The Bollard Bulletin: December 9, 2024
Local Music Monday: Ashley Ninelives' fantastic "Cheshire Days"
LOCAL MUSIC MONDAY
A month or so before our fearful and repressive government banned TikTok, the app served me a Kraftwerk video between the usual footage of ambulances being shot up in Gaza, old Chomsky clips, recipes I’ll never make, cat comedy and sports highlights. “On July 11, 1970, Kraftwerk performed for the first time at the Atchen festival,” the clip’s caption reads. “These people are reacting to live electronic music for the first time.”
It’s an entertaining artifact of modern anthropology. As the trio whips out their disjointed psychedelic robot proto-disco, many in the crowd are dumbfounded and a few are clearly annoyed, but the rest — most of whom are sitting crosslegged — begin exuberantly clapping along in a distinctly child- or chimp-like fashion. We’re watching musical culture evolve before our eyes.
Funny, but maybe TikTok has trespassed inside the psyche of Americans, because I’d been thinking of such a scene just the day before while listening to Ashley Ninelives’ stunning new album, Cheshire Days. Vis-à-vis this music, I feel like the primate frantically fusing new synapses in an attempt to understand and appreciate what’s going on. But I do know this: Cheshire Days is a brilliant and thrilling work of art on the cutting edge of its time.
Recorded by the artist in Auburn, Cape Elizabeth and a few other locales between the summer of 2020 and last November, the 10 perfectly sequenced tracks here lead the close listener on a delightfully bewildering sonic journey as Ninelives toggles unpredictably between the dance floor, outer space and the insides of computers, synths, drum machines and other electronics. After discovering and writing about their 2019 debut, Eagle Creek, this summer, I’d been wondering which Ninelives we’d get on this release: the dance-pop-friendly version heard on the 2020 single “byproducts” or the less accessible glitch-pop stuff, like singles “kittycat heartthrob” and “card,” that maybe should carry a warning for those prone to seizures.
Turns out we get all that and more on Cheshire Days. “card” and “kittycat” are both on here, but the latter is placed last, like a more difficult extra-credit exercise, and “card” makes me less itchy every time I hear it and catch a minutely crafted section that flew by me the first few times, like its sick hip-hop scratchy outro. “cheshire,” another single that initially left me scratching my head, kicks off Days and has won me over by virtue of its undeniable genius — the density, depth and speed of the musical ideas presented here will floor you.
And don’t worry, there’s plenty of pop, most unashamedly on display on the infectious “edge of time,” but even more interestingly mixed with the weirder approach on the R&B bender “poppers,” the smooth-ish funk of “inbox” (featuring backing vocals by scuttlefuzz) and “brighter day,” a hard-pulsing club track with an acid bass line credited to emberlynn bland. Other than those contributions, Ninelives has meticulously created everything you hear. “I just wanna be myself for you,” they sing on “brighter day” — shortly before what sounds like a shootout inside Tron breaks out.
“It’s incredible,” Ninelives intones through effects on “cheshire,” “the things you find out for yourself / I used to be an animal but I am turning into something else.”
Yes, you sure are, and this is incredible. Thank you for taking us along with you.
Music
Flask Lounge
“Monday of the Minds” CommUNITY Hip Hop Showcase
8 p.m., no cover (21+)
Hi-Fidelity
Open mic feat. Terry Swett (original music)
7 p.m., no cover (21+)
State Theatre
Juvenile and the 400 Degreez Band, Mannie Fresh (hip hop)
8 p.m., $45 (all ages)
Three Dollar Deweys
Justin Carver
6 p.m., no cover (all ages)
club guide
Performing Arts
Stories Told Live local tale-tellers showcase at Blue Portland Maine (650 Congress St., Portland) at 7 p.m. Tix: $15-$20 (21+). 774-4111. blueportlandmaine.org.
Holiday-themed poetry and prose open mic at Sacred Profane (28 Resurgam Place, Portland) at 7 p.m. Free (all ages). 298-3307. sacredprofane.com.