Hourglasses has the fuzzy pop vibes of Black Tambourine but with the rough edge of Dum Dum Girls. I hate comparing bands to each other, but it felt right this time. Eating Hourglasses is kind of a perfect song. When ever you likeeee. - WUSB NEW JAMZ

[ICE QUEENS] It's hard enough for me to imagine why anyone would want to live in Minnesota. It's harder still to imagine why a band—especially a small, van-based operation like Minneapolis' Is/Is—would want to begin a tour of the Western states in early March, a time of year when their region is often still blanketed in snow. Chalk it up to balls, I guess—the all-girl rock trio certainly has plenty of those on the This Happening EP, a fuzzed-out, slow-motion ass-kicker of a debut that maintains plenty of subtle melodicism despite its snarling lo-fi wall of Sabbathesque noise. The band's press material cites Black Tambourine and Mazzy Star as sonic relatives, but drummer Mara Appel's fine mix of sloppy and jazzy makes me think these ladies probably came up hearing their fair share of Minutemen records, as well. Whatever they're smoking, I'll take a hit: This Happening is one of the better out-of-the-blue mailings we've gotten in a long time. Here's to getting out of Minnesota. - Willamete Weekly - Portland

Sarah Rose, Sarah Nienaber and Mara Appel combine to create this trio of rahhhhk. Combining guitar, vox, bass and drums this is simplicity at its best. Their sound is like going to the beach in the winter, romantic and lonely. Low-fi post-punk and unaffected, this sound is going to take over indie rock very soon. It has an ethereal feel of floating around alone but like… you are kind pissed. Nicely done ladies. This is bad ass.

RIYL: Dum Dum Girls, Neverever

FCC: Clean

Check out: All 4 tracks dude! - WRUV Reviews

WEDNESDAY: What female power trio out of Minneapolis is coming to Monterey to show why they were recently named a finalist for that city’s best new band? Is/Is is. This young outfit fashions its indie-pop/punk from the influences of Mazzy Star and Black Tambourine, with vocals that sway, lull and then ultimately crash atop a wave of swelling guitar and bass. A four-song debut EP is due out in September, but for now the band is taking its surging sound out of the Twin Cities and into the Western U.S. With Sarah Rose on guitar and vocals, Sarah Nienaber on bass and Mara Appel on drums, the act should be one to watch on the indie scene in years to come. Melted Horses also plays. [DS] 8pm. Jose’s Underground Lounge, 638 Wave St., Monterey. $5 (18+). 655-4419. - Monterey County Weekly

Shoegazey beach pop seems to be the name of the game in indie music these days, and who better to lead it than some crazy cool surfer chicks with dreamy voices?

Is/Is fits right in with contemporaries Best Coast and Dum Dum Girls, with the fuzzy guitar layers and pretty half-whiny vocals, but also recalls the early dream pop of My Bloody Valentine. Ethereal and cloudy, this trio of garage-beach thumpers transcends the trivial and aims a bit higher than just the lifeguard’s lookout tower.

“So Long” is a swirly dreamer with a steady backbeat, perpetuated by groovy percussion. “Pretty Girl” rolls along with a pounding fuzz-bass riff atop crashing cymbal-snare sex. The punky “Eating Hourglasses” is a beach-punk anthem straight from the garage that will have all the stoned surfers bobbing their heads at the show.

Is/Is is loud, aggressive and a tad angry, but, most importantly, Is/Is is euphonious—the prime example of a beautiful mess of sounds fitting together perfectly. - WSBU Music Blog

It’s a pretty cool coincidence when the WMSE ‘Song of the Day’ gets handed to us — if there’s a show we think you should check into the same day, chances are, the song is gonna be a new one from one of the bands. Yesterday’s Rural Alberta Advantage show at Mad Planet got lots of you into good spirits, as was evident from the happy turnout (the Canadian band was our SOTD for Wednesday). Today, there are two great shows going on in Milwaukee, and one, we’ve already had the chance to give props to (read our previous SOTD featuring Doomtree’s SIMS, *here*); tonight, the Cactus Club welcomes SIMS, along with Astronautalis and Milwaukee’s Fresh Cut Collective.

On the other side of town, the Y-Not III (1854 E. Kenilworth) welcomes excellent local music from Busybodies, Absolutely and Sonic J, as well as close-neighbors, Is/Is (Minneapolis), for a show that will be full of gritty guitars, tightly-wound percussion, reverb, fuzz and other electronic awesomeness. Is/Is should ring a bell for those familiar with Minneapolis’ Gospel Gossip, who we’ve had the pleasure of welcoming to Milwaukee, before, for WMSE’s Radio Summer Camp. GG’s fiery guitarist/vocalist, Sarah Nienaber takes up bass in Is/Is for a more attitude-driven sound that’s a little bit Breeders, a little bit My Bloody Valentine and Dum Dum Girls all wrapped up in a nice gauzy embrace. Listen to “Death Treat” from Is/Is, below. - WMSE Song of the Day

Local fuzz rock trio Is/Is will release their brand new 7? single tonight by playing a free show at the Hexagon. Listening to the new material it would seem that the ladies had enough guitar distortion for a full length and decided to cram it all into two songs. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though – if you dig 80's/90's fuzz assault bands like Sleater Kinney and The Jesus and Mary Chain, Is/Is might just be your thing. The 7? consists of “Vowel Movements” and B side “Blackest Beat,” of which the latter is my own favorite. Check out the show tonight and pick up a copy of the single on white vinyl.

— Jon Behm - Reviler

5. Is/Is

You shouldn't be able to just piece a band together and be this good so early. Is/Is is equal parts fever dream and uncontrollable riot. Screw 'girl group' labels, 'cuz this band brings it. - Their Bated Breath

Is / Is have a confident slow lope about them, built on bass-lines played right up front alongside the guitar, the lead vocal of Sarah Rose sounding at times like she's shouting into a box. Given that it's three girls from the mid-west, it was odd that their power trio set up inspired me to go and search out 40 year old recordings The Groundhogs. If you want a more accurate recipe for the sound, take some semi-straight 'born in the 60s' melodies, rake gravel into them, pour through a concrete mixer of feedback fuzz, then infuse and tamp a lagging female vocal well down into the surface so that it will never properly set and harden. Got that? Except that makes them sound just like every 'gaze band from the Mary Chain onwards, so I'd better add that those half-lost vocals and that raw bluesy back beat do it good enough that I'm hooked on the strung out abandonment; truly this is one of only two records in the last 12 months that have had me obsessively turning it over on repeat.

The trio come together from a couple of disparate bands that might make you think that Minnesota is some sort of nodal interstice of here and now talent. But there again, you can play that game with maps and circles to prove everything and nothing. The quality bass playing comes from Sarah Nienaber, otherwise front-woman in Gospel Gossip, already a favourite and making notable waves of their own for a year or two. Sarah Rose and drummer Mara Appel have some shared history in another local band, First Communion Afterparty.

I've got the idea from somewhere that when the girls kicked it off, this project was kind of temporary, an experiment, but what they've started has got some definite legs and is worth hearing more of, certainly more than the four tracks on debut EP 'This Happening'.

The pop heritage is never more apparent than in 'So Long' - a song where the dragging vocal foretells of imminent winter under a glowering sky of thundering guitar, evoking ideas of both the heavens and your life rushing forward despite every attempt to set it in aspic. If I've made it sound it sound at all pretty, 'Eating Hourglasses' rocks more than enough to get your head down and shaken out, valves popping. Was it simply wilful to give themselves the google-impossible name of
Is/Is? Thank heavens for hotlinks! - God Is In The TV Zine

s the band tells it, the Minneapolis trio known as Is/Is came about by happy accident. Gospel Gossip guitarist and singer Sarah Nienaber was supposed to play a solo gig and asked First Communion Afterparty bassist Sarah Rose to join her. The two felt so good about the experience, they switched guitar roles and recruited drummer Mara Appel to form Is/Is. The music world is better for it. Is/Is is better than either band the girls originally came from. The punk trio kicked out a four-song debut EP, “This Is Happening”, via Guilt Ridden Pop. It’s one of the best EPs of the year. Seriously, this short-but-sweet record is flat-out awesome. “This Is Happening” is a pleasant assault on the ears, balanced between searing guitars and seductively thick textures of gauzy haze. These babes strap on their guitars, set up the drums, and crank out waves of atomic distortion that will blow your hair back.

The music of Is/Is curls itself up to you like a cat at your leg, before each of the four tracks unleashes a pent-up thundering crescendo — loose, raw and poised to claw everything in sight. It’s candy and razor blades. Rose’s muffled and dreamy vocals are draped in a visceral grime of guitars and clanking drums. It’s the perfect musical marriage of beauty and beast — Appel banging away on her kit with a ferociousness equaled by Nienaber’s charged-up bass notes.

The album opener, “So Long”, is a good gauge of the band’s sound. The vocals are melodically entrancing, dipped in a slight reverb, the drums and bass always pushing forward. It’s an anthemic song about change and stagnation in people and the elements: “Watching the leaves burn / Soon there will be snow / And I’ll be singing the same song /Watching the clouds roll / Soon it will be cold / And I’ll be singing the same song … / I’ll be right here … / Watching each other change / Somehow it feels the same / As if we’ve been this way for so long, / Watching the weather change / Winter’s on its way / And it stayed for so long.”

Honestly, this record is so damn good. This band sounds better than Hole or Warpaint. I could see myself traveling up to Minneapolis just for the chance to jump around and belt out some of the lyrics with Rose, fist in the air, bouncing with a few hundred, sweaty, drunken friends. That sick bassline from their second track, “Pretty Girl”, should be enough to energize any crowd, or that 1:11 mark in the song, where Appel’s booming thumps run smack into Rose’s sonic thrashing like glass shattering in a car crash.

The six-and-a-half minute “Death Treat” may be the best track. It begins with a jangly guitar strum, not unlike Jane’s Addiction’s beginning to “Classic Girl”, before blasting into a one-and-half minute wall of beautiful fuzzed-out noise. Then Rose puts the track to rest with this sexy lyrical riff on death, “Death is a treat for her / She gave it to me / Somehow it seemed so sweet / Death is a treat for us, until we slow down / And put it out.” Note: All lyrics are unofficial. - Their Bated Breath

The two Sarahs, Rose and Nienaber, with Mara Appel of the Minneapolis band Is/Is live and breath 20 year old alt-rock. As, Rose puts it, ”I think our dream would be to be the opening band for Jesus and Mary Chain & Mazzy Star.” Talk about a fantasy. Rose (guitar), Nienaber (bass), and Appel (drums) have spent the better half of the decade playing music, and making names for themselves, independently. Now together in Is/Is, they would fit right into that opening slot.

Is/Is give an old school take on alt-rock that holds a mirror up to those bands they love. Throw in the other classic names from the era (Sonic Youth, Pavement et. all) and you have a sound that’s a smorgasbord of the genre like they’ve time traveled (via telephone booth) from that era. Influences aside, they carry a unique, very bass driven presence that gives them their power along with those oh so sweet vocals.

The three musicians have a long history with music and the Minneapolis scene starting their first bands at 13. Throw in a cool connection to rock history with Rose’s father having served as sound guy to The Replacements for bonus points. They’ve been playing in and around the same bands for years. Ask about that history and you get a laundry list of predominant Minneapolis underground rock bands, “Mara and I both played in the band First Communion Afterparty, for years. Mara was also the drummer for Shy, and I played percussion and back up vocals with the band StrangeLights for a year or so. Nienaber has been in her band Gospel Gossip for about four years now.”

Having rubbed elbows with one another on more than one occasion, it was by happenstance, and necessity, that they all got together, “Sarah [Nienaber] was asked to do a solo set at a local venue and asked me [Rose] to join her on stage. We realized we needed a drummer and Mara was quick to say yes.”

Since that initial spur of the moment show, Is/Is has been diligently at work recording and writing independently. So far they’ve released a fantastic debut EP entitled This Happening. Mostly written by Rose, it’s a new adventure in alt-rock for the three members. Having each written independently up until now, it’s also an adventure in learning how to be a band.

Most of their debut EP was written by Rose. The four songs featured have been kicking around since she began writing, “some of them have been in my mental archive since I was a kid.” Tracks “So Long” and the crunchy psychedelic “Pretty Girl” turn out a lo-fi brew of three chord grunge-light. It’s that perfect blend of heavy as hell riffs and catchy melodies that gets the hair to standing up.

Slower offering “Death Treat” takes a page right out of the alt-rock jam play book. Rose sounds like a young Fiona Apple as they lay down six minutes of relentlessly overdriven rock that reveals a darker side with the line “Death is a treat for us until we slow down and put it out. Death is a treat for her she gave it to me somehow it seemed to sweet”. In the same vein, but half the time, “Eating Hourglass” picks up the pace turning dark to sultry.

So where has this band been all our lives? They capture one of the best periods in recent rock so well it’s hard not to wonder that question. This brings up another issue though, that of a first record. As of now, they’re sticking to EP’, having just finished their second. If you live near Minneapolis, or on the west coast, expect a tour to head your way too, “We just got a van and will be heading to nearby cities in December and will be going on a west coast tour in March.” This also includes more recording time even though Appel will be relocating to Portland, OR come December. A few hundred miles won’t keep them from Is/Is however, “We’re going to do a long distance band relationship thing for the time being.” Here’s hopping this long distance relationship works out. - Consequence of Sound

When word spread last winter that Sarah Nienaber and Sarah Rose were in a new band together, it was enough to whet more than a few appetites within the local scene. Simple arithmetic suggested there'd be plenty of sprawling guitar work, perhaps a bit of spaced-out psychedelia, and maybe even some female harmonies thrown in for good measure.

What we got was something altogether different: Nienaber showed up playing bass, and Rose, having long done the same for First Communion Afterparty, picked up guitar. The result was a lean mixture of garage rock and post punk rattling behind Rose's breathy vocals.

"It's really funny, at least for me, to step into that lead songwriter role. I used to be so nervous about putting that much out there, I didn't really expect anything at all," Rose recalls while sitting with the band outside the Kitty Cat Klub. "[When] it started originally, we were like, 'Oh, let's just play house parties and have a good time with this.'"

In fact, the formation of the band was done pretty well on the fly after Rose volunteered to join Nienaber for a solo set at the 331 in August of last year. They recruited Mara Appel, a long-time friend of Rose's and former FCAP drummer, who, Nienaber admits, got "tricked into playing our first show."

"I was pretty down with whatever, any time," Appel says nonchalantly, lounging in the corner and smoking a cigarette. "The whole spur-of-the-moment thing was cool with me because, I mean, shit, I love to play drums."

If Is/Is are taking themselves more seriously than at first, they've lost none of that loose early spirit. Onstage, Nienaber and Appel joke back and forth between songs, and if sometimes the shows get a little ragged, that's part of the fun. Now, having just last month released This Happening—their first EP, recorded with Red Pens' Howard Hamilton—it may not be long before the two Sarahs switch instruments again.

"I tried to learn new songs and then I was like, 'I have some songs'...and they seemed to flow better," Rose says, explaining how she first took on lead duties. "But I've been trying to write songs backwards and write songs on bass. Which is like, it's a challenge, but it's kind of fun to work on that because singing and playing bass, you really got to concentrate when you're doing it. And I want to just be able to do it." - City Pages (Mpls)

When I first saw IS/IS a while back at the 331, they took the fuzzed out, lo-fi aesthetic a little too far. The songs seemed underdeveloped and the drums were marching to their own beat, making an almost painful experience. The two women out front (Sarah from Gospel Gossip and Sarah from First Communion Afterparty) seemed to be having fun, but what seemed like it would be a really cool paring of members of two local stalwarts sounded more like a drunken jam session. Luckily, their first official release, the new guilt Ridden Pop single “So Long,” helps to slightly refine their sound. The instruments still wash over in waves of fuzz, but the song is more focused and really highlights the girl’s garage-chic vocals. Like I had hoped, the sound combines the noisy/Sonic Youth pop of FCAP and the fuzzy/spaced out influence of Gospel Gossip into a melting pot of lo-fi glory. Hopefully there is more where this comes from in the form of a full length in the near future. - Reviler

A fantastic new 3 peiece, Is/Is made up of Gospel Gossip's Sarah Nienaber, First Communion Afterparty's Sarah Rose and former FCAP's Mara Appel on drums. Their debut ep This Is Happening was produced, mixed by Howard Hamilton III of the Red Pens. Check out their first track "So Long" with it's fuzzy Mazzy Star feel, definitely a band to watch.
- Sound Verite'

Is/Is is a three-piece from Minneapolis, and while their sound reminds me of the recent onslaught of sun-tinged, slightly noisy pop (think: Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls), it has much more of a noise-rock edge. As per their press materials, there’s definitely a strong Black Tambourine resemblance, and I’m a sucker for that early twee/shoegaze sound.

Is/Is’ debut EP, This Happening, is being released September 11 on Guilt Ridden Pop.

- The Glorious Hum