Buke And Gase
8:30 PM
With Mmeadows And RJ Miller
Buke and Gase members Aron Sanchez (him) and Arone Dyer (her) are back with their first album in six year, Scholars. In that gap, the duo have become established underground icons—collaborating with or acting as hand-picked support for fellow icons like Shellac, Battles, Reggie Watts, Animal Collective, Lou Reed & Laurie Anderson. Arone contributed vocals to the lead single from The National’s Grammy-winning, Triple A #1 charting Sleep Well Beast album. And they stayed busy as live performers, earning coveted support tours with The National (2017 Europe), Shellac (2018 USA) and Battles (2015 UK + USA) while performing select headline & festival dates in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Wisconsin’s Eaux Claires festival and Taiwan & Thailand.
Three years ago, Buke and Gase embraced electronic music and embarked on a major refinement & modernization of their instrumental creations. They developed Arx, a device that revolutionized their performance by allowing them to trigger percussive sounds, change effects on their instruments, and control vocal harmonies with the punch of an arcade button. They have largely retired the buke (bass ukulele) and gass (guitar-bass). Their new album Scholars began not as the title of their new record, but a possible-new moniker for the band. The new LP is still experimental music but it embraces electronic sound and is more emotional & concise than previous efforts—and equally full of grooves & earworms.
Says Pitchfork of the new music: “The melodies are huge, unfurling as multi-colored banners in the sky. … The production here snaps with the clarity and force of stadium-sized headbangers.. With an eye toward the innovations of contemporaries working in similar modes, Scholars exists on its own proud terms—suggesting the authority of a peer-reviewed entry to the canon.”
Long-time supporters NPR Music sum up their music like so: “No other bands sound quite like the duo of Buke & Gase…”
Electro-pop outfit mmeadows is Kristin Slipp and Cole Kamen- Green. Kristin and Cole are perhaps best known for their work as part of Cuddle Magic — a Brooklyn and Philadelphia-based chamber-pop band that Bob Boilen (of NPR’s All Songs Considered) says is one of his new favorites — but the duo, together and separately, have also written and recorded with Beyonce and Lorde, toured with Dirty Projectors, Cyndi Lauper and Kimbra, and made beats with Yuka C. Honda.
Until recently, Kristin and Cole managed to keep mmeadows [mostly] a secret, meeting late at night to chip away at a body of work. The quasi-clandestine nature and dark setting of these midnight meetings found a way into the duo’s new music through undulating low frequencies, ecstatic vocal melodies, and sizzling analog synths. They’ll release their debut full-length record later this year.
RJ Miller is a drummer and composer from Maine. A long time fixture on the NYC jazz and eperimental scene, Miller has performed/recorded with artists like Bill McHenry, Eric Revis, George Garzone, Hugo Rasmussen, Meshell N’degeocello, Aaron Parks, Jorge Rossy, and Ben Street to name a few.