Saturday, March 15   10:00 p.m.
Habana Annex Backyard   (708 E 6th St)

  Innerpartysystem - Don't Stop
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INNERPARTYSYSTEM


Confessional or dance party -- it's never quiet clear what INNERPARTYSYSTEM offers their listeners. The keen observer will find themselves drawn in by the anxious beats, pensive blips and ominous thrashing tones while lyrically the band entangles you in narratives of lust, drugs, honesty, love and the insatiable pursuits of the darkest night life. Sometimes the result is numbing and danceable and sometimes it's nervous and twisted, however they always have an honest and undeniable simplicity.

INNERPARTYSYSTSEM are four guys who were reared in the bleak small towns that surround Reading, Pennsylvania. The weathered houses, rusted factories and sprawling farms make this the landscape of true America. These environments are stark, urban and mechanical, and they are pregnant with dark and anxious hope – sentiments that Patrick Nissley, INNERPARTYSYSTEM’S main songwriter, carries in his writing. Nissley captures this blue collar and proletariat aggression of small town America, no doubt a product of his past singing in hardcore punk bands, but he synthesizes this with influences from electronica music. Other band members Kris Barman (keyboards, guitar, programming), Jared Piccone (drums, beats, programming) and Jesse Cronan (keyboards, programming) follow cue and add textures, electronics, keyboard lines and traditional rock instrumentation to each song. It’s this intermingling of styles and instruments gives INNERPARTYSYSTEM a distinctive vision, as their songs incorporate throbbing electronic beats that nod towards AUTECHRE or SQUAREPUSHER but also the melodic aggression that’s not far from that you’d find in NINE INCH NAILS or NIRVANA.

However, don’t be mislead, despite INNERPARTYSYSTEM’s darker leanings their vision is coiled in music to which you can dance. Let that be rephrased, they do not create music to which you can dance, but to which you must dance. Not the mindless dance music that one might find saturating the dance clubs today, but rather a sort that is predicated on a release of sharp energy with the most expressive means possible – your own movements on the dance floor. This is what makes INNERPARTYSYSTEM special. There is a depth to the dance beat. There is a lingering emotion in the lyrics. There is an undeniable energy that will make you move.

Just as any great artist can reveal their minds eye to the listener in a three minute song, Innerpartysystem somehow finds a way to do more – they take your hand, place something important inside it, walk you through the seedy and desolate alleys of their home-town and then they hold the door for you as you gape the dark and familiar. But don't be afraid, it's just entertainment.