originally posted at http://www.playbackstl.com/content/view/8361/157/

In the mood for a little tense, back-alley Eastern European gypsy folk shot through with existential angst and prominently featuring accordion and banjo? Not a chance, you say? Well, too bad for you, ‘cause you’ll miss hearing one of the most original and daring albums to come out this year, even if the commercial odds are stacked against it. The Minneapolis-based quartet, Dark Dark Dark, have chosen a name that some might call pretentious — and it’s arguably even misleading, as this intimately rendered, worldly music is no soundtrack for slitting your throat. Rather, it’s energetic and throbbing with life, even if the themes do explore loss, pain and the difficulties of survival. But the contingent of listeners who’ll come running to check out an album where accordion and banjo are lead instruments (and drums are largely absent, as well) is a small one.

So, DDD are likely not chart bound, but for fans of compelling, original music, this recording is a stunner. The two primary vocalists—Nona Marie Invie and Marshall LaCount—both have memorable pipes, which they blend in haunting style on tracks such as “Ashes,” “Colors” and “New York Song.” LaCount’s voice sparkles with intelligence and conviction; timbre-wise, it’s pitched somewhere between Thom Yorke’s lower range and the cool sophistication of Norway’s Sondre Lerche.

Invie, however, is a force to be reckoned with. Hers is a raw, emotive instrument that delivers every bit of pain, disillusionment and an “I don’t suffer fools gladly” attitude that’s likely at the forefront of her psyche every day. It’s not always comfortable listening, in other words; no laid-back prettiness or showstopping big moments are on display here. But Invie is a powerhouse vocalist if you like music that’s totally authentic, where the singer sounds 100% invested in what they’re sharing with you. I don’t know what this woman grew up listening to, but she sure doesn’t sound American, and her aesthetic is miles away from anything as ordinary as radio-friendly pop. All that said, this is utterly hypnotic stuff.

“A Cloud Story” and “Colors” are riveting tracks that constantly build in intensity, taking you somewhere you can’t predict. The eccentric “Ferment in Dm” finds Invie unleashing one of her most memorable vocals, and you can make of this verse what you will: “You’ve got a strong fermenting body/ You’ve got a body made of lead/I want to hold you under water/And calculate your next breath.” Yikes!

But there are a lot of “yikes” on this album, and that’s meant as a compliment. It keeps you off balance throughout, even as it encourages you to twirl for release on such movers as “New York Song” and the aptly named “A Spell for Letting Go.” Another standout track is “That Light,” a sort of delerious mad waltz on which piano, saw and cello vie for attention with Invie’s voice. “Where’s that light you’re reaching for?” Invie sings repeatedly, as Robert Skoro’s stellar production hits another high with its equal attention to every sound in the mix. Hard to say what “light” Invie is referring to here, but in terms of inspiration and fierce originality, just about everything is illuminated in this Dark Dark Dark gem of a debut. B+ | Kevin Renick

originally posted at http://crawdaddy.wolfgangsvault.com/Review/Dark-Dark-Dark-The-Snow-Magic.html :

On stage, Dark Dark Dark lives up to their name with an anti-charismatic presentation that’s nonetheless riveting. Nona Marie Invie cradles a giant accordion on her lap, squeezing out gloomy, minor key chords that complement the stygian rumbling of Todd Chandler’s bass and the mournful counter-melodies of Jonathan Kaiser’s cello. Marshall LaCount’s banjo supplies the brightest accents, but they come from some dark hollow where the bluest elements of bluegrass dance with the clanking rhythms of the Balkans. The band dresses down with a wardrobe that suggests clothing acquired from a late-’80s Seattle—comfortable plaid shirts, faded jeans, Doc Martens, and tattered footwear, the timeless garb of student radicals, street musicians, and working class youth with low-paying jobs. Invie’s face is barely visible behind her accordion. She peers over her instrument and her large eyeglasses give her the look of a librarian well-versed in arcane tomes full of forbidden secrets. LaCount dresses in black from head to foot, with a black cap on his head, looking like a turn of the century Wobbly or an American anarchist ready to hit the road and fight the good fight for truth, justice, and the American way. They all have the rumbled look of hobos that just stepped out of a cross-country boxcar ride, and that impression isn’t too far from the truth.

Dark Dark Dark’s principals met on the road. Invie had indeed hopped freight trains and wandered aimlessly around the United Stares and Europe playing music and soaking up the sounds that surrounded her on her sojourn. LaCount had run away from home and spent time drifting down the mighty Mississippi on a homemade raft singing for his supper at myriad ports of call. When they met, they recognized each other as kindred spirits and began writing original songs in an effort to busk their way down to New Orleans. They played anywhere they could—smoky bars, the homes of kindly strangers, student lofts, and street corners, developing a sound that blends the dark folk music of American and Eastern Europe. Kaiser and Chandler joined up somewhere along the way as the band crisscrossed America on a never-ending, impromptu tour that honed their sound into a singular, haunting style that suggests the freedom and loneliness of the wandering musician looking for a worm place to stay the night and a sip of something to warm the bones and keep away the melancholy. After two years of travel, they settled down in Minneapolis long enough to record The Snow Magic, a powerful collection that lives up to the band’s chosen moniker.

The album opens with the startling wintertime clatter of “Ashes”, a skewed waltz that blends gypsy exuberance and Appalachian fatalism into a tale that likens romance to attempted murder. Invie wails, “You won’t scatter my ashes,” while the band surrounds her with a wall of bracing discord. The rest of the album is almost pastoral in comparison, but the landscape that the band paints is bleak, gray, and inhospitable, with muted tones of loss and solitude. “Colors” uses a marimba, played by guest drummer Martin Dosh from Andrew Bird’s band, and bowed cello and bass to create an ominous mood. Boy meets girl and then they merge into an explosion of psychedelic desire and frustration. The vocals of Invie and LaCount are full of longing, but they’re soon overwhelmed by brooding bass and cello lines that obliterate the moment.

“Dig a Grave” is a mysterious lament played on banjo and accordion, with intimations of murder and suicide, a wrenching performance with Invie’s weeping harmonies and sinister sustained notes from the cello adding to the song’s chilling ambience. “New York Song” is another waltz, this one mellower, a salute to winter in the city that dreams of the coming joy of springtime, even as it nods to the summer suicide of two hopeless lovers. “Trouble No More” lives up to its ironic title, starting out as a jaunty “Babe, I’m leavin’ you” country song before slipping into a hopeless, self-destructive dirge. LaCount and Invie end the tune with wailing Southern gospel harmonies full of dispiriting gloom. There’s nothing really uplifting on the album, but the music of Dark Dark Dark weaves an inviting psychedelic web, all the more powerful for its reliance on acoustic instruments. The album’s organic feel makes these desperately poetic grievances perfect companions for long winter evenings in lonely candlelit rooms.

Dark Dark Dark are prepping for their first tour in support of the S&D release “The Snow Magic“! This two week tour takes them from the midwest to the east coast and back in 12 days, and is capped with an appearance at Dosh’s annual “World Of Dosh” holiday show. West coast tour dates will follow in the late winter, to be announced soon.

Dec 10 2008 – The Frequency, Madison, WI
Dec 11 2008 – Heaven Gallery, Chicago, IL
Dec 12 2008 – The Elbow Room, Ypsilanti, MI
Dec 13 2008 – Visible Voice Books, Cleveland, OH
Dec 14 2008 – Morning Glory Coffeehouse, Pittsburgh, PA
Dec 15 2008 – Frisby House, Baltimore, MD
Dec 16 2008 – The Cake Shop, Manhattan, NY
Dec 17 2008 – The Whitehaus, Jamaica Plain, MA
Dec 18 2008 – AS220, Providence, RI
Dec 19 2008 – Union Pool, Brooklyn, NY
Dec 21 2008 – Skull Alley, Louisville, KY
Dec 22 2008 – The Cinemat, Bloomington, IN
Dec 27 2008 – Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis, MN (with Dosh)

originally printed in Flagpole Magazine, Athens, GA: http://flagpole.com/Music/RecRev/DarkDarkDark/2008-11-12/

The Snow Magic captured me immediately and has been twisting my mind for the last couple of hours, through two listens to the disc and a page of publicity information.

It seems the band formed out of life’s great plan for travelers: chance meeting. Accordionist/vocalist Nona Marie Invie met runaway banjo-playing raftsman Marshall LaCount sometime in 2006, and they began playing music as a way of “earning passage to New Orleans.” Eventually they met the cellist and upright bass player, and they played around the country for about two years, then went into the studio with Andrew Bird’s live drummer and musician/producer Robert Skoro.

The result of these studio sessions is an elegant, honest and captivating blend of Eastern European- and Appalachian-influenced folk with a touch of the cabaret: it swings as well as it broods. And if you even think a group of vagabond gypsies would dare begin a story without intending to add a piece of your soul to its folklore by the time of their closing remarks, then you, my friend, are crazier than I.

http://obscuresound.com/?p=2320

Within the packaging of their debut album, the Minneapolis-based Dark Dark Dark opted to include an eight-page booklet of photographs that featured a few pictures of the group in settings that proved more reminiscent of the late 19th century than the present, a stark contrast from the technologically dependent promo shots that most bands utilize today. Courtesy of photographer Timothy G. Piotrowski, the style most often indicated a nostalgic feel that was primarily attributed to his fascinating use of blended monochromatic and yellow shades. It also helped that the individuals featured in the photos usually had no visible expression on their faces whatsoever, alluding to the stereotypically deadpan stares that were so typical of the preceding eras. As evidenced by the sample exhibitions on Piotrowski’s site and this freely distributed shot of Dark Dark Dark, the photographer utilizes contemporary photography techniques to put a new spin on styles that may be deemed outdated. But this big question will likely loom in the minds of first-time listeners: What exactly prompted Dark Dark Dark to feature this photographic style so vividly in their first full-length release? When listening to their music, it should make sense. Like Piotrowski’s photography, the group takes advantage of all the resources that modern music technology has to offer them to create a stirringly nostalgic sound that becomes all their own.

A four-piece at its heart, Dark Dark Dark consists of an instrumental arsenal that is not typical of most indie-rock favorites. In addition to the rhythm section of bassist Todd Chandler and drummer Martin Dosh, the group maintains a heavy focus on cello, banjo, accordion, and piano. Jonathan Kaiser takes control of the cello, Marshall Lacount strums the banjo, and Nona Marie Invie makes use of her skills at piano and accordion. LaCount and Invie prove to be unconventionally resounding vocalists, serving as a double-edged sword with overlapping melodies that capitalize on an appealing formula that blends irresistible vocal harmonies with instrumentation that ranges anywhere in the mood palette from ominous to optimistic. In addition to Chandler, these three are the constant members, though Dosh contributed some excellent drumming to the entirety of the group’s engrossing debut, The Snow Magic. The name Martin Dosh may sound familiar to fans of percussively-based electronica; the Minnesota native has been regarded as a “superstar” prodigy for his innovative fusion of post-rock, electronica, and a consistently emphasized form of percussive involvement. Signed to the Anticon label in 2003, he has released four impressive solo albums, the most recent of which – Wolves and Wishes – was released in May of this year.

In addition to the collaborations from Dosh, the steady members of Dark Dark Dark remain just as interesting. Bassist Todd Chandler is directing and writing a film project by the name of “Flood”, featuring an accompanied score by his very own band. Subsequent to his work in another locally esteemed Minneapolis-based band by the name of Woodcat, LaCount worked on Dosh’s Wolves and Wishes on a handful of tracks, one being “Kit and Pearle” with Andrew Bird. Invie contributed vocals on that very same track, already acquainted with LaCount after the duo had formed Dark Dark Dark in 2006. Dark Dark Dark’s debut, Love You, Bye was an EP that was released in October 2007 and recorded by now-cellist Jonathan Kaiser. After Kaiser pushed his production duties aside to focus entirely on cello, the group handed the role of producer to Robert Skoro for their debut full-length, The Snow Magic. A new staple of the Minneapolis music scene due to his intuitive mixing abilities, Skoro also is an aspiring solo songwriter whose material can be checked out here. To map out an ambitiously stylistic album like The Snow Magic, I imagine that it may have looked initially intimidating to the young producer. Looking at the final result though, I may not have given him enough credit; Skoro did a fantastic job. The atmosphere that he and the band have instilled into this memorable debut is extremely commendable with a consistent vision that goes hand-in-hand with a batch of great songs.

As evidenced by their name alone, the fact that Dark Dark Dark’s stylistic territory treads on the gloomy side of things should not be surprising. Any other conceptual focus would be a mistake though, as the instrumentation glides cohesively with the content at hand. “Dig a Grave” features a gradually expanded melody that is accentuated by the simultaneous sounds of an accordion and cello. “Your ghost can stop and stay for a round, I would truly be living it up,“ LaCount sings, adding a bit of ironic humor to a song centered on the question of whether being haunted by a loved one is so bad after all. “Junk Bones” is a more melodically exuberant track that, once again, centers on the topics of ghostly spirits and death. Led by Invie’s creakily enjoyable vocals, it features an excellent chorus that sees a simultaneous collision of an accordion and reverbed keys. “All that rope you hang your neck with,” she repeats after the chorus, an effective measure of words considering these preceding lyrics: “Now you’re a ghost, you can find a home away from here; I’ve always wanted to find a home away from here.” The fact that the narrator expresses jealousy for the deceased because of her miserable state of existence is tragic, but the somewhat jovial melody makes the track fulfilling and undeniably interesting.

“Ashes”, the opening track on The Snow Magic, also serves as one of the most captivating efforts on the album. Dark Dark Dark once again takes a look at the effects of death – this time at the spreading of ashes – over a swirling instrumental accompaniment and pair of dual vocals that attribute nicely to the vigorous tenacity of the track with the ardent deliveries of LaCount and Invie. “I know you want to scatter my ashes, I know you want to spread them far and wide,” Invie sings. “Don’t scatter my ashes; I want to run by the seaside.” The content, of course, may be too dark and topically repetitive for some, but the musical style fits it well and anything else may have come across as pure desperation. In terms of dual harmonies, it would be difficult to argue against “The Benefit of the Doubt” to be one of the most impressive efforts in that regard. The instrumentation, led by a cello-accordion combo similar to “Dig a Grave”, is bare compared to some others, but it proves wildly effective as it places an emphasis on the vocal harmonies of LaCount and Invie. To be warned, The Snow Magic is not the most accessible or instantaneously gripping album out there, but successive listens will undoubtedly reward listeners in a way that few debuts will this year.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/64345/dark-dark-dark-the-snow-magic/

Dark Dark Dark is one of those band names that reviewers will take as a challenge. I can just imagine a guy at Rolling Stone getting an LP of Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All to review and going, “Metallica, eh? With a name like that, these guys better be pretty damn metal.” Similar scenarios play out in my head for groups like N.W.A., Fear, and Lightning Bolt. Dark Dark Dark’s debut album is titled The Snow Magic, which either tempers their band name or leads one to think, “They have to be talking about really evil snow magic, right?”

The first surprise when receiving the disc was looking at the band’s lineup. There’s Nona Marie Invie on accordion, piano, and vocals, Marshall Lacount on banjo and vocals, Jonathan Kaiser on cello and backing vocals, and Todd Chandler on bass. It turns out Dark Dark Dark is not a doom metal band or an especially depressed emo group, but an old-time string band. But unlike their brethren in Old Crow Medicine Show, Railroad Earth, and Yonder Mountain String Band, Dark Dark Dark does indeed explore the more, well, dark sounds of their instruments. The album’s opener, “Ashes”, effectively announces what the band is about. As swirling minor-key accordion and banjo evoke an early 20th-century circus setting, Invie theatrically tells the story of a lover’s rendezvous which ends in the woman accidentally falling into a river and drowning. That leads to the chorus, “I know you want to scatter my ashes / I know you want to scatter them far and wide.” The second song, “The Benefit of the Doubt” is a love song mostly sung by Lacount that begins with the lines “On your final day, did you think of me / And did I get the benefit of the doubt? / On my dying day, I will change my ways / And I’ll stop all this wandering around, dear.” The music starts off sparsely, with lightly strummed banjo chords and plucked cello, but shifts into a surprisingly jaunty, yet still minor-key, tune.

“A Cloud Story” is much more ethereal sounding song at first, as Invie sings about a dream she had against soft, reverby backing vocals and arco cello and bass. Then Lacount takes over the singing and the banjo and accordion come in, and the band immediately sounds old-timey again. Oh, and the dream that Lacount and Invie are singing about involves the clouds falling from the sky and the people on the ground patiently waiting to die. At this point, it’s clear that Dark Dark Dark are going to come very close to living up to their name, not an easy thing to do when your band includes full-time accordion and banjo players. But Invie and Lacount do an admirable job of bringing out different aspects of instruments that are best recognized for their upbeat sounds.

For all its dour subject matter, The Snow Magic is an entertaining album. The instrumental arrangements are a high point, and Invie’s accordion playing in particular is top-notch. Many of the songs here are uptempo and even approach being bouncy, such as the sea chanty-like “Ferment in Dm” (sample lyric: “And when I hold you underwater / count which breath will be your last”) and the piano-driven “That Light” (“Where’s that light you’re looking for / you can’t see it with your head underground / So just dig yourself out”). “New York Song” concerns moving to the city and has many complaints about it, but the chorus concludes that, “Being here is better than wishing we’d stayed.” Because Dark Dark Dark use their instruments in a variety of ways, even the slow songs manage to avoid sounding repetitive. Invie’s accordion usually drives the music with complicated and catchy minor-key melodies, but the band is equally effective when they hold back and let the vocals take center stage. The dirge-like “Dig a Grave” is probably the album’s best example. The accordion and cello play long chords under a simple banjo line and Lacount’s mournful lead vocal really sells the song, a lament to a dead relative.

Dark Dark Dark have a curious approach to harmony. Often Lacount and Invie will be singing the same lyrics, in harmony, yet they don’t quite line up. It’s an interesting technique that makes it sound like they were recorded separately, to the same music but without listening to the other’s performance. It gives the band’s vocals a slightly off-balance, disorienting feel which works quite well with the somewhat stranded-in-time vibe of the music. In addition, Minneapolis musician and Andrew Bird drummer Martin Dosh pops up throughout the album to add touches of percussion, from drums on the opener “Ashes” to xylophones elsewhere. He does an excellent job of accentuating the music without taking the focus off of the main band.

Dark Dark Dark certainly work hard to live up to their name. There is very little cheer to be found in the lyrics, but they’re far from the first musicians to specialize in the morbid and depressing. I would say that they warrant two Darks in their name, but don’t quite hit three Darks’ worth of bleakness. However, “Dark Dark Dark” has a much better ring to it than “Dark Dark”, so they probably made the right call. Regardless, The Snow Magic is a strong debut that evokes dark times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It also evoked in me memories of the HBO series Deadwood, which featured a lot of dark times itself in the late 19th century, and often played downbeat period songs over its closing credits.

from http://thephoenix.com/Providence/Picks/

INDIE RAP, INDIE FOLK
“Even though I haven’t seen you in years/yours is a funeral I’d fly to from anywhere,” sings WHY? on the new Alopecia (Anticon). The Cincinnati MC and his crew fly left of rap a la Buck 65, and make the keenly visual rhymes-songs resound with a short story writer’s poetic sense of narrative: “I feel like a loop of the last eight frames of film/before a slow-motion Lee Harvey Oswald gets shot in the gut and killed.” I’d previously only glossed by their stuff, but the new disc stops you dead in your tracks every once in a while — call it a mix of Soul Coughing and Flobots. They’ll do it live at Club Hell, 73 Richmond Street, Providence. Sharing the bill is DARK, DARK, DARK, a Minneapolis indie outfit that manages to conflate the Balkans and Americana (thanks accordion! thanks banjo!) to concoct a roughhouse version of pomo-folk that has a certain swagger. Nona Marie Invie was hopping trains and Marshall LaCount was floating down the Mississippi right before they connected. En route to New Orleans, they got serious about making songs together. The result is The Snow Magic (Blood Onion/SAD Music). It’s worth a spin or two.

HUGE thanks to Sarahana at Hooves On The Turf for shooting this video of Dark Dark Dark last week!

Trouble No More:

Dark Dark Dark / Secret Garden #1 from hoovesontheturf on Vimeo.

A Spell For Letting Go:

Dark Dark Dark / Secret Garden #2 from hoovesontheturf on Vimeo.

http://www.sad-music.net/darkdarkdark_newyorksong.mp3

enjoy! please share this link with your friends. Dark Dark Dark’s “The Snow Magic” is in stores October 28th.

(review of limited edition first pressing of “The Snow Magic” from Reveille Magazine)

How does one sculpt intense music with minimal percussion and no electrical outputs? Local quartet Dark Dark Dark has the answer: mood, mood, mood. Despite employing little more than accordion, strings, banjo, and voice, The Snow Magic still manages to swell with dramatic tension, its streamlined sound marching confidently forward. Oh and what the hell, a little drumming here and there from local superstar Martin Dosh certainly won’t hurt any album.

Even as the rollicking saloon jam “Ashes” launches the listener into the record, Dosh keeps his presence graceful with just a dash of frenzy, always ceding the spotlight to the band’s rustic interweaving melodies. The ghostly harmonizing groans on “A Cloud Story” provide just one example of Dark Dark Dark’s unique blend of old world suspense and intricate aural trickery, and surely due credit goes to their producer – Minneapolis music scene veteran Rob Skoro, whose own records have always sparkled among the crowded local singer-songwriter field. Skoro’s mixing board prowess is readily evident when the vocalists burst out in front of the music with the memorable line, “there’s no ocean in Minneapolis!” on the rousing “Colors” and when the accordion keys can be heard ever so slightly tapping along with the exhaled notes on the stately closer “All the Things.”

A band equal parts haunted hay ride and Beirut, Dark Dark Dark is more than just bells, whistles, and expertly blended vocal patterns, it all comes back to their nagging emphasis on mood. To help capture the stark intimacy they were going for Dark Dark Dark eschewed working in a traditional studio setting, opting instead to make the album, as their website phrases it, “in a cozy Minneapolis house.” Dark Dark Dark’s decision to home record paid off in spades, lending a candlelit basement sleepover vibe to the chorus of “Junk Bones.” Elsewhere the quiet and bright pizzicato in “Trouble No More” evokes a lonely attic window as the morning sun creeps in.

Ruminations on ghosts, winter, and graveyards may run throughout The Snow Magic’s lyrics, but Dark Dark Dark’s black mood still sounds pleasant and friendly. A few years ago Spaghetti Western String Co. excited local music fans by putting their own modern spin on organic antiquated sounds and Dark Dark Dark seems poised to following in their footsteps. Thanks to the fresh perspectives of the talent working both in front of and behind the record button The Snow Magic makes the old sound invitingly new.