Indie pillars Blonde Redhead have been making music longer than most of their fans have been alive. Despite what has been trendy in their genre, they’ve been able to stay relevant in a ferocious music climate because they make the music that they want to make. Their new record, Penny Sparkle, is the most recent evidence of this. While it has garnered lukewarm reviews, it could possibly be their most emotionally charged release to date. It is also another chapter in the ever-changing persona of Blonde Redhead.
“We always try to use each album to reinvent ourselves,” explains guitarist Amedeo Pace. “We always want to make something new and exciting for us, and for us to move on from what we’ve been doing.” And Penny Sparkle is a grand example of that statement, with its more hazed-out feel and spacey instrumentation than past albums, like 23 and Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons. Reflecting on the isolation the trio experienced when recording in upstate New York, they manage to pull it together on this album—Kazu Makino’s soothing vocals and the well-placed electronics put them in a league of their own.
During their epic career, which has spanned almost two decades, it’s fascinating to see how the members of Blonde Redhead view themselves as musicians. When it comes to the term “indie,” Pace approached it with unanticipated trepidation: “When we were starting out, a lot of bands were on indie labels. We’re still indie in that sense, but musically we have moved on so much. I never really understood it. I just went with ["indie"] because it made it easier to describe bands.”
But describing this band is no easy feat. Having a Japanese front woman provides a certain exoticism foreign to most other alternative ‘it’ acts, yet Blonde Redhead have always been on the cusp of innovation. While they have always been fearless with their sound, they stay grounded by surrounding themselves with people who have their best interests at heart. “Everything we’ve ever done has been pretty much thought out,” Pace elaborates. “We’ve kept it safe with who we have worked with. They tend to be solid and honest with us.”
Even after the seclusion of their New York recording session, Blonde Redhead can never really predict how environment will affect their music. “We have been all over the world, but we’ve never been like, ‘I want to go to this place’ or ‘Let’s write music here.’ It’s hard to describe, because I don’t really know how it works,” Pace says. “Travel can be an obstacle to being relaxed and creative. In the end, everything is included in your sound. Ultimately, it is just in the air.”
Hopefully, they will be inspired by the all the rowdy fans encircling the stage come performance time.
BLONDE REDHEAD
WITH PANTHA DU PRINCE
MONDAY 11.1.10
PARADISE ROCK CLUB
967 COMM. AVE.
BOSTON
617.562.8800
7PM/18+/$22
THEDISE.COM
BLONDE-REDHEAD.COM