Must See Show: Night Beds and Indians

Night Beds is Winston Yellen, a twenty something singer-songwriter who wants you to feel his heartache and longing, and all the while, as you listen to his beaming yet broken voice, you begin to recall all of your own heartache and longing that you’ve tried so hard to forget. The music brings it all back.

Here’s a bit about Night Beds from his website:

It’s difficult to say where Night Beds begins, but it could be here: August 2006, a young Winston Yellen is invited to a longtime friend’s apartment. They talk, they record a little aimlessly, and something exciting emerges. Maybe it’s a little later, when one is studying engineering in Nashville, and the other remains behind, an unhappy captive of secondary education. It could be any number of moments, really, along a series of migrations, but probably here: the summer of 2008, back in Colorado Springs, when they write the first Night Beds song, “You Were Afraid.”

After that there is a lot of time spent in basements, a lot of alcohol, a lot of irreverent tuning, but not all that much need for talk. Most things are shared, understood: in thin mountain air, or in a waterlogged summer atmosphere, there can be a sense that breathing is effortful, that sleep is easy but not restful. The songs that come out of those first few years, collected on three EPs (night beds, every fire; every joy, and hide from it), are an exercise in catharsis. They’re deeply ringing things, washed in whiskey. The sound is like something emergent from a tunnel. It may be the red eye of a cigarette in the dark, or it may be the dawn peeking out.

Indians is Søren Løkke Juul, a man from Copenhagen who’s talent for songwriting and singing is ever present on his debut album, Somewhere Else. The first song I listened to from Indians was ‘I Am Haunted’ and it’s a bit of music that I absolutely cannot get out of my head.

A bit from Indians’ press release:

Performing his first show as Indians in February 2012, he self-released his debut single on 7″ a few months later and has since extensively toured both Europe and North America, playing shows with the likes of Beirut, Bear In Heaven, Dan Deacon, Lower Dens, Other Lives, Perfume Genius, Retribution Gospel Choir, Savages and Weird Dreams.

Over the summer months, Søren retreated to a studio in the Danish countryside to finish his early demos and write new material to make Somewhere Else a personal document that’s equal parts melancholic lament and hopeful stargazing, the title itself an indication of the sense of otherness that runs throughout. Evocative of the natural world, its cavernous tones and Autumnal warmth reflect the vastness of the landscape that formed the backdrop of its conception.

Barboza Presents:
Indians + Night Beds with Cat Martino
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
$12 ADV // 21+

Buy tickets here.