BRAIDS - Troubadour w/ Baths, Los Angeles March 10, 2011

March 10 -- TROUBADOUR w/ Baths, Star Slinger Los Angeles, CA - 7:00 PM

March 11 -- DETROIT BAR w/ Asobi Seksu Costa Mesa, CA - 7:00 PM

March 12 -- CASBAH w/ Asobi Seksu San Diego, CA - 7:00 PM

Who: This Montreal via Calgary quartet, formerly known as the Neighbourhood Council, crafts a dreamy sound they call "texture pop."

Why they matter: Their full-length, Native Speaker, out now, is beyond typical genre classification. It's poppy, yet many songs surpass the eight-minute mark. It's full of urgent rock guitars and drums, yet rife with atmospherics and electronic swells, too. It's Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion with the velocity and wall-of-haziness of My Bloody Valentine.

SPIN Music Editor Charles Aaron says: "Prevailing innovations cast an unavoidable shadow over younger rock bands, and in the latter half of the 2000s, the most kaleidoscopic (and polarizing) shadow was cast by the freaky campfire kabuki and loopy rhythmic chorales of Animal Collective. At first, especially live, Braids can seem like blindly rigorous grad students in Animal Collectivism, down to the keyboard twinkles and artful samples and chanting Panda Bear vocals. But gradually the sneaky-intense interplay of frontwomen Raphaelle Standell-Preston (a wryly effusive guitarist) and Katie Lee (who manipulates moods on keyboards and various electronics) becomes undeniable and mesmerizing. The lyrics have a surprisingly brusque physicality (like a less tortured Throwing Muses), and the songs feel gutsier and more distinctive the more you listen."

Official Website: http://www.myspace.com/events/View/8729541/BRAIDS/TROUBADOUR-w-Baths-Star-Slinger