Wierd Records and the Wierd Weekly Party

Wierd Records is proud to celebrate the 5 year anniversary of the Wierd weekly DJ and live music party at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on November 21st, 2008. One of the longest running weekly music parties in New York City, the Wierd Party was established in 2003 by artist and DJ Pieter Schoolwerth and has long been NYC's premier showcase for artists and DJs working within the Cold Wave, Minimal Synth, and Experimental Electronic/Industrial Noise genres of alternative pop and dance music. The party began as a small group of friends spinning records weekly at the Southside Lounge in Williamsburg, Brooklyn who in 2004 began staging larger, roaming monthly live music events in lofts and warehouses nearby. By the end of 2006 the party had outgrown its Brooklyn home and relocated to Home Sweet Home on Chrystie St. in Manhattan where it is held every Wednesday evening to this day. In addition, with the move to Manhattan Pieter expanded the party into a record label - Wierd Records, which has released music by many of the bands who have DJed and performed live at the party, four of whom will be performing at the Music Hall event: Blacklist, Xeno and Oaklander, Led er Est, and Opus Finis. Apart from the over 300 parties and live music events and over 100 released trax of frozen cold music Wierd has produced, on this special occasion the Wierd is celebrating more than anything the continuing existence of this tightly-knit underground community of artists, musicians, and DJs that is such a vital part of the energy of both latenight downtown New York City and the outermost recesses of Brooklyn, and truly very rare in this day and age.

PRESS

LA TIMES
Wierd Compilation II release party

ART FORUM
Top 10

VICE
Wierd Records playlist feature
Matrial Canterel review

THE BIG TAKEOVER
Wierd Compilation I review
Wierd Compilation II review
Martial Canterel review

DUSTED MAGAZINE
Wierd Compilation I review

OTHER MUSIC
Xeno & Oaklander review
Wierd Compilation II review
Martial Canterel & Blacklist reviews

BLACKLIST (NY) 12:30AM

In late 2004, the future members of Blacklist were disenchanted. Living in the supposed capital of bohemian pleasure, they watched in disgust as independent music became an orgy of similarity, lawmakers banned smoking in bars, and the Republican National Convention came triumphantly to midtown. Fashion set the rules for the art world and philosophy had become little more than a cynical slacker's hobby. It was in this atmosphere that Blacklist was born. Inspired by groups such as The Comsat Angels, The Manic Street Preachers, Suede, The Sound, and For Against, their icy cold, razor blade guitar driven sound is simultaneously celebratory and melancholic, replacing the hysterical protest song of the 20th century with anthems for a new generation weaned on amusement and starved for confrontation. In today's world of faith-based violence, global disjunctures, and volatile identity politics, they create the soundtrack to an explosive resistance. The snide refusal of nihilism makes a loud and heavy romantic sound. Their debut full-length, Midnight Of The Century, will be released early 2009, mixed by Ed Buller (Suede, Pulp, Slowdive) and mastered by Howie Weinberg (Jeff Buckley, Iron Maiden, Danzig, Public Enemy, Nirvana, Muse, Slayer).

XENO & OAKLANDER (NY) 11:30PM

Miss Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride, aka Xeno and Oaklander, began performing at bars, clubs and private parties in 2004, functioning along with Sean's solo project Martial Canterel as the instigators of what has now become a new movement of minimal electronic bands in the United States. Inspired by the likes of the largely unknown first wave of European minimal electronic bands of the early 80's (Absolute Body Control, Twilight Ritual, Snowy Red), the seminal early industrial noise bands (Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Cabaret Voltaire), as well as the emphemeral, psychedelic atmospheres of the British Shoegaze bands of the 1990s (My Bloody Valentine, Lush, Slowdive), Xeno and Oaklander perform using entirely analogue synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines to produce a highly-crafted, complex of form of electronic music that is simultaneously romantically melancholic and affirmatively aggresive. Their entirely live approach to both performance and recording, unmediated by the computer or any pre-recorded playback interference, presents a new optimistic paradigm for electronic music in which the analogue synthesizer functions anew as a folk instrument of humanist resistance to a 'soft synth' world being 'clicked and dragged' into oblivion. Xeno and Oaklander's debut LP will be released by Wierd Records in the spring of 2009.

LED ER EST (NY) 10:30PM

Drawing from such disparate sources as German electronic music of the 1960s and 70s, early Italo Disco, and classic EBM and industrial dance music the Brooklyn-based trio of Led er Est create uptempo pop songs which merge the swirling wavy textures of experimental processed guitar noise with the stripped-down minimal electronics of early synthetic dance music. An active part of the Wierd family as regular DJs at the weekly party, Led er Est have garnered a strong cult following in both the experimental electronic, minimal synth, house, and disco scenes in Brooklyn and lower Manattan. Their debut LP will be released by Wierd Records in the spring of 2009.

OPUS FINIS (FL) 9:30PM

Opus Finis summon the hot and dirty post-coital Miami sun to create a dark, raw, and incredibly aggressive form of uptempo idiosyncratic electronic music. Performing on entirely homemade and modified analogue gear, the duo produce a menacingly nihilistic, sinister sound combining the direct, confrontational energy of classic British Industrial and Power Electronics with the infectious, uptempo rhythmic structures of the early EBM and Wax Trax Chicago-era Industrial dance groups. This occasion will serve as the official release party for the band's self-released debut LP entitled 'Pursue the Tragic Tune' which be available here for the first time!