Times New Viking commenced their summer tour last Friday at Ronny's in Chicago that includes dates throughout the western US. They are making stops this weekend at the SS Marie Antionette in Seattle on Friday and at the Eagles Lodge in Portland on Saturday. This Columbus, Ohio three-piece is on their way to becoming the new avatars of fuzz. Playing pleasantly dark pop that brilliantly slogs through an intersection between art damage and psychedelia, it seems like Times New Viking are more than on to something. The controlled tumult of their sound is the sonic equivalent of the washed out silhouettes from an old photocopier; like new blurred dots in an old impressionist movement, TNV are taking the low-end aesthetic to new heights. With Siltbreeze, whose catalog spanning the past two decades is the earmark of no-fi, and now Matador at their backs, their frothing tape hiss is about to foam over and spill it's charm into a new unsuspecting audience. The interesting conundrum of the no-fi brigades out there (going as far back as the Velvet Underground) is that their very aesthetic, where tape hiss, muffled vocals, and droning, interwoven beats are preferred (a reaction to more mainstream axioms) is contrary to wider audiences tastes, where crisp production is often demanded. But if any band could push through that barrier, it may as well be TNV. Both their “Dig Yourself” LP from 2005 and their newer “Present the Paisley Reich” (both available from Siltbreeze) offer up gritty yet bubbly tunes, where their crippled amps and fibrous melodies land on an aural platform that's lyrically hopeful and insightful as it is artful.
Their live sets are a spectacle of a cultish expression of their music, and their sound is perfectly translated to their live performances. With their amps propped up on milk crates, a battered drum kit, and their careening postures, they seem to be in some sort of meditative state as if they are lost in the distortion of their instruments along with the audience, and somehow hints to the communal connection music is built around between the audience's enjoyment and the performer's expression.
Times New Viking tour:
Aug 2 at Pub 340 in Vancouver, British Columbia
Aug 3 at SS Marie Antionette in Seattle, Washington
Aug 4 at Eagles Lodge in Portland, Oregon
Aug 5 at Fool's Foundation in Sacramento, California
Aug 6 at Off Limits in Chico, California
Aug 7 at Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco, California
Aug 8 at 21 Grand in Oakland, California
Aug 10 at Pehrspace in Los Angeles, California
Aug 11 at The Smell in Los Angeles, California
Aug 13 at Zeppelin's Pub in El Paso, Texas
Aug 14 at Beerland in Austin, Texas
Aug 15 at Diverseworks Art Space in Houston, Texas
Aug 17 at Fiesta Garage in Monterrey, Nuevo León
Aug 18 at Taladro Fest. in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas
Aug 25 at Fuck Yeah Fest in Los Angeles, California
Aug 28 at The Waiting Room in Omaha, Nebraska
Aug 30 at Eastside Tavern in Columbia, Missouri
Here's a video of Times New Viking performing "Let Your Hair Grow Long" at this year's SXSW
