ACL Gimme 5: Neighbor Lady

ACL season is here sports fans, and as always, ATH will be doing everything in our power to prepare for the festival. A couple of years ago I started a new concept of asking bands to create a short 5 song playlist filled with songs featuring only artists playing the festival. Lucky for us, my dear friends in Atlanta based band Neighbor Lady thought this was a great idea and made a playlist for the site. If this sounds intriguing to you, which it should, hit the jump for the songs and for short blurbs about each.Neighb

For fans of the band, they will be playing on Sunday, weekend one only over on the BMI stage at 11:30am.

Neighbor Lady features members Emily Braden, Jack Blauvelt, Merideth Hanscom, and Andrew McFarland. Which member chose each song is listed by track title.

Blood Orange – “E.V.P.”(Andrew)

I just love this dude. I really feel like hes the full package: amazing songs, interesting and timeless production, and just really fresh and cool. I also love how collaborative his music is, and I’d love to see more of that in the rock and roll world. The groove in E.V.P. has been swimming around in my brain since I first heard it like two years ago.

Moses Sumney – “Indulge Me”(Jack)

Indulge Me was the first song I ever heard by Moses Sumney. I must have listened to it 15 times in headphones that night. I was obsessed with the attention to detail he put into all the layered vocal parts that weave around each other and that slightly out of key jazzy synth part at the top of the track. The man has mastered his craft.

The National – “Pink Rabbits”(Emily)

I love everything about this song but mostly the lyrics, You didnt see me I was falling apart, I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in the park. This line is so hilariously perfect and I just wish I had thought of it first.

Parquet Courts – “Total Football”(Merideth)

Parquet Courts immediately became one of my favorite bands upon hearing their debut albumLight Up Goldin 2012. Their music is quintessentially rock n roll; ruckus and passionate and refreshingly unconcerned with staying in the lane of traditional punk rock by adding in elements of 70s art rock and kraut. Their live show feels like medicine–I always leave the venue feeling like I want to make something, and I believe thats the greatest gift a live band can give to a listener. Their most recent album came out in May 2018 entitledWide Awake, and these songs are lyrically political and musically a little dance-ier with true funk rhythms and touches of roxy music/Nick Cave/Devo-esque dreamy production. The first track on the album is called Total Football,” which refers to a tactical theory in football (soccer) in which any outfield player can take over the role of any other player in a team. In short, any player can play any position. This song makes a bold, declarative statement on American collectivity and autonomy while railing against this idea of clichd, American masculine hyper-individuality. Its a rock n roll song about being shamefully hungry for community but also wanting to be seen as an individual, and I feel like thats something we can all relate to at this point in history.

Big Thief – “Real Love”(Merideth)

We love big thief and so many of their songs are amazing, but I chose the song Real Love off of their 2016 albumMasterpiece. The song itself is an image painted with angular strokes of bright guitar and colorful vocal melodies on a black canvas; it is a beautiful picture but its ultimately dark, delicate, and innocent. Like the panicked expression on a childs face after they break something valuable on a concrete floor. The song undulates between just voice & guitar to the full band throughout, and as you listen to Adrienne Lenker sing about grim domestic violence juxtaposed with her adoration of her mother, you cant help but feel as if youre witnessing something very personal, like youre walking in on your parents having an argument, or in this case, physically fighting. Big Thief is able to nurture the fragile emotions of true intimacy while still being an incredible band, and thats something that is so easily demonstrated in the song “Real Love.”