Subtle

Since it's genesis in 2001, Oakland-based sextet Subtle has been home-recording its way to the far side of song. Drawing from a diverse palette of instruments: sampler, synth, guitar, cello, winds, electronic and acoustic drums, and the unmistakable voice and prose of doseone, the band fashions a self-sampled and live-mic'd honest-to-genreless music.

For Subtle, the last two years have been nothing short of life changing and aesthetic sculpting. Surviving through and recovering from a terrible tour van accident in February 2005 has led the subtle6 to their most adventurous and clear-hearted achievement, "for hero : for fool". A contiguous and conceptual work of album as art; picking up and running with the motifs and musical arrangements of "a new white" and their four self-released season-themed EP's. "for hero : for fool" boldly follows the B-movie dreams and midday terrors of a working-class poet, born of raw raps and the somewhat vacuum times of the last quarter century.

Not to be missed, Subtle's live performance parallels and elaborates on the complex and natural lengths of their recorded material. With painted backdrops, stage props and a whole lot of middleclass mojo, it is in the midst of live performance that Subtle's works of song complete themselves.

Subtle also played at...

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