Dear Listener-
Thank you for joining me on this journey through time and space. An adventure of the conscious and subconscious minds, a voyage of the body, mind and spirit where anything can happen. Where the power of sound will shape shift your soul and make you feel things you never thought possible.
This journey began for me, as a young child, when I first felt the tug of Ambition. She called to me in moments of silence and would sing songs that I could not forget. So I sang them to the trees, the water, the earth, the stars, and the moon, but they already knew them. As I grew, Ambition kept tugging me away, further and further from home. I had no choice but to listen to her voice, to leave the comfort of my home, and share the songs she taught to me.
I traveled over mountains and plains, crawled through caves, cast out on the ocean, rolled on the rivers, trekked over thousands of miles just to bring my songs to the people, so that they, too, could feel what the songs made me feel, so they could come to know the expansive, healing power of music.
If there’s anything I’ have learned on this journey, it’ is that the music sees no race, knows no age, does not care for your history, your sex, or the labels you choose to give yourself. All it cares about is being made and I have no choice but to make it.
As with every journey comes the extremes. The adrenaline rush followed by the lull, the sirens that make empty promises, the ups and the downs, the heartache followed by the inspiration. I must be honest in saying there are days I feel like giving up, when I’ve just had enough, but something always brings me back. That is you, dear listener. You, with your open ears and hearts, ready to receive the magic of the songs that were given to me, that I now gift to you. May they move you, touch you, excite you and heal you, just as they have done for myself and my crew.
Welcome to the journey, see you on the other side.
Sincerely,
The Captain
O Captain, my captain: Violet and the Undercurrents steers musical ship toward expansive sound
by Aarik Danielsen, Columbia Daily Tribune
Depending on who you ask, the stuff of life either comes in the journey or waits at an elusive destination. On “The Captain,” local quartet Violet and the Undercurrents refuses to choose between the two.
The record sounds like a sojourn toward some distant horizon where anything and everything is possible. And yet each song comes fully formed, offering the most realized, expansive vision yet of the band’s folk-meets-soul-meets-rock ‘n’ roll vibe.
Ace drummer Phylshawn Johnson’s drills and fills usher the record into existence. Opener “Alone Together” immediately establishes a slinky groove and takes its personality from Lizzy Weiland’s guitar tone, full of mystery, mysticism and a hint of noir-ish danger. Singer Violet Vonder Haar sounds like a wild animal in the song’s first lines — when she sings “I’ll scratch your back / if you scratch mine,” you wonder and worry if her claws cut deep.
“Alone Together” leads perfectly into “Patience,” which shuffles and scuffles with soul. Johnson’s drums, and the groove she establishes with bassist Linda Bott, creates the tide which carries Vonder Haar’s cooing vocals along. The track’s rolling rhythms evolve into a serious crunch, the song betraying its title by becoming intense and impatient. A classic-rock feel, suggested in earlier passages, opens into full bloom with Weiland delivering buzzsaw riffs against an epic backdrop.
Early in the tracklist, the band offers a two-part take on the tradition of the title track. “The Captain, Pt. 1” burns slow, each hit of Johnson’s drumsticks striking another match. Vonder Haar’s voice carries and meets its echo, as if traveling across wind or water, before she engages in evocative call-and-response with Weiland’s guitars.
“The Captain, Pt. 2” builds from plaintive piano, then wraps trance-like vocal repetition around the question “Where does the heart of a captain go / when he’s lost at sea?” As it does often throughout, the band builds from a gentler, more atmospheric feel to something approaching classic-rock glory. Here, that takes shape as a rolling boil spills over into scorching organ riffs.
Elsewhere, the band creates a little distance from earlier themes with “Still Here,” a previously-released political anthem. The cut is from the same musical cloth as the rest of “The Captain,” joining intriguing accent marks and flourishes to a big-screen rock feel. “Inconvenient Friend” and “There Are Days” grow from a string-band feel and folk tones consonant with Vonder Haar’s solo work, respectively, into more electrified rock tunes.
Penultimate cut “Meant to Be” plays to two of the band’s strengths: Vonder Haar’s melodic idiosyncrasies and the Undercurrents’ rhythmic precision, expressed here in the diversity of Johnson’s percussion and some good, old-fashioned handclaps.
With each release, The Undercurrents transform more and more from a supporting act for Vonder Haar’s songs into an equal partnership. That collaborative spirit expresses itself in a number of ways — two are most impressive. The way the band takes indie-pop and neo-folk ideas and translates them into the language of classic rock is wonderful and welcome; often, it sounds like an underdog Greenwich Village group that got hip to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and decided to unleash its inner guitar goddess.
Band members also take turns steering the ship and keeping watch; Vonder Haar is at the microphone, but each member leads the way at multiple points. Ultimately, the record expresses, one captain can’t go it alone. Rock ‘n’ roll, like any journey, is better when taken together.
More Press