Aided by wife Roby Newton (formerly of Milemarker) and Joan of Arc’s Tim Kinsella, Portland’s Nice Nice, and Aloha drummer Cale Parks, Kidwell on Actual Fucking campaigns to repeal repression. The album’s eight dubby tracks — named for cities where he’s had memorable encounters — are jittery yet approachable amalgams of Cex’s musical facets, resonant composites of abstract Radiohead, Eno-era Bowie, come-hither krautrock, and pure kink.
On stage at the Drunken Unicorn, Kidwell hunches over a red strobe light with a microphone cradled in a tight fist. He breaks songs down into digitally deconstructed Baltimore Club beats. And as the soundtrack becomes a single-minded mantra, he interpolates Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” into his anguished plea: “I’ve kicked the habit. Shed my skin.” That’s the real Kidwell — the Kidwell who isn’t fucking with anyone.
On the Web
Cex: http://www.rjyan.com/
Related:
Hip-hop from Hell, Hip-hop is dead, Word to your cruller, More 
- Hip-hop from Hell
Depraved hip-hop is the biggest thing to hit trailer-trash America since sliced meds.
- Hip-hop is dead
Depraved hip-hop is the biggest thing to hit trailer-trash America since sliced meds — and not just in redneck pockets, where rap music hardly reached before, but in suburban enclaves where acts like Twiztid and Tech N9ne sell out shows with ease.
- Word to your cruller
“That was entertaining for about 10 seconds!” Vanilla Ice told one unfortunate competitor. “So was The Surreal Life !,” the dude spat back.
- ID Check: Nikki Roxx
The mostly male, mostly lumpy 100 or so fans inside the Framingham Civic League, a 75-year-old suburban hall temporarily outfitted with a wrestling ring, have already sat through three predetermined hours of all-man-meat matches.
- Fight song
Your total inability to recognize deserving candidates has me . . . amused?
- They have MySpace in heaven, right?
A few Thursdays ago, Larry Dobie left his daughter, äRRiel, a message on her MySpace page.
- Wikipedia rules
The ancient Library at Alexandria, once the largest on Earth, housed perhaps 500,000 volumes.
- Photos: Rock and Shock 2009
Scenes from the convention floor at Rock & Shock 2009
- Less
Topics:
Music Features
, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Tigerbeat6, More
, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Tigerbeat6, Joan of Arc, Insane Clown Posse, Peter Gabriel, Less
