PREVIEW: Boston Hassle Music Festival

DAY 2: SATURDAY

Who: Couples Counseling
Hometown: Somerville
Couples Counseling live in the sky. They scour the elements for morning bird chirpings, heavy breathing, and other ambient murmurs that serve as the foundation for their fragile songs.
Recommended if you like: Au Revoir Simone, dreamy teenage diaries
Set time: 3:40 p.m.

 

Who: Tomboy
Hometown: Boston
These new garage rockers are one of Boston’s newest bands and were recently signed to Ride The Snake Records in Boston. Listen to the one Riot Grrl-inspired track they have out now.
Recommended if you like: Kathleen Hanna’s wail
Set time: 4:45 p.m.

Who: Tredici Bacci
Hometown: Boston
There’s a lot that you can do with 14 musicians, and Tredici Bacci demonstrates this perfectly. At times their music is smooth downtempo fit for a swanky hotel lounge. Other moments they showcase a fuller sound, incorporating violins, a brass section, and piano.
Recommended if you like: Charlotte Gainsbourg, lush arrangements, Stereolab, escapism, french pornography.
Set time: 7:10 p.m.

 

Who: LE TRASH CAN
Hometown: Montreal
LE TRASH CAN, très chic! Here’s a band that will certainly hit Hasslefest’s minimal side. But not quietly by any means, as we would guess this jam of electronic mishmash will charm like any rock outfit. LE TRASH CAN is certainly avant-garde in their approach, forming beats and hooks with sounds known more to a laptop than guitar and bass. Listening to the band is a lot like being in the rainforest. You’ll hear crickets chirping, birds squawking and the occasional aboriginal tribesmen. Except of course, with LE TRASH CAN, this setting is electronically fantasized.
Recommended if you like: Dial up tones circa 2004, the metaphor of burying your old desktop in the backyard and watching a tree grow in its place, Kid A’s “Treefingers” and dragging metal shopping cart with a faulty wheel.
Set time: 7:50 p.m.

Who: Body/Head
Hometown: Your innermost consciousness
Body/Head is the work of, ahem, Kim Gordon and Bill Nace, a noisy mess of restricted guitars and the monotonous Gordon vocals we know and love so well. After playing for a year or two, the pair released 2013’s Coming Apart in the hopes to burrow even deeper into their distorted niche. Like grunge ambience, Body/Head moves from distant echoes to thrashing tones while Gordon explores a palette of more singsongy spoken word. Their work sounds improvised at times, but with a closer look you’ll realize their patterns become concrete, synchronized and even telling.
Recommended if you like: Sonic Youth’s leading lady, climbing up asylum walls, staring into the void.
Set time: 11:35 p.m.


Event Details
Friday, November 7, 6pm – 12:30am
Saturday, November 8, 3pm – 12:30am
@ Cuisine en Locale–156 Highland Ave., Somerville, MA
All ages.

*For all you insatiable music enthusiasts, the FEST EXTENSION after parties will be in full swing with a slew of more acts you can catch until 2am. It all goes down in Central Square’s “Secret Location” in Cambridge. The event is all ages.