District Music Hall Weekly Round up: Kim Deal and Thievery Corporation announced
District Music Hall announced Thievery Corporation and Kim Deal this week. Tickets go on sale on December 13, 2024 at 10 am via districtmusichall.com
Thievery Corporation
District Music Hall – 71 Wall Street, Norwalk CT 06850
February 26, 2025
Tickets go on sale December 13, 2024 via districtmusichall.com
Thievery Corporation
Twenty-five years into their genre-defying electronic music career, Thievery Corporation’s founding principles of D.I.Y. and inclusion have become key themes in mainstream social conversation. After a dozen highly acclaimed full-length albums, remix LPs, concert recordings, and over two decades of incendiary live performances that have thrilled audiences worldwide, Thievery Corporation’s music and message is more relevant and important now than ever.
That lack of filter enabled Garza and Hilton to mine their musical inspirations and create one of the most unique bodies of work in electronic music, respectfully incorporating tastes of international cultural styles, without ever falling into the trap of cultural appropriation. “We always wondered: with so much incredible music in the world, why would anyone limit themselves to one genre? Well, we found out — it’s far easier to stay in one lane than to genre hop!” laughs Hilton. Garza elaborates: “When we started, we were influenced by music from all over the world, flipping through bins in second hand record stores for LP’s from Brazil, India, Iran, Jamaica, jazz records…..we wanted to make music where you didn’t know whether it was recorded today or a decade ago.” Thievery Corporation’s music has always looked toward the future while paying homage to the past, starting with their groundbreaking debut LP, 1996’s “Sounds From The Thievery Hi-Fi,” which both introduced the world to Garza and Hilton as producers and set their course as pioneers of song-based electronic music with wildly diverse vocalists.
The band’s legendary D.C. headquarters, the Eighteenth Street Lounge, became an epicenter for a diverse group of people and staff from all over the world, which in turn had a profound influence on their musical output. “D.C. was very cosmopolitan, lots of places to see international live music and jazz,” says Garza. “We’d run into people from all over the world and invite them to play with us — so Thievery became an extension of that, both on our records and in our live performances.” Indeed, Hilton and Garza’s “Outernational” approach created a world reflected by the artist’s ideals of diversity and acceptance. “25 years after we started, it seems like the world is catching up,” Garza opines. “Social consciousness is more mainstream, awareness of the importance of inclusivity…it’s so encouraging to see so many people working towards these goals in America.” Hilton agrees. “Thievery is a reflection of who we are, it evolved from our musical tastes. Artists who were for the people, like The Clash, Fela Kuti, Manu Chao were so important to us, and engaging in social ideas has always been a part of what we’ve tried to do.” People don’t refer to Thievery Corporation as “World Music,” but it’s safe to say that their music and ethos is global in its scope and ahead of its time at every turn.
In a live setting, Thievery Corporation avoids any electronic dance music tropes. Yes, you’ll dance, sweat and put your hands in the air….but their concerts are true performances, with a killer band of players and an array of vocalists from diverse global cultures. No two shows feel the same. “Our shows are VERY live, lots of energy, the com-bination of multiple instruments and singers that take you on a musical journey,” says Garza. “We have a sitar player, songs are in different languages — it’s a multicultural experience, people connect to the band and to each other, it’s beautiful.” With a world cautiously beginning to emerge from isolation and towards communal events, Garza is eager to return Thievery Corporation to live performance. “I feel like people have been waiting to celebrate together after being forced apart for too long. We’re all craving that.”
Eric Hilton’s presence at Thievery gigs, however, has become an increasingly rare event. “I never really embraced touring; some of the world tours were interesting, seeing new places and cultures,” he says. “For me, touring was tourism. The creative process of making music is more my thing.” And Thievery Corporation have brought the sounds of the world to listeners throughout each of their albums. “There are so many highlights for me. 2014’s Saudade is my favorite record that we’ve done, a real creative stretch for us. Quiet music is hard to make! Symphonik also. To hear our music done with an orchestra was incredible.” Hilton concedes that over time live performance influenced the studio records. “After Cosmic Game (2011), we orchestrated jam sessions and built the records from those. For Temple of I and I (2014), we went to Jamaica to jam and record, which gave that record a different feel and authenticity.”
Looking back over their career, Rob Garza and Eric Hilton acknowledge that what drives each of them may be different, but the mashup of personalities, sounds, cultures and experiences birthed something wholly unique. “We love all kinds of music, which is why Thievery Corporation sounds the way it does,” the founding partners agree. “We couldn’t possibly incorporate all our tastes into the music, but we do it more than most.” By not following trends or the whims of major labels, and embracing the cultural diversities that make the world such a wondrous place, Thievery Corporation has created a legacy that runs deep and continues to expand.
“Over 25 years, we’ve left nothing undone. We far exceeded what we thought we would do,” Hilton and Garza agree. And Thievery Corporation’s music will continue on to reverberate and influence the next generation of listeners with an ear toward a global musical experience.
Kim Deal
District Music Hall – 71 Wall Street, Norwalk CT 06850
March 6, 2025
Tickets are on sale now via districtmusichall.com
Kim Deal
This is Kim’s debut solo album, although technically not her first release under her own name (she self-released a five-part, 10-song 7” vinyl series in 2013).
Nobody Loves You More’s oldest songs are “Are You Mine?” and “Wish I Was.” Both were written and originally recorded shortly after the Pixies’ “Lost Cities Tour” (2011), after which Kim relocated to L.A. to work on new songs with musician friends including former Breeders member Mando Lopez. Earlier versions of these songs were featured on the 2013 vinyl series.
First single “Coast” was recorded by the late Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago and features Kelley Deal (guitar), Mando Lopez (bass) and Lindsay Glover (drums). Kim wrote the song in 2020 after attending her friend Mike Montgomery’s wedding. There, the house band, The Grape Whizzers (which included members of The Buffalo Killers), jammed Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville” with “revelatory levels of low self-esteem.”
The roots of “Coast” actually reach back as far as 2000, when Kim was staying on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket (quite an unlikely retreat for someone who hates “the sun, beach and watersports”). There, she spent a rough off-season among young surfers who were constantly “check(ing) the WAM” for water conditions.
The original version of “Are You Mine?” was recorded on a Tascam 388 tape machine, but the guitar track turned up missing. Kim re-recorded the tune at Candyland Studios in Kentucky with Montgomery and the same musicians who played on the original recording, this time with the addition of a pedal steel player.
“Wish I Was” was originally released as the instrumental b-side to “Are You Mine”,” because Kim felt she “could never make the vocals sound cool.” The album version was taped during a practice with Kim playing drums and singing through an amp in the room and Mando playing bass.
“Summerland” is named after a Florida Keys island. It was written on a ukulele given to Kim as a gift from Albini and his wife Heather, after Kim and Kelley handled the music at the couple’s Hawaiian wedding. The orchestra was later recorded by Albini in a single take. The title reflects Kim’s longstanding tradition of spending winters with her parents in the same Florida Keys house – a trip they loved, but that she did not enjoy.
After their passing, Kim began returning to Florida on her own, and in March 2020 she began a digital collaboration with Savages’ rhythm section of Fay Milton and Ayse Hassan. Kim convinced her engineer friend Ben Mumphrey to meet her in Summerland and procure the necessary equipment to overdub her parts on what would become “Big Ben Beat.” A few days after these sessions, Ben returned home, the COVID-19 lockdown began and Kim was trapped in the Keys for the next five months.
Kim eventually drove back to her Dayton, Oh., homebase with a new Pro Tools rig and a scattered bunch of unfinished songs and demos. She and the New Orleans-based Mumphrey began working on sessions remotely, taking advantage of the former’s basement studio and its vintage preamps and microphones.
Now able to productively work from home despite the pandemic, Kim continued her basement sessions several nights a week through 2021. When travel restrictions were lifted, she resumed in-person recording sessions with Albini at Electrical Audio, always returning to the basement for further work. The album’s final recording took place in November 2022, with Albini, Kelley and former Breeder Jim Macpherson contributing to “A Good Time Pushed.” Mixing sessions then took place in London with Marta Salogni. Former Breeder Britt Walford also appears on Nobody Loves You More, as do new collaborators such as The Greenhorns’ Jack Lawrence.
Designed by Alex Da Corte, the album artwork touches on the doomed final voyage by conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader, who disappeared while traversing the Atlantic Ocean from west to east in 1975. Da Corte showed Kim a photo of Ader taken by his wife just before he set sail, and it spoke to her current obsession with the concept of failure. Now, here on the cover, is Kim re-enacting her own voyage.
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