Entrance (a.k.a. Guy Blakeslee) just released the great Promises EP and is gearing up for a full-length early next year via Thrill Jockey. In the meantime, he’ll be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Readers, you’re in for some really good stuff.
Blakeslee: I’ve been listening obsessively to the self-titled debut album by New Zealand songstress Aldous Harding for the past year, and was lucky enough to catch her recent performance at Union Chapel, a beautiful church in London. Under the towering, stained-glass windows, her ancient-sounding voice held power and vulnerability, her wide eyes darting around the room as she twisted her body and face, singing with fiery determination one moment, an eerie hushed whisper the next. The climax of the set was the last song, called “Horizon.” Joined by a friend on the piano, she set down her classical guitar and stood in the center of the stage, her arms gesturing wildly, her voice soaring high up to the rafters as she dramatized the minimalist dirge with all of her being. I’ve heard that she’s making a record in the U.K. with acclaimed producer John Parish, and that she’s coming to the U.S. to open for Deerhunter in October. My favorite song from her first record is “Stop Your Tears.”
