FEATURE:
Spotlight
through 2019. I think the market is still dominated by solo acts, yet there are groups out there who are showing enormous promise. BODEGA are not shiny-new, but they have really come to the fore this year. Not long after releasing their mini-album, E.P., Shiny New Model, in October through the What's Your Rupture? label, 2020 looks set to be a pretty busy one for the New York crew. Whereas one can predict bands and compare them to others, BODEGA are a little harder to pin and define. They mix talk-singing/spoken sections with confident and visual-rich lyrics that are witty as they are intelligent. I must admit that I only became aware of BODEGA this year. They have been playing for a little while now, but 2019 has seen them promulgated by a load of radio stations and websites. I want to bring in a feature from last year where NME spotlighted the band:
“There’s a duality to most things BODEGA do. Completed by guitarist Madison Velding-VanDam, bassist Heather Elle and drummer Montana Simona, its nevertheless Hozie and Belfiglio who spearhead the project, sharing primary songwriting duties, and engaging in on-stage vocal sparring, as they yelp their sardonic, sing-shouted missives on pop culture atop each other.
Even off-stage, that sparring continues, the pair occasionally vocally (but always politely) disagreeing with each other. Nikki claims the band’s formation, borne out of the dissolution of several other New York City acts, was “very organic” – Ben doesn’t totally agree with that wording. “It sounds organic, but you know, it was a long time coming,” he says, assuredly. “Many of us had been in lots of bands, and projects, and we knew exactly what we wanted when we came together this time.”
Montana agrees: “Actually, a lot of it wasn’t serendipity, but our mutual love of art.” They all come from a “visual world”, she says”.
With songs like Shiny New Model and Knife on the Platter out this year, the band have reached new audiences and heights. I look forward to seeing where they are headed next year. It has been a very busy last year or so. It has been a while since we have heard anyone quite like BODEGA – if at all -, so it is understandable they have aroused curiosity and loyalty. Before looking at the present, I want to source from another feature from 2018. It outlines how BODEGA started and what sets them apart (I also want to talk about their 2018 work):
“Have you ever read the book Pretentiousness: Why It Matters?” questions Ben Hozie – one half of Brooklyn art-rock quintet Bodega’s central songwriting duo. “It’s about how the etymology of the word ‘pretence’ is to try on something that’s greater than what you are. So if you come on stage with a pretence then it just means you’re trying to be smarter and more interesting, which I think is a virtue. More bands should have pretence because then they might say what they actually think rather than just ‘rocking out’ or whatever the standard garage model is for bands. It’s outdated. It doesn’t work anymore.”
Beginning life in 2016 as the logical next step after former outfit Bodega Bay ran its natural course, leaving behind a mammoth 55-track album in the rock culture commentary of ‘Our Brand Could Be Your Life’, Bodega (completed by co-vocalist and songwriter Nikki Belfiglio, guitarist Madison Velding-VanDam, bassist Heather Elle and drummer Montana Simone) enter the scene as a band that audibly stand apart from the “standard garage model”. Debut single ‘How Did This Happen!?’ - a wired, propulsive missive on “the guilt of the cultural consumer” that sonically references Parquet Courts’ eloquent punk and James Murphy’s self-aware speak-sing monologues in one stupidly exciting swoop – crash-landed back in February in a whirl of pop culture kiss offs (“This machine you know it don’t kill fascists”) and invigorated demands to self-question. It’s just the tip of Bodega’s dense and intriguing iceberg, though. If their musings on pretence have a notable translation here, it’s in the band’s obvious desire to reach and strive for more: be that in the messages they’re packing or merely in the multi-faceted, smart way they present them”.
Whilst BODEGA were creating a buzz in the U.S. prior to Endless Scroll’s release last year, many of us here did not know about them until the album came out. Endless Scroll was lauded for its humour and cleverness. The album is quite sparse and minimal, yet there is much to recommend. It is no wonder reviewers in the U.K. were struck by this new sensation. This is The Guardian’s take on Endless Scroll:
“Like an LCD Soundsystem that never went clubbing, or a Parquet Courts whose eyebrows arch vertiginously high, this debut finds Bodega veering between satire and indignation. “This machine you know it don’t kill fascists,” sings Ben Hozie on How Did This Happen?! “This machine you know is just a guitar.”
The band’s other singer, Nikki Belfiglio, provides gum-snapping backing vocals and takes the lead on Gyrate, a riot grrrl-ish ramalama about female masturbation. Few songs exceed the three-minute mark, and throughout, the band pepper the gaps between songs with digital-era apercus on computer-voice simulators, such as: “I use my computer for everything. Heaven knows I’m miserable now.” You could quote them all day. “Have I heard the latest single by so-and-so?” sneers Hozie on Name Escape, about that guy whose name you can’t remember, and information overload. “No I have not my son, and I don’t wanna know”.
It is that quotability and freshness that makes BODEGA interesting. Rather than rely on cliché and conform to expectation, they put their own personalities into the blender. This sense of the intrepid and extraordinary continued into this year’s Shiny New Model.
This seven-track release came out a couple of months ago and received a lot of positive reviews. There were few radical changes between their 2018 work and Shiny New Model. The songs are stronger and there are differences here and there; it is a case of ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’. Paste Magazine were eager to lend their thoughts to Shiny New Model:
“They open up with a snide joke: “People ask me, ”’Ben, what’s the deal with all these ATMs?’ / Well, have I not been thorough or clear or concise enough?,” a line that references their stage setup, their former band Bodega Bay’s album artwork for OUR BRAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE and the earrings that Belfiglio commonly wears around Brooklyn. Hell, about halfway through the extended version of “Truth is Not Punishment,” (a version of the Endless Scroll album closer that reflects the improvised and lengthy way they perform it live, available only on physical copies of the EP), Hozie starts laughing when speak-singing about trying to take off a seatbelt. Though only a few of the seven punchy tracks on Shiny New Model are as punishing as anything on Endless Scroll, it seems like the Bushwick, Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens band is having more fun than ever.
Beginning with “Shiny New Model,” an ode to their corner store namesakes and the overcharging ATMs, BODEGA take a lot of the edge off via their newfound shimmering guitar tones and less forceful basslines, giving off more of a vibe of friends jamming in a rehearsal space with no stakes. Describing the space “In the aisle by the cleaning supplies / In the corner by the stale crackers” by “All the bottles and the stale Pringles / All the six packs and the paper towels,” a pretty distinct setting for any New Yorker, the backing instrumentals recall the indie college rock of bands like Dinosaur Jr. or even Yuck.
While the song does still explore the capitalistic idea of forced obsolescence (“You can increase up your service charge, but you’re competing with a shiny new model,” “Pray it will save you from a data dictator”), the title track feels lighter than anything BODEGA has put out before with the exception of the introspective “Charlie” off of Endless Scroll.
“Treasures of the Ancient World” sees Hozie lose the monotone vocals and sing a bit more, while the sub-minute “Realism,” a song about printing copies of nude photos of an ex just to tear them up, is a mid-tempo indie rock jam that ends before it reaches a chorus. Belfiglio takes center stage on “Domesticated Animal,” but unlike her lead vocal tracks on Endless Scroll (“Gyrate” and “Margot”), the song is based around a simple, bouncy processed beat, a far cry from the wiry and upbeat tracks that tear the house down when played live”.
It has been a busy and successful ride for BODEGA so far. You can keep a track of their tour dates, and I am sure there will be more material next year -though don’t quote me on this. I think they have a lot more to offer next year and will be included on many people’s ‘ones to watch’ lists. I am going to conclude soon but, just prior to that, I wanted to introduce a recent interview Ben from the band gave.
PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin W Condon
There have not been many interviews from the band in 2019, but Ben was quizzed by Underscore Part 3 ahead of the band’s U.K. tour:
“You’ve described BODEGA as a project and have spoken in multiple interviews of ‘rules’, what were some of those rules or things you wanted to bring from previous projects into BODEGA? And will or have any of the rules changed as the band has evolved?
‘We don’t even speak about ‘rules’ anymore because the five of us have internalized them so deeply.’
The stand-up drums, for example, was something me and Nikki carried over from our last band BODEGA BAY. Much of our approach to songwriting came from that band too (extremely short songs that function like little open ended mini-essays). Our initial BODEGA rules were designed to highlight the best aspects of that old band while streamlining our sound and designing something that was more direct and exciting. We don’t even speak about ‘rules’ anymore because the five of us have internalized them so deeply. Our bodies know them now.
You term yourselves as Art Rock, what does this mean to you and will we be seeing any releases that step further than the ‘normal’ song/single/album route?
All rock and roll is ‘art rock’ really (all bands have some unifying ‘concept’) but I really appreciate the term and it is almost always applied to bands I admire: from Pink Floyd to the Residents or Wire. [Art ock] is vague enough to encompass many musical styles but also strongly suggests the conceptual (and visual) nature of our band. I despise the terms ‘post punk’ or ‘indie rock’ as they seem to hint at a certain kind of revivalist state-of-mind. Of course we draw on the past but we aim to combine concepts/ideas in order to update the rock vocabulary. We may experiment with release formats in the future but for now I still create with the LP in mind. I prefer the emotional and intellectual experience of complete simple works (a film, novel, or LP) than more episodic things”.
I am not sure whether I have done full justice to BODEGA, but one can follow them on social media and keep abreast of all the developments in their camp. It is always hard to gauge how long an act will be around and whether they will continue to make music for many years. I have every confidence BODEGA will be…
AROUND for a long time yet.
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