Today, in a preview of the Times Magazine article that will be distributed this weekend, the New York Times website posted a piece about General Stanley A. McChrystal, who has recently made national headlines rather frequently with the release of memos and other comments that detail a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan. As the Times explains: “McChrystal’s plan is a blueprint for an extensive American commitment to build a modern state in Afghanistan, where one has never existed, and to bring order to a place famous for the empires it has exhausted. Even under the best of circumstances, this effort would most likely last many more years, cost hundreds of billions of dollars and entail the deaths of many more American women and men. And that’s if it succeeds.”
One band that’s asking some relevant questions – like “Do You Have a Strategy?” – is Brooklyn’s Uninhabitable Mansions, which features Robbie Guertin and Tyler Sargent of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Annie Hart of Au Revoir Simone, along with Chris Diken and Doug Marvin, who just recently replaced Danny Comer as the group’s drummer (good luck in medical school!). Taking cues from all of the various main groups surrounding this “side-project supergroup” (allow me to introduce a new phrase), UM has managed to put together an impressive collection of songs here that retains some of the unpolished pop sensibility of CYHSY and layers on some nice additional instrumentation. You can preview a bunch of tracks from their upcoming full-length, Nature Is a Taker, streaming on their official website and available for digital purchase now, and also learn a lot more about the band/art collective.
Uninhabitable Mansions is playing at Cake Shop tonight as part of their Mixer series. Doors open at 7:00 PM, with UM playing around 8:00. So go check them out! But first listen to today’s jam “Do You Have a Strategy?” streaming below, from Nature Is a Taker.
Uninhabitable Mansions – Do You Have a Strategy?:
-Drew
East Village to Brooklyn 