March Music Roundup: Marfa Myths Edition
Getting weird in the West Texas desert
My music listening for March was all about the Marfa Myths festival, so I want use my monthly roundup space to talk about what makes attending this event so great. The festival, now a few years old, was held March 9 to 12 in Marfa, Texas , a town whose fame far outstrips its size: 1,900 people and one stoplight — and really, the blinking red light is a glorified four-way stop sign. But largely due to the influence of Donald Judd, the town has also become a popular destination for artists and other creative, adventurous types, many of whom have migrated there from larger US cities. Marfa Myths, which is just one of many cultural events that takes place throughout the year in this isolated, West Texan town, is co-organized by the Brooklyn-based label Mexican Summer and local Ballroom Marfa. Event and place feed off one another to create a truly remarkable experience that I am beyond grateful to have been able to attend two years in a row.
Getting to Marfa is pretty difficult: a three-hour drive from the nearest airports in El Paso or Midland, seven hours from Austin, or nine hours from Dallas.
Things went remarkably smoothly this year, but the journey can be harrowing if something goes awry. Last year, after a missed connecting flight and thunderstorms wreaking havoc around Houston, my friend and I had to undertake our three-hour drive from Midland to Marfa in near-blackness, which was made even creepier with overhanging vegetation, unidentifiable roadkill, and what must have either been a hallucination or an escaped lab experiment running/rolling across the highway — round, fast, and almost certainly possessing both feathers and fur.
The seventeen-hour day of travel was an inauspicious start, but the next four days more than made up for it. The Liz Harris-Jefre Cantu-Ledesma duo Raum played along with Paul Clipson’s visuals and Dungen performed a live score to the 1926 animated film The Adventures of Prince Achmed, both of which were some of the best performances I’ve ever seen. When I returned to Minneapolis, I almost immediately started recruiting friends for Marfa Myths 2017.
Though this was my second year attending the festival, it’s the first time I’m writing about it. Last year, there was just so much to say about the music, the art, the people, and the town itself that the thought of articulating what made it all so great was too overwhelming. It can be frustrating at times, like when you’re hungry and have to decide between finding/waiting for food or making it to the next event in time. But it’s more often then not endearing when you witness how good-naturedly the locals handle the influx of tourist hustle and bustle. The spirit is exemplified in a headline from the local newspaper last year that stuck with me: “Howard is First Woman County Commissioner, We Think.”
This similar sentiment manifested multiple times both this year and last. In Marfa Burrito, which makes huge, delicious, $5 breakfast burritos, I noticed a sign reading “We Usually Always Have” next to the menu. Last year, my friend and I went to the Museum of Electronic Wonders and Late Night Grilled Cheese Parlour for a Saturday night snack. When we got there, they were already out of most of the toppings listed on the chalkboard menu and it was a 45-minute wait for one plain and one tomato grilled cheese. Nobody seemed to mind and the man behind the counter was as far from flustered as you can be. We got our food, and it was definitely worth a visit, but as we were leaving, an announcement was made to the long line of customers still waiting to order that it would be at least a 45-minute wait and “we are probably sold out.”
Even now, I’m incapable of describing the magic of the festival and Marfa in its entirety. Nearly every event throughout the weekend is special and there is so much more I want to say about all of the places I went and the people I encountered. But, so that I can actually get something out there, here are some highlights from the weekend to give you a taste of what this festival is all about. I’m already saving money to attend Marfa Myths 2018.
Strange Attractor Opening Reception
On Friday evening, Ballroom Marfa hosted an opening reception for their exhibit Strange Attractor, which was curated by Gryphon Rue and featured Clangors (1942), an Alexander Calder noise mobile publicly displayed for the first time; Douglas Ross’s abstraxi (2014), a huge, double-sided woven tapestry cutting through the space of the main gallery; Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s Conflicted Phonemes (2012), a series of graphic-design maps that explore the problematic use of language as a determinant of the origin of asylum seekers in the assessment of their applications; and Phillipa Horan’s Foreign Exchange (2015–17), a mycelium sculpture of Charon, the mythological Greek figure in charge of ferrying the dead across the River Styx, created in collaboration with a biotech laboratory and designed to decompose after being exhibited. These are just a few of the pieces that stood out to me, but there were many more in many different media.
During the opening of the exhibition there was a musical performance by Lonnie Holley and Tonstartssbandht in Ballroom Marfa’s outdoor courtyard. Holley is primarily known as an “outsider” artist who makes found-object sculptures that explore the connections between memory, personal history, and our national past, while also insisting upon hope for the future. He’s also released two records, 2012’s Just Before Music and 2013’s Keeping a Record of It, that cover similar terrain and are essential listening. Holley’s music combines elements of blues, soul, R&B, and jazz, but with minimal instrumentation and a primary focus on his voice and lyrics. The closest comparison I can think of is the legendary Gil Scott-Heron, but Holley is a truly unique talent. He played a full solo set with just a keyboard and his incredibly moving vocals, singing throughout one song of waking up in a “fucked up America” in one of the more overtly political performances of the festival.
For Holley’s last two songs, he was joined by Tonstartssbandht. Although, fitting in with the Marfa spirit of indeterminacy, he referred to them not by name, but simply as “human beings.” The collaboration was unexpected and amazing. After Holley left the stage, Tonstartssbandht played a full set of their own, which consisted of the three extended jams that make up their excellent new album Sorcerer. The chemistry between Orlando-based brothers Andy (guitar) and Edwin (drums) White was incredible to witness as they took the crowd on a psychedelic journey that pulled from a number of different influences, including the best parts of the Grateful Dead. Adding to the music throughout the night were three screens of visuals conducted live by Benton C. Bainbridge. The whole performance was the highlight of the weekend for me in a weekend full of highlights.
Jenny Hval
Jenny Hval’s Saturday night set at The Capri was a close second to the Friday evening Ballroom Marfa event. The big Saturday-night show featured a ton of great performances — Cate Le Bon, The Allah-Las, a special set from artists-in-residence Gustav Ejstes and Reine Fiske of Dungen and Jeremy Earl and Jarvis Taveniere of Woods, a collaboration between Weyes Blood and Perfume Genius, and solo Weyes Blood and Perfume Genius sets — but for me Hval’s was the clear standout. I’m a fan of everything she’s done, but last year’s album Blood Bitch really blew me away and it was great to see some of those songs performed live. Hval’s vocals on “Secret Touch” were particularly astounding. Although she is often categorized as “avant-garde,” this is everything I want out of pop music: layered, challenging, and having something to say, but still catchy, danceable, and compelling.
Hval also put on a captivating, theatrical show, dressed in a red cape and leggings designed to look like muscles, while also using what looked like a string of intestines that alternately functioned as a scarf and a prop. Immediately after the set, I bought Hval’s Soft Dick Rock 7”, which features the song “Safe” and contains a sixteen-page booklet largely about the character Carol White from Todd Haynes’s 1995 movie Safe. I also picked up a free “Not Safe For Capitalism” sticker, which refers to this post.
Electronic Sets
Two more of my favorite performances were synth-based sets by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Zomes. Smith was part of the Sunday show at the Crowley Theater. She played a nearly continuous 45-minute set with just her modular synth setup and her voice, while Rose Kallal’s tri-projector visuals appeared behind her. Despite becoming a fan of last year’s album EARS, this was my first time seeing her live and it was everything I hoped. The music was powerful and dynamic, ranging from ambient moments to beat-driven, dancy material to more straightforward pop with beautiful singing.
Zomes played a Friday afternoon set at Wrong Marfa. This beautiful space also hosted harpist Mary Lattimore’s gorgeous performance at last year’s festival. I was only semi-familiar with the Baltimore/Stockholm duo before this set, but I am now a certified fan. Asa Osborne (guitarist from Lungfish) and Hanna Olivegren play songs that are all drum-machine beats, simple and repetitive keyboard parts, and Olivegren’s vocals that remind me a bit of a slowed-down, less out-there Young Marble Giants. This is right in my wheelhouse and the performance was outstanding. Zomes’s most recent album Near Unison was released in 2015, so hopefully there will be more music from them in the near future.
Pharoah Sanders and Julia Holter
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Saturday afternoon show at Saint George Hall, featuring Julia Holter opening for the legendary Pharoah Sanders, was another Marfa Myths highlight. Julia Holter’s set consisted of beautiful solo renditions of her songs played on a grand piano, with her boyfriend Tashi Wada joining her on a few songs to add some synth parts. Holter actually mispronounced his name as she introduced him to the stage, apparently due to nerves opening for Pharoah Sanders. My favorite Julia Holter album, Ekstasis, is now five years old, but everything I’ve heard of hers has been great, including some really outstanding songs on 2015’s Have You In My Wilderness that sounded great in Marfa. I’m really excited to hear her new album In the Same Room, a live studio album of tracks throughout her entire career, which releases March 31 on Domino.
Pharoah Sanders was one of the performers I was most excited to see and he did not disappoint. His set consisted of fairly straightforward jazz and did not stray too far into experimental or cosmic territory, but it was still a ton of fun. Sanders surrounded himself with some extremely talented players (piano, bass, and drums) and treated himself to some much deserved rest after his intense solos, as he sat down and listened to each of his bandmates solo in turn. Early on in the set, Sanders expressed some frustration with his monitors, but after that was fixed (or he just decided to ignore them), he began to lead the audience in some rhythmic clapping and show off his impressive slow dance moves as he went from one side of the stage to the other. If you live in Minneapolis, don’t miss Sanders’s two performances at the Dakota Jazz Club on July 25 and 26.
And so much more…
- Roky Erickson played on Thursday night at the Marfa Visitor Center. There were some sound issues and not all of the songs were executed perfectly, but Roky’s voice still sounded great and as much as I love his solo work, it was really cool getting to hear so many 13th Floor Elevators songs live. This was paired with a 13th Floor Elevators exhibit and an interesting conversation between the band’s biographer Paul Drummond and curator Johan Kugelberg.
- Idris Ackamoor and the Pyramids
- Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood) and Mike Hadreas’s (Perfume Genius) voices
- GEM&BOLT mezcal, ANC Alchemy Grapefruit Fennel bitters, and a slice of blood orange cocktail served at the Freda shop
- The glazed donuts at Buns n’ Roses
- Matthew Craven’s art and Earthtones cassette
- Do Your Thing coffee shop with a Liz Harris mural outside
- The Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute
- Donald Judd’s 15 Untitled Works in Concrete outdoors at the Chinati Foundation
- The Block at the Judd Foundation
- Beer garden and nachos at Planet Marfa
- And finally, the spirit of Marfa in dog form. Whether roaming wildly and freely, attached to a long rope, or sitting joyfully on the top of its owner’s car, this dog attended nearly every Marfa Myths event in both 2016 and 2017.
See you in 2018!
Garrett Karrberg is based in Minneapolis
