partygirl and the intense jazz fused alt rock black, white, gray of "clean"

"drifting in an out / complete / wonder if you're up  / you thought about me..."

The double emotional duty, the intense jazz fused alt rock black, white, gray of "clean" by Brooklyn based subversive partygirl, is not for the faint of heart. If you step in cold, the sultry beginning 80's noir saxophone vamps that might make you think of Wham for a brief second will be quickly dashed for building tensions, spiraling emotionalism with frayed edges and eventually sewn up wounds by evocative ID rocker leader / lead vocalist Pagona Kytzidis who, over the many times I have written about, punches me firmly in the gut. With angular musical attacks, freewheeling drum explosions and a swirling violin quartet that embraces and pummels, art rock lead guitar attacks, big booming bass wails as a framework for Kytzidis' emotional bloodletting barrels over you in such an exquisitely furious way that the 4 minutes and 22 seconds feels like 2 minutes. The rush, the emotions cut to the quick is that powerful and provocative. 

Here, Kytzidis' vocal countenance is on high stirring in elements of jazz rock fusions, art punk and more and like a collision of Liza Minnelli / Marisa Dabice / Christina Michelle. She absolutely kills here, a combination of unadulterated raw passion and precision in her vocal control. 

LINER NOTES (bracketed):

[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.”]

[In partygirl, everyone stands out at once— producer/guitarist Francesca Pastore’s pop-punk riffs, drummer Jonathan Ashley’s jam band rigor, violinist Claire Lin Jenkins’s orchestral grandeur, Andrew Jordan’s slinking bass, and saxophonist Jenna Love’s jazz roots. At the center of the sound is Kytzidis’s booming alto, equally influenced by Freddie Mercury as it is by Fiona Apple. Kytzidis started partygirl to confront and process an ascent into adulthood littered with gendered conflict, systemic violence, a global pandemic, and political instability. She conducts the band with the Greek word “parrhesia” as a lodestar: Speaking truth to power, whatever the risks. Their debut record, I’m so charming, I forgot who I was, is the culmination of years fine-tuning and road-testing music, but it’s just the beginning for this immensely promising band. Theatrical, eccentric, and vulnerable all at once, it’s a wildly successful first effort from a band overflowing with creativity.]

-Robb Donker Curtius 

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

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

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

https://partygirlnyc.com/

https://twitter.com/partygirlnyc

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



If you’ve seen partygirl’s name before, the word “maximalist” is never far behind. Since bandleader Pagona Kytzidis formed the group in 2021, the kinetic six-piece has amassed a cult following for their relentless, inventive music, a band equally likely to enter a soaring chorus as they are an earthshaking breakdown. Listen past the pyrotechnics and you’ll hear the energy of scrappy upstarts with the sharp songwriting to match their brute force strength. In partygirl, everyone stands out at once— producer/guitarist Francesca Pastore’s pop-punk riffs, drummer Jonathan Ashley’s jam band rigor, violinist Claire Lin Jenkins’s orchestral grandeur, Andrew Jordan’s slinking bass, and saxophonist Jenna Love’s jazz roots. At the center of the sound is Kytzidis’s booming alto, equally influenced by Freddie Mercury as it is by Fiona Apple. Kytzidis started partygirl to confront and process an ascent into adulthood littered with gendered conflict, systemic violence, a global pandemic, and political instability. She conducts the band with the Greek word “parrhesia” as a lodestar: Speaking truth to power, whatever the risks. Their debut record, I’m so charming, I forgot who I was, is the culmination of years fine-tuning and road-testing music, but it’s just the beginning for this immensely promising band. Theatrical, eccentric, and vulnerable all at once, it’s a wildly successful first effort from a band overflowing with creativity.






partygirl, subversive, personal, alt rock, art rock, avant pop, alt punk, Brooklyn, divergent, politico, Pagona Kytzidis, empowerment, survivorship,  "clean", jazz fusion,