02.28.13
After a clever game of cloak and dagger and a host of hazy backroom meetings, we are thrilled to finally announce that RBTS WIN have joined us at Grip Tapes. Their new full-length album, Palm Sunday, will be out on LP/digital this Spring. Click to listen to the debut single, "Death Magic," now.
02.13.13
Grip Tapes is excited to announce the release of the debut solo album Twilight for Gladys Bentley from award-winning poet and musician Shirlette Ammons. The album is a 're-imagining' of the trail-blazing blues singer and bulldagger, Gladys Bentley.
| Date | Band | Venue | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.17 | Gross Ghost (w/ Bleached, Hunters) | Pinhook | Durham, NC |
| 4.18 | Gross Ghost (w/ Love Language/Jenny Besetzt) | Grey Eagle | Asheville, NC |
| 4.19 | Gross Ghost (w/ Love Language/Jenny Besetzt) | Boone Saloon | Boone, NC |
| 4.20 | Gross Ghost (w/ Love Language/Jenny Besetzt) | Pilot Light | Knoxville, TN |
| 4.27 | RBTS WIN | All Go West Festival | Asheville, NC |
Twilight for Gladys Bentley is the debut solo album from award-winning poet and musician, Shirlette Ammons. She calls the album a 're-imagining' of the trail-blazing blues singer and bulldagger, Gladys Bentley. Ammons spent over a year on a personal journey to explore and re-interperate the unsung blues singer who defied sexual and gender norms while putting on one of the hippest performance in 1920′s Harlem. Twilight for Gladys Bentley, is the result of that exploration.
Shirlette says, "I wanted to create a record that uses hip hop, the music of posturing and prowess of my day, to channel the memory of Gladys Bentley. Gladys took popular songs and replaced the lyrics with raunchy, more provocative ones. I instead wrote original tunes that conjure the same energy of rebellion and sexual liberation."
Rather than conjuring up the blues like Gladys, Shirlette uses hip hop to create a record that revisits the steaze of southern dandyism, that is lyrically dapper, a little raunchy and a lot queer. The album features guest appearances from Sy Smith, W. Ellington Felton, Chaunesti Webb, Jocelyn Ellis, Germany's rap "Quing," Sookee and fellow Grip Tapes artist Little Hollow.
