Chastity Belt
Chastity Belt aborde souvent le sujet de l’intention, comment être plus présent les uns pour les autres. Les quatre membres, Julia Shapiro (chant, guitare, batterie), Lydia Lund (chant, guitare), Gretchen Grimm (batterie, chant, guitare) et Annie Truscott (basse), ont neuf ans d’expérience dans ce domaine après tout. Il semble que maintenant, plus que jamais, les membres du groupe évoluent dans cet espace, un lieu à l’intérieur duquel elles peuvent être elles-mêmes et entre elles. C’est un espace où l’euphorie de faire de la musique avec ses meilleures amies est protégée des attentes du monde extérieur. Leur quatrième disque, Chastity Belt, sort de ce cocon. Ce nouvel album éponyme est le travail d’un groupe qui joue des « vieilles chansons en essayant de nouvelles choses « , comme ajouter des harmonies plus dynamiques et du violon, dit la bassiste Annie Truscott. Lydia, Gretchen et Julia partagent toutes les voix sur les différents titres de l’album. Le résultat est Chastity Belt, leur disque le plus développé et le plus nuancé sur le plan sonore à ce jour.
English
A few years ago, while in a tour van somewhere in Idaho, the members of Chastity Belt—Julia Shapiro, Gretchen Grimm, Lydia Lund, and Annie Truscott—opted to pass the time in a relatively unusual fashion: They collectively paid one another compliments, in great and thoughtful detail. This is what we like best about you, this is why we love you.
I think of that image all the time, the four of them opening themselves up like that, by choice. It’s hard to imagine other bands doing the same.
I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone, their third and finest full-length to date, was recorded live in July of 2016, with producer Matthew Simms (Wire) at Jackpot! in Portland, Oregon (birthplace of some of their favorite Elliott Smith records.) It’s a dark and uncommonly beautiful set of moody post-punk that finds the Seattle outfit’s feelings in full view, unobscured by humor. There is no irony in its title: Before she had Chastity Belt, and the close relationships that she does now, Shapiro considered herself a career loner. That’s no small gesture. I can make as much sense of this music as I can my 20s: This is a brave and often exhilarating tangle of mixed feelings and haunting melodies that connects dizzying anguish (“This Time of Night”) to shimmering insight (“Different Now”) to gauzy ambiguity (“Stuck,” written and sung by Grimm). It’s a serious record but not a serious departure, defined best, perhaps, by a line that Shapiro shares early on its staggering title track: “I wanna be sincere.”
When asked, their only request was that what you’re reading right now be brief, honest, free of hyperbole, and “v chill.” When pressed for more, Truscott said, “Just say that we love each other. Because we do.
This is who they are, this is why I love them.