Party in the Park is back! The event will see performances from Girl Talk, MGMT, The Joy Formidable, and Stokewood on Saturday, May 17, 2014 at Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta. Gates open at 3:00 p.m. and the concert will run until 11:00 p.m., rain or shine. To get us even more pumped up for the Party, we thought we’d take a closer look at the awesome lineup.
GIRL TALK
Celebrating 10-plus years of sample-obsessed production and relentless touring, Gregg Gillis returns with All Day, his fifth album as Girl Talk, and his most epic, densely layered, and meticulously composed musical statement to date. Continuing the saga from the previously acclaimed albums, Night Ripper and Feed The Animals, Gillis lays down a more diverse range of samples to unfold a larger dynamic between slower transitions and extreme cut-ups. With the grand intent of creating the most insane and complex “pop collage” album ever heard, large catalogs of both blatantly appropriated melodies and blasts of unrecognizable fragments were assembled for the ultimate Girl Talk record (clocking in at 71 minutes and 372 samples).
Since the release of Feed The Animals in 2008, Girl Talk has played almost 300 shows and hardly taken a full week off from hitting the road. He continues to please live audiences as the mass of sweaty bodies at his shows continually grows. Touring highlights from the last couple of years include the Vancouver Olympics, large festivals such as Coachella, Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, V-Fest, Sasquatch, Rothbury, Monolith, Planeta Terra, and trips to Australia, Japan, South America, Europe, and Mexico.
Earlier this year, Girl Talk finally took a break from touring, festival dates, and college shows in order to create an album that is being released immediately after its completion. While posting the album as a free download on the Illegal Art label’s site allows All Day to reach his fanbase quickly and with minimal cost, Gillis spent more time on this album than any previous release and considers it the most fully realized and evolved manifestation of the Girl Talk aesthetic.
MGMT
The 21st century is finally, literally, in its teen years and MGMT — labeled “futurist pop” in 2007, when their earliest songs “Kids,” “Time To Pretend” and “Electric Feel” were palpably feeding the youthful zeitgeist — are responding to our current times with a refined, focused celebration of liberated consciousness, reflecting and refracting the human experience and our intersecting, increasingly complicated relationship with nature, technology and each other.
Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden formed the first incarnation of MGMT (then called “the management”) as fellow students at Wesleyan University in 2001, taking root in the school’s fertile grassy hills as some improbable synthesis of Fugsian merry pranking and early 2000s Billboard pop wanking. Having toured twice with kindred spirits Of Montreal and released a 1000-copy EP on tiny indie label Cantora Records, MGMT miraculously signed with Columbia Records in November 2006, completing and recording their first album by the next spring, their first collaboration with producer Dave Fridmann.
With the wide release of “Oracular Spectacular” in January of 2008, MGMT’s reputation began snowballing, nay avalanching, on both sides of the Atlantic. Today, it is consistently ranked amongst the most celebrated pop albums of the 21st century. Ben and Andrew brought on friends Will Berman (drums), James Richardson (guitar), and Matt Asti (bass) to tour major festivals and clubs all over the freaking place in 2008, sharing the stage and smudging the sage on successful tours with Beck, Yeasayer, Radiohead, Florence and The Machine, and Tame Impala. Being on the road served as a true rock and roll immersion program that was a far cry from the tiny dorm room shows they were playing just three years prior; over the course of 18 months, they transformed from a shaky rookie live act to a solid, well-respected psychedelic rock spectacle.
THE JOY FORMIDABLE
Not a lot goes down in Casco, Maine. In the winter months, this sequestered hamlet around 30 miles from Portland in the North Easternmost tip of the United States acquires a Siberian stillness as suffocating snow descends and carpets this eerily remote and reclusive region. Yet it was to a forest just outside Casco that The Joy Formidable singer/guitarist Ritzy Bryan and bassist Rhydian Dafydd retired at the start of 2012 to dream up their magnificent second album, Wolf’s Law, a record that teems with imagination, yearning and a Carpe Diem restlessness.
Precarious relationships. Confessionals. Catharsis. The call of the wild. Life, birth, death and all points in-between. With such vast, profound and heartfelt themes, wrapped up in some of the most visceral and voluptuous art-rock-and-roll that has exploded since the halcyon days of the Pixies, it’s no surprise that a lot of people expect Wolf’s Law to be The Joy Formidable’s quantum-leap breakthrough album, a springboard to arena-filling status, this fiercely driven band’s tipping point into rock’s A-League.
MINUS THE BEAR
The Seattle based band, Jake Snider (vocals, guitar), David Knudson (guitar), Cory Murchy (bass), Alex Rose (keyboards, saxophone, vocals, programming), and Erin Tate (drums & percussion), got together 13 years ago to form Minus the Bear, and ever since have been working relentlessly spinning out new music and touring non-stop- and it has paid off. They’ve shared the stage with Soundgarden, Jimmy Eat World, and Foo Fighters, released five full length LPs, eight EPs, sold over $400,000 in record sales, all while remaining a down to earth, uncompromising group of musicians. We can’t wait to have these guys live in Centennial Park to experience first had their killer live show and the sonic dexterity of MTB’s catalog.
STOKESWOOD
Stokeswood is an incredibly unique, Atlanta based, Low-Endie rock band with infectious energy, unpredictable live performances, and a fierce electronic edge. They coined the phrase “Low-Endie” rock to describe their layered mixture of pumping synths, powerful vocals, and irresistible dance vibe. Their independently released debut album, Carassia (2009), is “like a sonic excursion between the lines of a poet’s story-telling prowess.” The band’s sophomore album In the Field of the Vibrations (2011), showcases a “vocal-centric aesthetic and an array of synthesizers and guitars that are illuminated by infectious dance beats.”
We’re so excited to see another incredible lineup of artists at Party in the Park this year! We hope to see you all there.
General Admission is $40 in advance and $45 day of show. VIP Tickets are $135 in advance and $150 day of show. Gates Open at 3:00pm. For more information, visit the official website. Purchase tickets below!
