KaiserCartel have been winning over drowsy speak easies and serenading the nation
one person at a time on their recent tour -their L.A. stop at the Silver Lake Lounge,was ambushed by the Thompson Twins and stuffed animals. On any measured spectrum there was something for everyone.
Brooklyn’s KaiserCartel sound quietly glidedover the heads of those in attendance, causing some sort of epiphany where the rest of the week seemed like sensory deprivation and there at the Lounge all those senses came back to us. Salvation, as it reads above the stage. Benjamin Cartel and Courtney Kaiser are purveyors of bazaar – not bizarre – music. Benjamin is one step away from hoisting his drum bass onto his back, while playing his guitar. Courtney tinkers away on a glockenspiel that muffles our collected thoughts and her fingers cascaded down onto tiny piano keys, which drop onto our heads. She proceeded to pull out a small wand from a white box. A magic wand – later to be revealed as a milk frother – vibrated over the plates of her glockenspiel, causing a telephone echo to bounce off the walls.
They probably shouldn’t have prefaced that song with mentioning that they recorded their album in the valley, “the heart of the porno industry.”
“One of our L.A. fans thought it was a vibrator,” said Courtney. Most everyone in attendance smirked as the vibrating wand … well vibrated.
Teachers before embarking on this grand journey of musicianship on the road, KaiserCartel’s previous tours would only last for the weekend, as the two would have to go back to school on Monday.
As a couple, Benjamin and Courtney whisper and giggle on stage – they share sharp glances, and clear their throats when the other is saying too much. Their album, March Forth, is in celebration of the first time the two compared their songbooks, a lot of it seeming familiar to each other.
“To be really biographical, some of it was written was before we were together,” said Benjamin.
When the two put their noggins together they began to see that their lyrics were separate parts to the same conversation. Courtney added “[the album] has this sort of life and conversation in it that wasn’t there before.”
everyone.
