Tuesday, December 05, 2017

December Songs 5 (2017)

In sticking with great bands I've seen in 2017, I'd like to give a shout out to a local outfit, New Boss, featuring the very lovely, Devon Sproule. I have seen them each individually, but was really impressed when I saw them join forces at the Forward recovery show at the Bridge. What a good night that was!

New Boss is an uplifting, dance-able, mesmerizing concoction of echo and wisp and shred. What I've heard of their music delivers me to some of the better corners of 70's and 80's nostalgia, without the big hair and gaudy shirt. I drift through memories of frugging in a Buffalo club in my vintage dress, or lolling about in sunbeams, big teenage dreams in a small Pennsylvania town.

But New Boss is here now in the Charlottesville of today (actually, they have been for a while; I'm a little slow on the uptake). I am grateful to them for lightening the load, for bringing some sweet sonics and necessary noise to the unwanted reverberations of Trump's summer (though it's strange that when I search New Boss Charlottesville on YouTube I get a page full of A12 videos). New Boss is all the good aspects of summer––the warmth, the cerulean sky, the beautiful things that fly.

And Devon Sproule. . . She will get her very own December Songs page. . . but I am grateful for her and her collaboration with New Boss. I am particularly wooed by the song, Wildlife. It is beautiful, and haunting, and her description of where she was personally when she wrote it speaks to me on many levels. I will not dive into those levels, except to mention some minor trivia––that I read Mists of Avalon while nursing my newborn daughter.

Here is New Boss on a WTJU radio feature



Read a recent-ish review of New Boss here and a little bit of history here.



P.S. I'd like to add that Thomas Dean, guitarist in New Boss, is a great visual artist. I know that because I purchased one of his prints at a Bridge Gift Forest a couple of years ago. And keyboard player, Nick Rubin, is a DJ on one of my favorite WTJU shows, Radio Freedonia. I know that because I used to listen to it joyfully on my way to pick up my daughter from school (when it aired on a week day). The show took a break for some time, but I'm so glad it's back! Listen from 2-4 on Saturdays.


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