Status: Single
City: Minneapolis
State: Minnesota
Country: US
Signup Date: 7/29/2005
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Sunday, August 30, 2009
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Current mood:  awake
The New Yorker, "Night Life" section — June 5: Thundering out of the basements of Minneapolis, Gay Beast brings its wide-eyed, brutal sound to Brooklyn. The group’s latest record, 'Second Wave,' is full of erratic shifts in time signature, pleading yelps over razor-sharp eight-bit keyboards, and pounding tribal percussion. Although not for the faint of heart, this frenetic trio’s music is miraculously danceable—the perfect soundtrack for a post-apocalyptic discotheque.-- Citizen Dick — ...Gay Beast are a Minnesota based trio that pump out disorienting and manic alt-alt-electronic tinged half-psychedelic noise. (I just made that genre up. Mark it down. When there’s a journal of alt-alt-electronic tinged half-psychedelic noise, I want me some royalties.) The songs are often like knives to the eardrums, assaulting the listener with a whole slab of sonic action. Things seem to be pretty well balanced between wildly unpredictable and chaotic and vaguely song based. “White Diamonds,” an early favorite for me, is an explosion of off-key saxophone blarings, jarring tempo shifting drums, electronic pops and beeps and a crunching, out of sync guitar riff. It is four minutes of absolute anarchic mayhem. As alluded to above, you’re not going to be tapping you toes or humming along for this one. Rather, you’ve kind of got to sit back and admire the brass it takes to throw this much shit onto a record. It’s a tough song to love (and it kind of typifies the record), but it is an easy song to admire. It’s finally time to get to that Mark Rothko painting up there. (And look, I’m not saying that Gay Beast is Mark Rothko, I’m just trying to make a point.) You can be into Rothko while acknowledging that it’s weird and difficult and hard to pin down. Same thing with Gay Beast. You’re not playing this at Sunday brunch, but it’s cool as hell to look at. Some of the tracks veer more closely to a traditional structure. “Exploding Knee” is just as jarring and out-of-sync, but there are some vocals to hang your hat on. The album’s opening track “Beach” verges on tuneful. For the most part though, the trio, (Isaac Rotto on guitar, Daniel Luedtke on keys, saxophone and vocal, Angela Gerend on drums and electronics) don’t seem to be interested in any sort of identifiable idiom. They are making clanging noise that occasionally comes together in a sort of synchronous howl, but that more often diverges down wildly disparate and startling paths. All that said, this is the kind of album that requires listening. You very well may not like it, but you’ll have to marvel at the artistry on display. (Probably.) -- Queerty — Parisian concertgoers began rioting when Stravinsky first premiered "The Rite of Spring" in 1913. The world had never heard such discordant, atonal music and it made them anxious, agitated, and ultimately, angry. The lesson? Truly "new" music isn't always the most pleasant. And at first listen, Gay Beast's Second Wave sounds downright abrasive. The queer trio's relentless combo of screechy guitar, insane drums, arcade bleeps, and speaker feedback drowns out the Devo-esque wailing of singer Dan Luedtke. It's an aural shot of espresso brewed to agitate, but that's precisely their point. Second Wave refers to second-wave feminism, a post-war movement that challenged sexist stereotypes. Gay Beast's redefinition of queer music involves a transgender sensibility that defies labels and takes its cues from free jazz and Indian carnatic music. Most will label the end result "noise rock," as it's defiantly improvisational, avant-garde, and cacophonous, but over time cohesion and purpose emerge. The sunny opening and dark closing tracks exemplify Gay Beast at their most listenable, with unique rhythms, discordant harmonies, and subtle shifts in timing. Their two instrumental tracks, "White Diamonds" and "Tides," also provide instances where the mad instrumentation fights together rather than against itself. But their single, "Eeexxxpppaaannndddiiinnnggg" reveals their true genius and ambition combining all of the above with Luedtke's alternately funny and troubling lyrics: "You told me dreamy of brand new bodies and brand new weaponry? / Your boots got you shaking in your boots. / Who's the he-she? Who's the urge? / My shoes, my enormous high shoes / Match my lipstick, match my gun." Though the ideas behind Second Wave are bigger than its songs, one cannot say Gay Beast's reach exceeds their grasp. It's a challenging album that ultimately rewards its listeners with the primordial sound of music at its newest hormones — cramps and all. -- Culture Bully — Local noise rockers Gay Beast are back on the scene with their latest album Second Wave. The disc continues building on the abrasive and claustrophobic art rock that has gained them a strong reputation over the years. The first song released off the album, “EEEXXXPPPAAANNNDDDIIINNNGGG,” is a great entry point for the album. The song, like most of the 30 minute album, relies on the band layering schizophrenic drums, electronic bleeps and hisses, pulsing rhythms and distant vocals. The singing, which is more pronounced on the song than other parts of the disc, adds another stratum to the nearly overwhelming soundscape the band weaves together. Second Wave is a challenging, but ultimately supremely rewarding, venture into the cacophonous sounds this adventurous local band is taking. While this disc won’t be for everyone (you can safely venture that a band named Gay Beast isn’t shooting for top 40), it is one of the more engaging and unique local discs I have heard this year. -- -- Gumshoe Grove — As the world turned its eyes to millions of gushing Grizzly Bear reviews on May 26, a shit-hot record dropped with little fanfare (HERE is the only review I could find, and while I like the writing I don't feel they quite Got It).
UNTIL NOW: If you don't have Gay Beast's Second Wave, you need to come out of the effing closet already and snap up a copy on vinyl before it goes out of print. This is the real deal, people: Think echo-laden come-hither croons, criss-crossing synth ribbons, Arab On Radar guitar stabs and a tweaky drummer with the sort of canny determination it takes to completely change the way rock rhythms work, twisting and bending traditional percussive patterns to bring home the bass-drum bacon and sop up every last sensation of the snare.
GB's approach to skronk-ridden post-punk reminds me of the kitchen-sink mantra Genghis Tron applied to tech-heavy grind-metal. They pull out all the stops one can imagine on their way to anti-pop paydirt, and they package the chaos in such a way as to render it -- not safe, per say, but -- manageable, like a huge pile of work that just got streamlined into a few file folders and handy-dandy personal calendars.
Variety always seems to be a problem for albums like Second Wave, and yet it is another common conundrum Gay Beast have tamed thoroughly. They never rely on one aspect of their sound too heavily, resulting in output you can't really ascribe to one trait. The synths will strangle your ear with trebly Casio bliss during one outing, but soon enough it'll be the riveting guitar cutting, glorious drumming or the singer's your-way-my-way-anything-goes-tonight way of laying just the right vocal over a constantly deviating sea of deathly drivel.
And I mean "drivel" in the best possible way. I'm totally all gay over this band and I'm not shy about expressing it. So rare is it to find delicate, precise balance wrapped in such a fucked-up packaging -- Gay Beast are a cut above the spazz stuff making the rounds of late, and the extra ingredient is care. It actually doesn't surprise me a ton that these guys are from Minneapolis; one of my all-time favorite punk bands Tora! Tora! Torrance!, who also employed a similarly swooping, all-hands-on-deck approach to their craft, hailed from the same general area. Some fucked up folk come out of those parts, to be sure (Marv?). -- Norman Records — According to what I've just read, Gay Beast are 'Minnesota's premier agit-prop queer band' which maybe makes them the new God Is My Co-Pilot or something? I dunno. They do kind of share mental guitar lines, broken riffing and disorientating time changes with that band but the overall sound of Second Wave has been run through the modern day noise-rock processor, a model of which I'm sure the good people at Skin Graft own and endorse. Healthy reminders of No Wave and the better end of prog make themselves known, so I'm thinking along the lines of Mars jamming with Magma for my easily digestible review soundbite.. Fun fun fun in other words and tantalising in both CD and silkscreen sleeved vinyl versions! --
There are many adjectives that can be used to describe Second Wave, the latest LP from experimental Minneapolis trio Gay Beast: Cacophonous, frantic, confusing, arrhythmic, and jarring are but a few that immediately come to mind. But here’s another watchword that, amongst all the other descriptors, seems unlikely: melodic.
Granted, that essential quality may be hard to discern amongst Wave’s admittedly difficult blend of no-wave’s strangled guitar-noise, math-rock’s anarchic drum-pounds, and free jazz-quoting saxophone lines. However, if listeners dig deep enough, they’ll find that funky, rhythm-intensive grooves and sing-songy melodies emerge from the most unlikely of places—particularly in the reggae-tinged (it’s in the syncopation of the vocal melody, trust me) album opener “Beach” and noise-rock bludgeoner “Aspirin.”
Helping to anchor what could be a disastrously complicated sound are the synth-and-vocal work of Dan Luedtke, which help ground on otherwise lofty art-rock sound. But, as listeners will discover upon hearing bright blasts of instrumental interplay like “White Diamonds” and album closer “Reprise,” “lofty” isn’t synonymous with “pretentious.”
If anything, as a listening experience, Second Wave is like hearing the children of outré music genres play in the sandbox of art. All they want you to do is the join them—and, based on the hypnotic, wholly unique sound presented by Gay Beast, who could resist one of the best records of the year? -- Contenders for the NSFW band name award keep it strictly weird.... With a band name like Gay Beast it seemed destined that things were always going to be a little unconvential. Thankfully, they are. Perhaps like never before you'll feel the need to look over your shoulder (knowing full well that you are alone) when carrying out a google search for a band! The results could be disasterously comical but the simple addition of the word 'band' seemed to steer me in the right direction at least. So onto the sound of the band, 'where to start, you just need to listen' springs to mind instantly but isn't much use for the purposes of a review, so I shall endeavour to summarise the essence of their sound. For a three piece they create an explosive, compellingly bizarre fusion of rock, bleeps, electronic psych and a touch of saxophone. There's seemingly little structure to the songs and the audible assault on the senses that they provide sound at times destined to spiral out of control. It could easily be dismissed as spazz or a jumbled coming together of random sounds but that would be a touch unfair. In reality bands like Gay Beast must be admired, what they're doing is about as far away from structured verse-chorus-verse rock but it undoubtedly takes even more thought to achieve. Certainly if they manage to replicate the sound of 'Second Wave' out on the road then they will be a mind blowing live proposition.
The world needs bands like Gay Beast but with the combination of a brilliant (but non exactly commercial) band name and a sound to induce the audible equivalent of an epileptic fit, mainstream success seems about as likely as Elton John releasing a Death Metal covers album. Not that such minor details should put you off. It's been said that nothing is original in the music world these days, that everything has already been done. Well that may be so but Gay Beast are doing their best to disprove the theory. -- No-Core.blogspot — So, you've been waiting for the no-wave/math/prog/noise-rock album of the year? Well, here you go! Heck, this might be the winner in that category for the decade. Double heck, one of the only other serious contenders for that title would probably be Gay Beast's last album, "Disrobics."
This is a glorious collision of angular guitar parts, analog synth sweeps and bleeps, sax blurts, and drumming in that complex endless-fill style. And some real singing. (I like me some screeching or hollering too, but it's nice to hear a different approach here.) Oh yeah, and TUNES.
I told a friend who attended a recent Gay Beast show with me that what I loved about them was how they could make challenging and amazingly complex music and also fill it with catchy hooks. After the show, this person, who is far more inclined than I am to listen to "pop" music, said that "maybe it's catchy for music that YOU listen to." Well, point taken. It can be a matter of perspective. Maybe Gay Beast is what Deerhoof sounds like to your average indie rock fan. (if I had pull-quotes, that would be it)
Still, I maintain that the hooks are there. Even to me, they seemed a little hard to "get" on first listen, but now after my 20th listen or so I find myself singing as I walk down the street, "Don't sweep me a-a-aah - don't sweep me under the rug - I am only human!" I have even woken up with Gay Beast songs running through my head.
And there may be the best selling point for "second wave" - it will bring great rewards upon many, many repeated listens. By the time you have the songs figured out, you will find that you've fallen in love with them. This ranks high as the album most worth your hard-earned dollars...
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How come this album barely received any press? It's beyond me. If I had known this were coming out earlier, I would've written this weeks ago. Despite the unpopularity of Gay Beast's sophomore album Second Wave, the album is great.
Just about every song on this album has this heavy and detuned sound that's hard to miss. Daniel Luedtke's vocals never depart from their chanting, pseudo-blues tone. The guitars sound like they're being strummed with a drill rather than a pick and the keyboard has a nearly identical sound to xbxrx. I don't remember much about their debut album Disrobics but I think this album is the first time they've included saxophone, then again I'm probably wrong. Saxophone is used quite a bit throughout Second Wave.
As far as lyrics go, they're probably very sexual. But isn't that how all noise rock bands are today? Or at least they were. Have you ever read an Arab On Radar lyric sheet? Give your kid that instead of giving him "the talk". All in all, if you follow the Skin Graft catalog or have an interest in noisy punk that's all over the place, pick this baby up. -- The Needle Drop — Gay Beast is a band that defies the word “genre”. On their second LP,Second Wave, they're on full-explosion mode, and every corner of this album is filled with some of the most mathematical “dance-noise” you'll ever hear. Literally, every song will catch you off guard, and it even seems that they have invented new musical time signatures. The record is mostly instrumental, but some tracks do feature vocals from lead singer, Daniel Luedtke. If you want to hear something new and intensely interesting, Second Wave was made for you.
This album pulls influences from post-punk, lo-fi, techno, and just a tiny bit of new wave. Think of it this way: If Sonic Youth and Le Tigre got together and wrote songs for a messed up version of At the Drive-In, you may have Second Wave. Dancing to what sounds like a broken record has never been more fun. It’s hard to pick any stand-out tracks from the album, as each song has the same quirky qualities as its predecessor, but with just enough differences to keep things exciting. Even their song names are a good kind of strange, with “Eeexxxpppaaannndddiiinnnggg”, “Exploding Knee”, and “Make a Map, Pressing Hard” as examples.
Second Wave is certainly something most music lovers have never heard before. Upon first listen, it may also be hard to digest because of how different it is. Changing time signatures and experiments in noise sometimes make it sound like each member is playing three different songs at once; but if you listen closely, you can hear that these three people are very talented musicians who know how to make their experiments fun.-- Cosmos Gaming — With a name like Gay Beast, one has to expect that this band will offer some quirky and strange music. And this is exactly what the Minnesota based group offers listeners on their sophomore effort Second Wave, as their music mixes elements of math rock, noise rock, and even a little free/avant-garde jazz. It’s a lot to take in at once, but once listeners give it a few spins and really get into the flow of things they will find that Gay Beast is an act that truly sounds unique. When Second Wave first starts listeners might initially think that this group is just another noise rock act along the same lines as AIDS Wolf or Athletic Automaton, but it doesn’t take long to realize that Gay Beast is entirely different. Though they do have some noisy guitar riffs, the songs often make prominent use of the saxophone and are more focused on math rock like precision than they are on loudness. The songs on this album are sure to throw listeners off the first couple of times they listen to it, as oftentimes the instrumentalists change tempos without warning. If you can’t already tell, the instrumentals aren’t exactly easy to describe and this is because they will often only loosely fit into a specific genre and are always pushing established boundaries.
Vocalist Daniel Luedtke is perfectly suited for his band’s spastic and bizarre style, as his vocal styles are just as eccentric. Though he doesn’t sing on every track, when he does appear he is sure to hold your attention. This is mostly because he has a variety of different pitches he makes use of, and will often move from spacey laid back melodic singing to loud yelping. What is most impressive about Luedtke’s performance is the fact that no matter what the instrumentals are doing, he is able to keep up and adapt. One can imagine that it would be very difficult to sing/scream in unison with instrumentals that are changing every ten seconds, but he does a very admirable job.
The first couple of times that people listen to Second Wave they will likely be confused and have no idea what the hell they just listened to. But if they give Gay Beast’s sophomore effort a few more spins and start paying attention to all the little details, everything will start to fall into place and they will realize that what they are hearing is a band pushing the envelope of established genres and compositions. They may not be as abrasive as some of their noise rock peers, but that doesn’t mean Gay Beast is any easier to get into. Judge accordingly, and know that if this type of music is your thing that this group is incredibly rewarding.--
Rock-A-Rolla — What better name could there be for a queercore band than Gay Beast? Trekking right back to the glut of early 90s activism, Second Wave embodies everything that was right about riot grrrl and remains to be so about queercore. Wirey riffs circle intense drum action to create a cacophonous wave of DIY aesthetics. It’s not all minimal discord here; ‘White Diamonds’ finds space for a wonky sax and elsewhere ‘Expanding’ leans closer to the sonic adventures of Swedish prog-punks Refused than riot-grrrl stylings. Second Wave is a dangerous record - intelligent, brash and instantly likeable, this is queer-core at its best. – Will Metcalfe -- Morningwoodradio.blogspot — As a concert tuba player for eight years, a jazz trombone player in high school, a (really bad) clarinet player for four years, and a frequent groper of many other various instruments - I am a musician. Though my only on-stage time is while I am in a tuxedo, I have always imagined creating my own music and starting a band that plays kick-ass shows. I know that this is not an unusual dream, and it may someday come true, but it is certain that Gay Beast's new album Second Wave has proven to me that I have a long way to go.
The other curse that musical training has granted me is that almost anytime I hear music I imagine the actual notation, the process it took to compose it, and what its like to play it. I have heard lots of music, and seen lots of bands that have made me think, 'I could do that'; Second Wave makes me think something more like 'What the fuck?!'. Explosive, complicated, loud. sharp, Gay Beast has been called "manic alt-alt-electronic", "the perfect soundtrack for a post-apocalyptic discotheque", and they refer to themselves as "Minnesota's premier agit-prog queer band". Whatever it is, it's really rad. The first track "Beach" certainly agitates, but surprisingly turns out in the end to be the most tuneful and song like of all the tracks. Then track two, "Revolt Revolt" bursts in with bitter saxophone mirroring screechy guitar licks, suddenly the album becomes a wind album and the testes tingle. The song then introduces deep almost funky bass lines and distantly powerful and confident melodic lyrics; it feels like a familiar hip-hop song, and the first signs of subtle dance urges arise. The ultra-fast anthem like "Aspirin" includes a little sax solo that will make any horn lover weak at the knees.
My personal favorite "White Diamonds" remembers early Danny Elfman explorations with Oingo Boingo: honky sharp horn lines and stop-go rhythms make this song the kind of song that would make your mom throw up (I believe it also contains an ABBA cover). This is also the song that makes you realize the incredible musical talent these three have. The drummer, Angela Gerend, must be the scariest woman in the world. The amount of focus and stamina she needs to be the backbone for the most manic feminist band ever, is outrageous. Yikes! The frantic yet clear guitar of Isaac Rotto and of course the killer sax playing, keyboarding, and singing from Daniel Luedtke makes Gay Beast the kinda band that should be recognized as incredible talent, but never will reach great fame because of the pure dissonance poured all over it. Nonetheless, I think it's the shit, and it uses horns, so I am pleased as a peach. In another favorite track "Eeexxxpppaaannndddiiinnnggg", the lyrics go "Your boots got you shaking in your boots. Who's the he-she? Who's the urge? / My shoes, my enormous high heeled shoes / Match my lipstick, match my gun." This album is just incredible, and will make more than a few Morning Wood appearances. Their label Skin Graft says "The nuclear family explodes into a psychedelic mushroom cloud of writhing, urgent vocals set against the precise, premeditated clatter of guitar, drums and keys. Add a dash of electronic psych, and a spoonful of sax--and your goose is cooked." Now thats what I'm talking about. -- HorribleHeaven.blogspot (reviewed for KUSF) — Angular, mathy no wave with very intelligible singing. Like Frank Zappa and Arab on Radar playing emo. Like Mike Patton singing for Hella. But sloppier than all that, and more gay. And recorded worse. The synth sounds and mathy music remind me of Nintendo. The vox are a bit off-putting to me, but they might take this music to a new level for differently-minded folks. There's some sax on here too. - Jacob Felix Heule [ed. note -- #2 on the KUSF charts for 7/20-24!] -- KFJC 89.7 FM — Aggressive, disjointed noise-rock with synth/keyboards, guitar, drums, and vocals. A few sax lines too. The songs are sort of deranged and always charging forward, and there are tons of entertainingly manic ideas. If there’s a catchy riff, don’t expect it to last long so you can whistle along with it; this is ambitious, ever-changing music played with pure crash-and-burn energy. Most of the words are unintelligible to me, so I can’t really tell what they’re about— possibly queer/feminist issues, which the band has been known for. I don’t care, though, because what I like about this CD is the way it never stops raging; listening to it feels a little bit like getting gang-mugged. It sounds just the way a good Gay Beast should. -- KUCI 88.9 FM — This is like James Chance and Franz Ferdinand holding hands. -- Verbicide Magazine — When I first listened to Gay Beast, I was hungover. My half-dead brain screamed at me to turn that racket off; it sounded like nothing but noise with strange rhythm. The following day, I decided I would try to review Second Wave once more, no matter how awful it sounded. Only this time, I found myself rather amused and pleased by this beautiful musical disaster. I was able to concentrate more on the music itself, which sounds like a jumble of un-tuned guitars, trumpets, drums, different electronic tones, and echoing vocals that sound normal compared to the rest of the instruments. Together, they create an odd masterpiece. Gay Beast is the band that every experimental noise band tries to be — they’ve already crossed that fine line between creative and just plain weird, and they keep walking, beyond bizarre and to the edge of the Twilight Zone. Or maybe I’m just writing that because I’m high… While most people likely couldn’t stand 20 seconds of Gay Beast, I wear a huge grin whenever I listen to them because I feel I’m part of a group of strange individuals, whose mental states and tastes in music are completely misunderstood.
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Nai-Ha
By Zeni Geva
Release date: 1993-12-14 |
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