Presented by Radio K
Thursday, September 12 & Friday, September 13, 2024
6:30 pm Doors // 7:30 pm Music
All Ages
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$35 (+taxes/fees) Preferred Reserved Seating
$30 (+taxes/fees) Advance General Admission // $35 (+taxes/fees) At The Door
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Acclaimed Canadian musician Andy Shauf comes to Minneapolis for two nights in support of his eighth album, Norm, out now on ANTI-. Special guest Hayden Pedigo opens both nights.
Hailed as “a gifted storyteller” (NPR Music) with “killer lyrics in music of extraordinary beauty” (The Sunday Times) for 2016’s The Party and the night-at-a-bar drama of 2020’s The Neon Skyline, which Pitchfork called “a wistful, funny, and heartbreaking world,” Andy Shauf writes albums that unfold like short fiction, full of colorful characters, fine details and a rich emotional depth.
With Norm, Shauf has slyly deconstructed and reshaped the style for which he’s been celebrated, elevating his songwriting with intricate layers and perspectives, challenging himself to find a new direction. Under the guise of an intoxicating collection of jazz-inflected romantic ballads, his storytelling has become decidedly more oblique, hinting at ominous situations and dark motivations.
After gaining indie notoriety with The Party and a Polaris Music Prize nomination, performances on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and CBS This Morning: Saturday, and praise from the likes of Pitchfork, Esquire, NPR Music, Stereogum, The Atlantic and beyond for The Neon Skyline, acclaimed Canadian musician Andy Shauf has left the realm of things he’s known on his third album, Norm, pivoting away from the semi-autobiographical, and pushing himself to grow as a songwriter in an entirely different way.
With Norm, he recreated his idea of a concept album, and also made it about faith and fatalism. But Shauf has realized he doesn't need to moralize. He's assigned that task to us, the listeners. At once narrators and investigators, we fill in the blanks.
He sequestered himself in his garage studio, self-producing and playing every instrument on Norm, a collection of more conventional songs written predominantly on guitar, piano and synths. The latter was essential to creating the more spacious and tactile sounds he sought. Shauf’s goals were uncomplicated: create something melody-driven rather than chord-driven, and make it modern. Shauf recruited Neal Pogue (Tyler, the Creator, Janelle Monae, Outkast), a prodigious shaper of genre-and-time-defying tracks, to mix the album, further building on the gently levitating, synth-laden atmospherics.
During this period, he was captivated by David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, which seemed to validate Shauf’s instinct to mix perspectives and tinker with shadowy narratives. He even rewrote all of the album’s original lyrics, recreating the story, and enlisting Nicholas Olson as a story editor – it was only after writing the title track that Shauf decided to build a narrative around the character Norm. "The character of Norm is introduced in a really nice way," Shauf says of the pleasant songs that precede the album's centerpiece. "But the closer you pay attention to the record, the more you're going to realize that it's sinister."
Hayden Pedigo is an acclaimed acoustic guitarist and soundscape composer from Amarillo, TX, whose work is informed and inspired by his upbringing and residence in the Panhandle of Texas. His recently released sixth studio album, The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored (Mexican Summer), is cinema for the ears; its script written in steel-string, its starring director a 28-year-old performance artist, politician, model, and fingerstyling maestro whose talent is as irrepressible as it is undeniable.
“Hayden Pedigo's new record is the cure; a warm, meditative salve which will wash over you and heal all wounds." - Tim Heidecker
“We’re lucky that Hayden Pedigo stumbled upon the footsteps of John Fahey and followed them into the deep wordless wood. I cannot wait to hear all that he discovers there.” - Gillian Welch
“Hayden Pedigo's acoustic guitar sound is intimate and authentic – it's rooted in tradition but fresh as tomorrow.” - Dr. Demento
