#march chant

[dustedmagazine]

The Spatulas — March Chant (Post Present Medium)

Wavering guitar notes and the cantering click clack of a drum machine push open “March Chant in April,” the eponymous first song from The Spatulas’ debut EP, March Chant. There’s plenty of residual amp fuzz and dusty space in the recording and two minutes, though one might be forgiven for thinking the remaining five tracks from the Oregon quartet might hold more of the same simple DIY explorations. That could be gratifying in its own right, as heard in vocalist Miranda Soileau-Pratt’s often mesmerizing and deeply lo-fi work as Miranda Spatula, but March Chant isn’t really that. In the final 30 seconds of “March Chant in April,” when Lila Jarzombek and Soileau-Pratt bring their guitars together in immaculate chug-chug strumming over Soileau-Pratt’s smirking vocal and a newly galloping drum pattern, March Chant comes alive. The following 15-ish minutes present an adept rock band that plays messy while sounding polished and fires off dissonance without sacrificing momentum.

The Spatulas’ sound is raw and charming. The band has room for the shambling tension of mid-1990s Smog (“Rescue Mission”) and, at March Chant’s most nauseated and aching, early Sleater-Kinney (“Psychic Signal”). Then there are moments like the woozy but rigorous stomper “Slinger Style” where the nimble, buzzy riffs and bouncing bass bring up Meat Puppets’ warped para-country. Throughout the record, Jarzombek’s lead guitar is blistering, particularly on “Psychic Signal,” where her playing jabs in and out of the rhythm like a single-needle tattoo gun. Despite that, and the aforementioned immaculate chugging, it wouldn’t be quite right to call March Chant guitar driven. It’s a full band record. The unshakeable rhythms from Kyle Raquipiso’s understated drums and Jon Grothman’s expressive bass fortify the six-string slashes and Soileau-Pratt’s declamations – Grothman is particularly articulate in his flowing line on “Rescue Mission.” As a vocalist, Soileau-Pratt can both ride low in the instrumental around her and pick her spots to stand out. Within the lurching swing of “Slinger Style,” she croons some of her lyrics slightly away from the music, then hops back up into perfect unison with the athletic central riff. It’s not quite a chorus, but it has that effect. Hers is a creative, unpredictable style, shifting with ease from gleefully offkey punk sneering on “Psychic Signal” to a sing-song shoegaze wistfulness on “Curvy Color.” Something like the way Patti Smith can drift between a poetry reading and a belted rock refrain in just a few lines.

While nothing here quite achieves the grainy punch or weird feedback haze of The Spatulas’ live releases, March Chant never lets go of the listener. For such a short record, it sounds complete, not a perfunctory teaser for something more fully realized. The band describes their formative jams in a Portland-area storage space as a response to their “mounting frustration with those dreary pandemic days,” and while the lineup has changed somewhat in the years since, March Chant retains the qualities that may have brought the band together again and again: the relief at venting your anger and the goofy waywardness of distracting yourself with a joyful noise.

Alex Johnson

[sableprince]

i was obsessively thinking about this text post while playing this part

[jelloia]

// hsr trailblaze quest spoilers

AHHAH not the express trio betting on yunli and yanqing

i’ve never been so motivated to win in a fight though… sry yunli just got on my nerves…

also WOW did not think yanqing could get that aggressive asdfg she rly pressed his buttons huh

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Two French sailors clasp hands with Jeanne Morain, center, and Sylvie St. Claire to make a wish at the wishing tree in the lobby of the Paris Qui Chante, a nightclub, on March 5, 1944.

Photo: Associated Press

[dedicated-to-all]

Someone is doing the Lord's work

[sunshineandlyrics]

🇲🇽 Fans chanting "Louis, brother, you're already Mexican". Louis will be pleased to know this.

Tecate Pal Norte, 30 March 2024.

[mogai-sunflowers]

if ur pro-Pali but you are queerphobic what are you even doing….

[feluka]

[trollbreak]

Anyways aurrel 🤝 Bladed

Get pandora stations inspired by them for me to listen to at work

[purplespacecats]

fuck starbucks and fuck multinational corporations in general but they are in no way shape or form supporting the israeli government, which is why, contrary to popular belief, they aren't on the bds list

they sued their union over taking a pro-palestine stance which is shitty, and their official corporate stance is both-sidesy nothingness, but if they came out and said "free palestine" that would have no material impact. because, again, unlike the companies on the bds list, they don't support the israeli state!!!

the point of bds isn't to pressure companies into putting out a fucking statement in support of palestine, it's to pressure them to end their material support of israeli apartheid!!! like, please understand that this is not a symbolic battle!!!!

so, again, fuck starbucks and their liberal wishy-washy statements and their anti-union bullshit, but a) neither bds nor the starbucks workers union are calling for a boycott and b) it is so much more useful to focus on the actual bds list. please.

[catscatscatscatscatscatserybody]

Hey, just wanted you to know that I read your username like "SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS-SHOTS-SHOTS, E V E R Y B O D Y!!!!" except instead of 'shots' it's 'cats' lmao

That's actually exactly how I read it!

[fantasiavii]

Okay y’all I need some help. I’m going to the Trans March for the first time and I want to make a sign. What should it say

[neroushalvaus]

my partner forgot the word for comphet and said "camp rock"

[deweydecimalchickens]

I've got to the age where I kinda want someone to do a study of how protest chants get handed down and repurposed. (Other than "you see the same SWP lot on every march" - but it's not usually been them with the megaphones. Too busy selling newspapers. Could be the student-politics-to-trade-union pipeline.) From last Saturday:

"Netanyahu/Rishi Sunak/Keir Starmer/Joe Biden shame on you" - at least back to the 2003 Iraq war, when it was George Bush and the second half was "Daddy was a killer too". Always sounds a bit truncated without that.

"No justice, no peace" - generally an all-purpose classic, but a swing and a miss when you're literally calling for a ceasefire

"Netanyahu/Rishi Sunak/Keir Starmer/Joe Biden, what do you say? How many kids have you killed today?" - Vietnam War, when it was "Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" Rhyme and rhythm have never been that good since.

"What do you think of Rishi? Shit! What do you think of shit? Rishi!" - this is a repurposed football chant. I'd never heard it before because I don't care about football.

[chaelinsbitch]

I dyed my hair BLUE and my mom STILL is trying to marry me off 😭 GIRL

[made-of-dead-dreams]

The feminist march that happens on CDMX for 8M is always a big deal for me and sadly this year i could not go but i want to share this lil tik tok of a little girl leading a chant!

She says: SOMOS MALAS [we are bad!]

The crowd: PODEMOS SER PEORES [we could be worse!]