"I told you, I told you I need you..."
On partygirl's revolving "need you", the band build layers of emotions and sounds on a spinning somber diorama. So much so that it seems to turn faster and faster as it moves along. By the end you feel like you are stuck against the wall of one of those Gravitron rides at that sketchy carnival downtown pinned down by the weight of emotions. Pagona Kytzidis begins over stark keys and ambient sounds like she is alone trying to process the acquired emotional baggage, pain coalesced into melodies and chord shapes.
The aforementioned building of layers is done with grace and understated power and it is powerful. All the players, the collaborators, the sharers of emotions are synergistically connected, 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). The loveliness here, doesn't belie the melancholy and the bloodletting, it is all part of the same thing.
I love, LOVE, the chorus refrain and it get's stuck in my head (I am not complaining). "need you" is from the band's eonymous EP "partygirl".
The following is press notey stuff is so important in terms of the band's sort of artistic manifesto that, once again, I just have to include it:
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.”
-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.
patygirl, subversive, personal, alt rock, art rock, avant pop, alt punk, Brooklyn, divergent, politico, Pagona Kytzidis, Colby Lamson-Gordon, debut EP, empowerment, survivorship, "need you", EP "partygirl"
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