Originally posted at FUTURE SOUNDS on May 4, 2009 
Our boy, GANGI, kicks off his May Spaceland residency tonight in Silverlake with a cast of supporters that are as diverse as his album, “A”, truly is. It’s finally coming out on White Noise Vinyl and there are some great tracks like “Commonplace Feathers” (mp3) Down from Seattle is HEAD LIKE A KITE – incredible music! LA Record and KXLU presents GANGI Monday Night Residency w/ Head Like a Kite, Daddy Kev, Blank Blue @ Spaceland (FREE)
PRESS …
Live Music Options 5/4/09-5/10/09
Originally posted at You Set the Scene on May 4, 2009:
[Pick of the Night] Gangi / Head Like a Kite / Blank Blue / Daddy Kev @ Spaceland (Free) – Very strong lineup for the first night of the Gangi residency. Head Like a Kite’s a Mush records band from Seattle that mixes live instrumentation with liberal use of electronic elements. Last time I saw Blank Blue at Spaceland (during Le Switch’s residency) the power blew out. They’re a strong local band featuring Nobody and Niki Randa. Daddy Kev’s one of LA’s more respected underground hip-hop producers.
Gangi Stretches out With its Sample-heavy Electro-folk
Originally posted at BuzzBands.LA on May 4, 2009:
Matt Gangi and Lyle Nesse — the men behind the machines in the L.A. duo Gangi— imagine their music as cinema, in hi-def on a widescreen. “We were talking to a producer and Matt told him, ‘I really want it to sound like an industrial silo in the middle of an open field,’” Nesse says. “The guy didn’t know what to think. Suffice to say it didn’t work out with that producer.”
So Gangi and Nesse, who relocated to L.A. from New York last year, are doing it themselves. Their 2008 debut, “A,” was made in Gangi’s probably unsafe Brooklyn apartment — “There were mushrooms growing out of the ceiling,” he says — and the follow-up, tentatively titled “Gun Show,” is being shaped in late-night sessions in a possibly spooky Pasadena studio where the duo is rehearsing its sets for this month’s Monday night residency at Spaceland.
No matter the setting, weirder is better for Gangi’s music, psychedelic-leaning folk that would remind you of Mercury Rev were it not for collage of electronic beats and samples that course through the songs like frayed nerves. The aesthetic reflects the disparate sensibilities of Gangi and Nesse — the former tethered to “old-timey folk records and classic rock” and the latter to hip-hop and electronica — as well as their common ground as film students at NYU.
(Nesse’s major at NYU: “Music Is the Weapon.” No kidding.)
Gangi, who grew up in Glendale, drew inspiration from hanging out with writersand avant-garde poets in NYC’s underground literature scene. “I was just writing folk songs, but after a while I realized I was inundated by technology — it has to be part of the music,” he says of his music’s duality. “We’re surrounded by natural environments and industrial complexes.”
Nesse, a Maryland native, originally partnered with Gangi because the songwriter needed a way to play “A” live. Their two-man set-up, an intricate arrangement of guitar, drums, keyboards and sequencers/samplers, uses live looping to fashion Gangi’s sonic textures. It’s a work in progress — Nesse says the Spaceland residency will feature “some new songs and old songs approached in new ways.”
Their new material “is a little more rock ‘n’ roll,” Gangi says, but is still the work of gleeful cratediggers who can build songs around snippets of melody or beats. “A lot of the sounds we’re still shaping and crafting in here,” he says.
Those sounds are likely to find a lot of open ears in L.A., where Gangi and Nesse decided to station themselves (and engage in some guerilla marketing, as their old-school postering around Eastside environs testifies) after playing the Manimal Festival last year. “New York was getting dark for me in a lot of ways; here there are so many different places you can go, so many different places you can play,” Nesse says — although, both admit, they miss the frankness of NYC audiences. “Here people will always tell you ‘Good show, good show,’” Gangi says. “In New York, you’re more likely to hear what people really think.”
||| Download (previously posted): “Commonplace Feathers” and “Animals”
||| Live: Gangi performs every Monday this month at Spaceland
GANGI: A LOVE SUPREME ON VINYL
Originally posted at LA Record on May 3, 2009:
Gangi is the eclectic musical duo of Matt Gangi and Lyle Nesse. Originally from Brooklyn, where Matt wrote and recorded the first album A, they moved to L.A. to get some sun and space and accidentially encounter Mandy Moore. They will be playing a Monday night residency at Spaceland for the month of May. This interview by Steven Martinez.
You guys have a pretty complicated set up for playing your music live which involves a lot of multitasking by both of you. Do you think this adds something to your performances or do you just have something against adding more band members?
Matt Gangi (vocals, guitar): We’re into the spontaneity that our looping stations bring and the time collage that samplers add, but I have also been thinking about experimenting by adding a bass player after the Spaceland residency.
Lyle Nesse (drums, loops): People often ask how we’re able to make so much sound as just a duo. I think the fact that there’s just two of us making the sounds of several people is one of the things that sets us apart from other bands.
Much has been made of the eclectic mix of sounds in your music and it seems to be a large part of your band identity, but could you ever write a simple song? Is that something that interests you?
MG: That is a large part of our band identity—if you say so—but most of the songs start out much more minimally, with a melody.
LN: Both minimal and complex arrangements interest me. We’ve been experimenting with all kinds of different arrangements for the new songs.
Many journalists have tried to define your particular musical stylings. What would you call it?
MG: ‘Musical styling’ sounds pretty good.
LN: Maybe it’s best to let other people try.
Lyle, you said in an interview that Gangi’s first album was all Matt’s work and you downplayed your own contribution to it. Will you have a stronger presence or influence on the next record?
LN: Matt recorded A alone in his apartment in Brooklyn, so it’s strange that some writers have credited me as the producer of that record! We were friends during the time that Matt was writing and recording those songs and he came over to my place often to play me sketches. Over the course of a few months in Brooklyn, I listened as the recordings progressed from sounding like underwater field recordings to the songs you hear on that record. The live interpretation of those songs has been a collaboration and it continues to evolve. On our new recordings, I am programming electronics and playing drums. Matt is writing the songs, singing and playing the melodic instruments. We are arranging and producing the music together and I have learned a lot in the studio from Matt, as he produced the first record alone.
The move from New York to LA is one that is usually met with strong prejudices from both sides—is it really that much of a culture shock relocating from coast to coast? Aren’t the two at least a little similar?
MG: I grew up in Glendale, so it was an easy move back home. Brooklyn definitely has an energy that I miss, but the taco trucks in L.A. more than make up for that.
LN: I can’t believe how people drive their cars here in L.A. It gets scary out there but the constant sunshine helps.
How has the move to L.A. influenced your sound, if at all?
MG: As there is more space in L.A. than in New York, Lyle is able to play live drums here when we rehearse. One of the many reasons I got into programming and electronics was because it was hard to find a comfortable place to play electric instruments or live drums in New York. L.A. has made the sound more rock and roll. We’ve been working for the past week at Pasadena recording studio, recording a demo of the first track on the second album—’Gun Show.’ The space is beautiful and we have been running sounds through warm analogue gear, which is far from the tiny Brooklyn apartment where I recorded A on a computer. Also Mandy Moore has been practicing in the next room.
LN: Just having a safe place where we can be creative during the late night hours has been really huge for us. Our friend Alan who owns that studio in Pasadena has helped make that possible. And yeah, Mandy Moore’s band is super hip.
If you ever get tired of living in L.A. where would you like to move next and why?
MG: I really love Atlanta. Every time we’ve toured through that town, all the sidewalks and streets were stained from the red clay in the city and the food is really good there.
LN: Matt has a thing for the South. Every time we tour through those southern parts he wants to stay in Georgia and the Carolinas for a few extra days just to hang out, take some banjo lessons and eat some soul food. I am from Maryland and sometimes miss my home state.
I read that you two met while in Prague when a mutual interest in absinthe brought you together. What were you doing in Prague and at what point did the subject of music come up?
MG: I was going to film school in Prague, making a short and digging on Jan Svankmajer’s films.
LN: I was bumming around with a backpack when I met Matt, but it wasn’t until we later reconnected in Brooklyn that we talked about music.
Appearing on Spin’s Best of CMJ 2008 list must have increased the visibility of your band. How has this affected you most directly?
MG: It is amazing how many people read Spin. We sold out Spaceland when we got back from CMJ, which awarded us our residency there.
LN: My old man was pretty happy to see that. At the beginning it was always more underground blogs and ‘zines that wrote us up, so he called me up when he saw that and said, ‘Even I know Spin magazine.’
You guys seem to enjoy a variety of choice in your musical tastes both on and off stage but if you were forced to choose one album to listen to for the rest of your life, what would it be?
MG: A collected album library of zipped up albums.
LN: John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. On vinyl.
You said that making art that makes people think is important to you. What do you want people to think when they hear your music?
MG: It’s up to you. What do you think?
GANGI WITH HEAD LIKE A KITE, DADDY KEV AND BLANK BLUE ON MON., MAY 4, AT SPACELAND, 1717 SILVERLAKE BLVD., SILVERLAKE. 8:30PM / FREE / 21+.CLUBSPACELAND.COM. GANGI’S A RELEASES ON VINYL THIS MONTH ON WHITE NOISE. VISIT GANGI ATMYSPACE.COM/GANGIMUSIC.
Gangi’s Commonplace Feathers
Originally posted at Karaoke Fever on April 6, 2009:
Gangi came to LA and put their stickers everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Their album comes out in May on White Noise.
These photos are from the Perfect As Cats tribute night put on by Manimal Vinyl when the label put out their The Cure tribute album.
Rachel Kolar (He’s My Brother, She’s My Sister) added vocals to “fire in cairo”
The Music Minute
Originally posted at Orange Alert on March 29, 2009:
Gangi is a band that splits time between LA and Brooklyn, and I will admit they are a band that I have slept on a little bit. Their debut album, A, was released last year and it combines 60’s and 70’s garage and psychedelic rock, the sampling culture and beat heavy elements of electronic genres, and the lyrical style and sensibility of American folk music. It is completely enjoyable and raucous and extremely enjoyable.
Listen to: Commonplace Feathers (mp3)
Commonplace Feathers
Originally posted at Winter Academy (Greece) on March 10, 2009:
Οι Gangi είναι ένα ντουέτο από multi-instrumentalists από το Los Angeles. Πολλά μπορεί να πει κανείς για τις επιρροές τους και για τον ήχο τους, και μάλλον θα ξεκινήσει από την ψυχεδέλεια για να καταλήξει στην electronica. Κάπου στη μέση, πρέπει όμως οπωσδήποτε να γίνει μια στάση και μια αναφορά στην υπέροχη και εντελώς ιδιαίτερη φωνή του τραγουδιστή τους Matt Gangi.. Η καταπληκτική μελωδία του commonplace feathers βρίσκεται στο περσινό ντεμπούτο των Gangi, το οποίο λέγεται απλά ‘Α’. “Leave it alone, I don’t take it seriously” λένε στο ρεφρέν, και φυσικά, μην το πάρετε στα σοβαρά..
Gangi are a Los Angeles duo, whose debut ‘A’ was released last year. As Matt Gangi’s dream-like vocals, guitar playing, and melodies meet Lyle Nesse’s electronic samples and intense, tribal drumming, a rich, layered, and new-textural sound is achieved..
SXSW 2009 Sampler #1
Originally posted at Speed of Dark on February 28, 2009:
Matt Gangi wrote, recorded and produced the debut album A but has now been joined by Lyle Nesse to perform the compositions, which seem equally inspired by psychedelia and garage rock but fascinatingly different from both. Each song I’ve heard has its own character. Gangi will also be at the Beauty Bar on March 17, and they’ll be setting up residency at Spaceland in L.A. in May. I have to plan on catching one of those shows just to find out which one is which.
Gangi from A (2008):
Animals
Commonplace Feathers
MySpace | Label: Office of Analogue and Digital
Buy at Gangi’s MySpace page, iTunes, and eMusic
Sunday Soundtracking: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Trail of Dead, More
Originally printed in and posted at Wired.com on February 22, 2009:
Who: Gangi
What: “Animals”
Where: A, out April 2008 (Office of Analogue and Digital)
Sounds like: Devendra Banhart, Syd Barrett
Spiel: Guitarist and vocalist Matt Gangi had a thing for ’60s and ’70s garage psychedelia, so he did what any 21st-century artist would do: Create an entire album in his bedroom on his computer. Later he hooked up with sample-happy drummer Lyle Nesse, and started to gain accelerated acclaim from CMJ,Spin and more. Now that 2009 is here, it’s getting harder for him to sneak up on anyone. Check out his forthcoming residency in May at Los Angeles’ Spaceland for a live example of his catchy, freaky tech-folk if you live on the West Coast. The rest of you can stream “Animals” or Gangi’s other strange tracks on MySpace.
GANGI to Perform at Apple Store in Glendale Saturday
Originally posted at Mickie’s Zoo on February 20, 2009:
APPLE STORE AT GLENDALE GALLERIA PRESENTS LIVE FREE CONCERT: GANGI
WHAT: LIVE at the Glendale Galleria Apple Store is GANGI. Inspired by a vast plethora of sources, GANGI’s music is derived from 60s and 70s garage and psychedelic rock, the sampling culture and beat heavy elements of electronic genres and the lyrical style and sensibility of American folk music.
GANGI, the Los Angeles based duo, will perform songs from their most recent album, A. Acting as DJs playing off of each other, the duo creates an entirely unique dialogue. As Matt Gangi’s dream-like vocals, guitar playing and melodies meet Lyle Nesse’s electronic samples and intense tribal drumming, a rich, layered and new textural sound is achieved.
WHEN: Saturday, February 21 at 7pm
WHERE: Apple store – second level
Glendale Galleria
Glendale, CA