"haven't dreamed in a long time as much as I try to forget..."
Early in our relationship, well before we were married, my wife and I attended a play at the Santa Monica playhouse. We didn't know what the play was about and we didn't fully know ourselves. It was a chance for each of us to play a sophisticated grown up, to be at an iconic California venue with bougie snacks and cheap wine out in the courtyard. A tiny place, we ended up sitting in the front row almost on top of the actors and when I say actors it was just two, a man and woman. The play ended up being ultra dramatic and felt exquisitely real. As these two actors portrayed the deconstruction of a relationship culminating in a cataclysmic event with what felt like real anger, intense dialog full of venom slung with spit and tears, we felt awkwardly close and afterwards we were almost in a state of shell shock. We hadn't felt this kind of toxicity and even though it was make believe it hit hard.
I thought of that even though it happened decades ago while listening to the heavy emotional hammer of 'desirable' by Brooklyn's partygirl, a band built around 'Survivorship' centered around Pagona Kytzidis's songs steeped in and around and about the "experience of surviving sexual assault and rape as a radical political identity and as a space for radical political action". I have written about partygirl's aestheic and manifesto before and it always moves me. I also realize it could be triggering for some. I think, it took me back to those early days of being a young man at that little playhouse because partygirl reminds me how fucking powerful art can be.
Press notes share that:
["Desirable" is a song about Kytzidis’s experience in a debilitating romantic relationship and the psychological terror which resulted. Spiritually however, the song is about the internal strife that Survivors must deal with when they’re viewed as pathological and frightening ‘things’ (“irrational”) rather than as complex people.]
The track begins with somber piano and Pagona's vocal countenace that feels incredibly stark and dramatic in real ways. There is something about her powerful voice and how it connects soul to soul to us as listeners, that is incredibly moving. As the drums, swelling horns, eloquent layers of guitars and bass create a blistering framework for Pagona's powerful wail, her bloodletting, her purging feels less like a song and more like that play, like performance art that breaks walls down. The puching sax solo feels like an exorcism as well and once everything pulls back and Pagona's voice is back as it started, all alone, you feel sadness and compassion amplified.
About 'desirable' Kytzidis explains: "Narratively, the song is structured around a turning point (‘the last battle in the relationship war’), in a dialectical/Marxist way, where the bad relationship transforms from a power-struggle based relationship to a power-over/abusive relationship."
partygirl is a band that crafts art that is not for the faint of heart but is real and important. It is hard to be a man and realize how much fucking harm my 'kind' inflicts on others. It is mind numbing. I have two daughters and sometimes lay awake at night worrying about them, hoping and praying that they will somehow avoid the predators that exist in he world.
-Robb Donker Curtius
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.
partygirl, indie rock, alt rock, jazz dipped, avant pop, progressive rock, singer songwriter, Pagona Kytzidis, avant rock, 'desirable', sax, horns, art punk, avant jazz, politico, intimate, emotional , survivorship,
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