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EXHIBITION OVERVIEW: THE ART OF KEVIN BOEHNER

Kevin Boehner’s paintings immediately pop out amidst the countless other art blogs you typically find on most social media platforms – there’s an organic quality to the pieces, almost as if they can breathe.  It’s not just because of his preference to traditional materials (typically acrylic – which it in itself is a rare sight amongst most oil-focused painters) or his foliage-like backgrounds, it’s an overall aura that possesses his rather large body of work.  If all art could be classified as a form of therapy, then most pieces could be separated by those either being hectic representations of stress-fueled mania, or more serene images of what could be considered the artist’s visual interpretation of their comfort zone – pretty much all of Boehner’s pieces fall into the latter category, a style that he’s more or less perfected at this point.

This description becomes strange, however, when the most prominent artist that I can compare his work to is the late, great Philip Guston – a man whose paintings are well-known for being fairly harsh, bold depictions of suburban life (at least the way I see them), typically embodied by grotesque, pink blobs of humans with incredibly pronounced eyes living among worlds of clocks, shoes, and color-blocked buildings.  The connection that I see between these two is the styles of art themselves – very primitive, loose brushstrokes that are able to reveal very average objects in everyday settings (in Guston’s case, it’s pairs of shoes, windows, furniture – in Boehner’s case, it’s trees, bodies of water, human flesh), therefore heightening their presence.  But while Guston’s artwork is very fiery, almost frigid in its surreal compositions, Boehner’s artwork feels like an antidote to the previously mentioned descriptions; the pieces have a sensual worldliness to them that almost gives off a sense of the tropical.

If anything, perhaps a better comparison would be the Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel (one needs only to see the films La cienaga (2001) or Zama (2017) to understand my point) or the master of magical realist literature, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  Whether it’s intentional or not, all of Boehner’s works feel very exterior, giving off the impression that his characters live in a world of hot, lush, forest-filled landscapes.  He’s very fond of earth tones, giving off flashes of yellow or shades of red to help the eye move about.  There’s nothing harsh about his paintings – an aspect that is really refreshing in an age where most online art tends to be digital displays of anal perfectionism, typically ending up in blatant copies of style or color palette to more prominent artists.  By comparison, his work looks effortless, giving off a dream-like atmosphere that feels almost therapeutic.  This description is not lost on Boehner, who’s described his work as being his “inner dialogue” – enter the cliché utopian metaphor but stay for an artist who provides a much-needed sanctuary of the natural for most introverted, online art gorgers.

“Vehicle For Empathy” (acrylic on canvas 16 x 20 inches)

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EP Review: Special Interest - “Spiraling” (2018)

A constant wish of mine, ever since discovering the genre late in high school, has been for more queercore groups like Limp Wrist, Pansy Division, or The Dicks to name a few, to be able to get widespread coverage in the music scene; spreading their punk grime over all of the effeminate pop music that seems to be cemented with the LGBTQ+ community.  Of course, pop music is tailor-made to be accessible, so it’s no surprise why the synth-heavy, feet-on-the-floor queer dance groups have more universal appeal, while those more attuned to flashy, art-pop stylings have enjoyed unanimous critical success.  However, pretty much all of these groups are gay thematically in their music, open only to themselves, or in interviews. And I completely understand this; sexuality is personal for most people, and one doesn’t need to make it the crutch of his or her music; but when a line like “no family is safe / when I sashay” is the boldest declaration of queer lifestyles to achieve moderate success in the year it was released, it really begs to question if a sound and aesthetic like queercore (which is typically very blunt in a refreshingly raw and self-aware manner) will only enjoy an incredibly small but devoted fanbase of queer individuals who really can’t fit into their own minority, much like the John Waters audience (who is one of my favorite directors – I think you can see where I’m going with this); the gays who don’t want to hear the same electro-tinged falsetto voice crying about obscure boyfriends and instead would like to lumber around to rough, angry tunes relishing in bodily fluid-stained irony.

I was super excited when G.L.O.S.S. came out with their EP Trans Day of Revenge.  Not just because it was a nice piece of queer screamo, but because it was steadily gaining approval and fans outside of typical queercore audience members like myself. Liberal-minded heshers and Sonic Youth-loving punks seemed to find themselves caught up in not just the energy, but the pissed-off sentiment behind the energy.  So of course, they had to break up.  And I was left, yet again, wishing and hoping for a new group who could not just add to the discography, but push it in a further direction…and then I heard Special Interest’s debut EP, Spiraling.

The wonderfully titled opening track “Young, Gifted, Black, in Leather” opens with a Nina Simone quote right before the punchy instrumentation begins and the song’s title is screamed with full-frontal conviction.  This song sets the mood for the rest of the eight tracks: noisy, abrasive, groovy, queercore no wave with a glam varnish spread overtop of it; but honestly, the group’s sound is its own.  Originating from New Orleans, Special Interest throw together sardonic, angry, and occasionally hilariously satirical lyrics about feminism, sexism, racial injustice, LGTBQ+ living, partying, movie references, and law evasion, mixing them together in an incredibly spicy jambalaya that will probably give you the shits, but you eat it anyway because it tastes amazing and it’ll clean you out for future excursions later on in the night.

It’s like if Kim Gordon and Divine fused into a glamorous mutant.  Every single line is memorable, like the hilarious and truthful “Art Walk” (“Pissing on the sidewalk/and eating out the trash/well, I’m just living on my art!”), or the track “Service”, perfectly juggling raw sex appeal and shredding anger (“Hey cowboy/you like the words that come out of our mouths?”). The music always sounds like it’s about to explode if just one thread is pulled – with the often-used drum machine adding a bit of quirk to the grime.  But what really makes this group work is the vocal and lyrical talent of their lead singer, Alli Logout.  Her no-bullshit shouting and snarking keeps the whole project in check, helping give tracks like “Nerve” the sense of listening to the catchiest anxiety attack ever put to tape, or her memorable laugh that cuts in every now and again, shredding any type of illusion that the song puts up.  It doesn’t matter how seriously you may or may not take the subject material – it sounds like they’re just having a blast shredding chords around. It’s less of a raw Raincoats and more like if the members of Alice Donut snorted computer dust.

Obviously, the major influence on this project is no wave, and the last track, “The State, the Industry, the Community, and Her Lover” (Peter Greenaway, anyone?), loses any sense of the deep grooves the previous songs contained, going straight into the no wave rabbit hole – and it’s glorious.  It’s totally earned it at this point, and it’s just as abrasive and patchy as you would want it to be.  For the first time since G.L.O.S.S., there’s a queercore (or at least just a non-poppy, abrasive, queer band) group that totally has the potential for wider appeal. There’s just no denying the raw energy and angry drive to every single track here.  Just get up and start gay-moshing (trust me, it’s a thing) as Alli Logout screams “DISCO!/DISCO!/DISCO!/WE WANT DISCO!” and start pissing on every “Frankie Says Relax” t-shirt you can find.  Talk about a memorable night.  

Listen/Buy the album here: https://specialinterestno.bandcamp.com/album/spiraling

(pictures taken from bandcamp.com)

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Album Review: Steven Haslinger - “You Can Have It All” (2018)

Have you ever wondered if the bittersweet musings of a Frankie Cosmos or a Nat Johnson could be replicated without their quirky and relatable lyrics?  Or, if you’re like me, do you ever long for an artist or album to come out that perfectly captures the hazy melancholy of living in the suburbs? For me, the two go-to records for such a specific mood are usually Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs (duh) or Beck’s Sea Change – both being beautifully produced, twinkling slogs of depression that usually scratch that specific aesthetic itch I’m looking for.  The problem is that I can only listen to those albums so many times before I start to drown in either the former’s pretentiousness (the older I get, the less I want to hear about teenage angst) or the latter’s emotional martyrdom; they’re not what you would call “on-constant-repeat” listens, at least not for me personally, masterpieces though both are.

About a week ago, I found myself scrolling through the new arrivals section at the bottom of Bandcamp, mindlessly searching for any of the preview tracks to catch my interest.  I wanted some warm, atmospheric soundscapes to soundtrack my work on a history powerpoint; nothing too structured that would prevent my concentration, just some ambience in the background.  I saw the cover for You Can Have It All, and immediately I felt that I knew what I was in for before I even clicked the preview track – a fuzzy, purple-filtered image of what looks like a boy’s bedroom: I was definitely in for a reverbed heatwave. Honestly, after the first track, “Sunshine (Intro)”, I was still pretty sure that I knew the beats that were going to be hit throughout the rest of this 33-minute project: ambient synth drafts with improvised guitar overlays – nothing too dissimilar from countless Soundcloud hipsters with a loop pedal that I’d heard many times before. Perfect.

The second track threw all preconceived notions I had going into this project away.  A sudden kick of soft drums, complete with sloppy, Mac DeMarco-esque guitar chords – that is, until around the one-minute mark where the one riff continually repeats overtop of some shoegaze waves, burning away in the background.  My boring space-filler had suddenly become a Pastels instrumental!  By track three, “Edmund (Loop)”, in which bouncy, robotic synths take up the first half of the track before being replaced by an emotional progressive ambient punch that even Ben Lukas Boysen would take notice of, I was hooked.  Needless to say, my powerpoint didn’t get very far that day.

What Steven Haslinger’s strength is on this record is his ability to continually build an affective structure to each song, but never to where it sounds like he’s repeating himself. Most instrumental guitar-based internet musicians that I listen to are obsessed with exploiting one riff over and over again until you just want to turn the album off.  Haslinger, by contrast, has already mastered the use of atmospheric sound to create vivid imagery – on his first project, no less!  Though all tracks here are indeed minimal guitar soundscapes, each track is surprisingly and subtly layered, with tracks reminding me of indie game soundtracks (“On The Docks”), romantic stargazing (��Stargate”), lo-fi Nils Fraham (“Emune”), or even artists from the Paradise of Bachelors music label (“Mills Cider”).  The whole album feels very nostalgic and very cinematic, with a bittersweet twinge that make it irresistible on melancholic evenings.  Finally, we have an unpretentious, universally appealing, independent musician making the soundtrack to all of the lonely, suburban kids out there – move over Arcade Fire, move over Beck, Haslinger’s record is now on full-blast in the bedrooms of teenage introverts – or at least it should be.

Haslinger himself is only described on his Bandcamp profile as a “Michigan guitarist”, and this record is apparently just a compilation of material he had made the previous year – the highlights, no doubt.  All I can say is that if this guy can make music of this quality only by himself, then he has a bright future ahead of him if he continues down this path.  His sound is limited, but it feels homemade, not raw; it’s equal parts ambient, atmospheric, post rock-flavored, soundtrack-esque.  It’s this intimate universality that makes this guy’s music so appealing to me.  You Can Have It All sounds like it could either be a coming-of-age movie or rural science fiction, best for listening to on noise-cancelling headphones, late in the evening, while musing about either wayward crushes or ambitious future quests.

Listen/Buy the album here: https://stevenhaslinger.bandcamp.com/releases