partygirl and the unveiled survivorship and passion of "i have"

 

"haven't dreamed in a long time as much as I try to forget..."

Some songs shape you, move you even if you don't know why. "i have" by Brooklyn's partygirl is that kind of song. From the onset, the melancholy piano shapes, emotional bass movements, walls of somber horns, pervasive guitars, shifting drum patterns and Pagona Kytzidis' artful vox, beautiful but hurting, wraps you up in a story that you can only imagine. As the song amps up, as the words “Haven’t dreamed in a long time...” and later "Haven't smoked in a long time just to be with you" feel brutally weighed down and as the music goes from swelling to combating with itself, there is a whirlwind of fury, expressed no harder than Pagona's emotional bloodletting. "i have" is, in the end, a sweeping ballad about "the moment one stops dreaming for anything in the aftermath of sexual assault".

About "i have", Kytzidis shares: "The song questions this moment of contradiction in which an active, self-driven, affirmative dream becomes an empty, externally-driven, desperate nightmare. It’s supposed to encapsulate the feeling of searching for a Self not within oneself but through the eyes of someone else’s perception for you. Narratively with the lyrics, the contradiction becomes heightened during each verse: dream, which is the root of the matter; smoking (drugs), which is surrendering to dissociate for the External Self; speaking, which is trying to affirm Subjectivity through a relational interpersonal shared experience with the External Self; and touching (sex) which is the most physically manifest of external-affirmation, that you do indeed exist to, with, and in front of the External Self. However, the song concludes without lyrics, representing how when one realizes that the experience you shared with the External Self is not perceived to be the same, one feels like more of a shell, more of a commodity, and less and less of an actual Self."

partygirl musical atmospheres feel steeped in alt rock / jazz dipped avant pop tones that is exquisitely as artful as it is moving. In a previous review I wrote that the synergy between all the instruments and main players: Pagona Kytzidis (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Colby Lamson-Gordon (bass, vocals), Francesca Pastore (guitar, vocals), Alec Mauro (sax, vocals) and Zev Rose (drums) with additional support by Bell Thompson (trumpet) and Jaucqir Lafond, Isabel Draper, Cg Kell (backing vox), suggested to me that most of these talented musicians were jazz kids in high school or college. For me that is a good thing. Maybe punk and jazz are the most ID art forms out there. 

The following press notey stuff is so important in terms of the band's sort of artistic manifesto that (once again) I must include it:

[partygirl announces their eponymous debut EP via The Big Takeover, who wrote: "It’s heavy. It’s groundbreaking. And it’s like nothing like we’ve heard before." partygirl, the EP, seeks to introduce partygirl, the band and the project. The EP represents a “tasting” of what partygirl strives to be: a maximalist indie rock band which writes and performs songs that depict the experience of Survivorship (those who identify as Survivors of sexual assault and rape) as a radical political identity and as a space for radical political action. As a Survivor, musician, and political organizer, Pagona Kytzidis formed partygirl to try to process her own sexual assaults and the resulting psychological and political trauma, and to challenge popular discourse on sexual assault and the violence of misogyny.

partygirl is a band about specifically Survivorship, but more generally about world-building, and about imagining a new and better future. partygirl plans to construct a better world by embracing the true spirit of Survivorship: what Kytzidis argues is a lived identity that refuses to accept what people have ascribed and forced upon you, and that celebrates the inherent Selfhood that lives in each person.

As Kytzidis says at partygirl shows: “I perform and write this music with a desperation to be a Self, to be My Self, in the totality of my experience, all the darkness, the intensity, the extremes, to be my biggest Self for all the times I was my smallest Self. This music is exercised as an avenue for the Possible.”

partygirl believes that the world that we have inherited is not inevitable and represents a refusal to subscribe to apolitical numbness, cynicism, and nihilism. Instead, the band wants to imagine a new, better world with other artists, thinkers, and listeners. In that, partygirl is a very serious, musical, theoretical, and interdisciplinary project (that is increasingly transgressive, and thus essential, given that the United States is heading towards a post-Roe state). partygirl aims to allow those who are Survivors, to exist as complex, full Selves and thus, partygirl seeks to create a “future in the present.” partygirl the EP seeks to be the very beginning of this project.]

partygirl's approach, their reason for being fuels great music. It is a hard truth that a lot of great art comes from pain. That feels like a gut punch at times but those artists who are able to move people into thinking about horrible things in life like toxic misogyny, like rape culture and slowly over time help to transform us all into better people are angels.   

-Robb Donker Curtius

partygirl · i have

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077052079935

https://www.instagram.com/partygirl.band/

https://partygirl-band.bandcamp.com/releases

https://partygirlnyc.com/

https://twitter.com/partygirlnyc

Introducing: partygirl, an imaginative, maximalist indie rock band based in Brooklyn. The group was formed by long-time musical partners Pagona Kytzidis (vocals/rhythm guitar/keys) and Colby Lamson-Gordon (bass/vocals), who have been writing and performing together since their college days at Columbia University. Pagona and Colby are joined by Francesca Pastore (lead guitar/production), Alec Mauro (sax/vocals), and Jonathan Ashley (drums). Drawing inspiration from artists past and present, such as Queen, Mitski, Fiona Apple, Elliott Smith, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead and St. Vincent, partygirl strives to create a unique and forward-looking sound. Through their music, partygirl seeks to imagine new worlds based on feminist praxis, radical Survivor identity, and a rejection of our present-day dystopia.

** At this particular time we find ourselves in a financial pinch due to many factors. We want to keep AP going. It has been a passion project for over 13 years. PLEASE consider donating, we could really use the support. Thanks so much


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