The Absent Center
Richmond, Virginia, United States | INDIE
Music
Press
Thursday, January 12
Of Montreal are known for their insane live shows—which you’d imagine from a band which has eight people onstage. Don’t expect anything less of Yip Deceiver, the synth-driven side project featuring Of Montreal’s Davey Pierce and Nicolas Dobbratz, at Velvet Lounge tonight. Bring your dance moves.
Yip Deceiver with the Velvet Ants, the Absent Center, and Drawbridges, 9 PM at Velvet Lounge, $8.
- Washingtonian
Asobi Seksu, which is colloquial Japanese for "playful sex," released its self-titled debut album in 2004 to significant critical acclaim, receiving attention from the New York Times, Pitchfork and mtvU. The music is very haunting, yet very attention grabbing. Asobi Seksu is playing at the Camel tonight with Canary Oh Canary, the Trillions and the Absent Center (who are all perfect additions to play a show with). - The Richmond Scene
It’s always great finding a new band to get into only to find out that they are playing in town in just a few days. That’s the case when I first heard the music from Springfield, Missouri natives Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. Aside from the awesome (if not long) band name, these guys know how to put together a fun indie pop rock song. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin is playing at Current on Friday, Oct. 28 with The Absent Center, The Trillions and Young Adult Fiction. - Richmond Playlist
[The Absent Center is] a lo-fi band from Richmond, Virginia that write the type of dirt fantasies that will have you singing in front of your third graders all day long. The band will be touring this fall to promote their debut album All that is Solid Melts into Air. These shows include appearances with the Black Rabbits, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin and Asobi Seksu. - write.click.cook.listen
The Absent Center is an alternative, indie band from Richmond, Virginia. Their sound in many ways is casual, but it does not mean that the songs lack depth. They have partnered with Ontology Records in 2010 to distribute their first full length album All that is Solid Melts into Air. The rhythms are smooth while impacting your ears with unique guitars. In some ways they can be described are sounding very indie, yet there is a quality to their sound that is energetic, captivating, and moving. The band also is inspired by other bands as well as post modern philosophers. The cool things is that you do not have to be into philosophy to get the messages floating by on carefully crafted lyrics. The band has been promoting their tracks fearlessly and tirelessly, and keep up in the indie scene and on radio outlets. The Absent Center is an intellectual talent for all to have fun with.
- The Independent Music Scene
Discography
The Absent Center EP (Distributed Independently, 2008)
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air (Ontology, 2010)
Photos
Bio
Beginning as a recording project in Paris during the winter of 2009, The Absent Center was the brainchild of frontman g.m. miller, a jaded graduate student with a desire to produce songs inspired by low-fi bands like Pavement and The Olivia Tremor Control just as much as by post-modernist writers such as David Foster Wallace and Slavoj Zizek. Writing and recording tracks in Paris, Berlin, New York and Virginia over the course of a year, The Absent Center released a series of singles and videos via the internet exhibiting a mix of jangly guitars, brooding synth riffs and cryptic lyricism that has become a hallmark of the band’s self-styled “grad school rock.” The experience of frequent movement, constantly changing landscapes and short-lived relationships provided a veritable leitmotif for The Absent Center’s debut album All That Is Solid Melts Into Air (2010), with songs conveying that “home is just an abstract idea” and “absent spaces” can, in fact, be adorned with meaning and presence.
Returning to the US in 2010, g. found his musical counterparts in Richmond, VA following a chance encounter with a tech-savvy perfectionist and notorious bon vivant, transforming The Absent Center from a recording project into a live act. Blending g.’s influences with the indie stylings of guitarist Zach Snowden and the “groove factor” of drummer Mark Stoltzfus, the Absent Center has acquired a reputation for producing pop hooks that have drawn comparisons to The Poison Control Center and The Unicorns, as well as more established acts like Apples In Stereo and The Strokes. Never concealing its motely influences and personalities, the band thinks of itself in equal part as an indie rock act and social experiment.
The group’s short, stylized songs and energy-infused performances have attracted the attention of prominent acts in the indie music scene. The Absent Center gas shared the stage with acts such as The Black Rabbits (Rock Ridge Music), the critically-acclaimed Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Asobi Seksu (Polyvinyl Records), Yip Deceiver and Ramona Falls.
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