Since it's genesis in 2001, Oakland-based sextet Subtle has been home-recording its way to the far side of song. Drawing from a diverse palette of instruments: sampler, synth, guitar, cello, winds, electronic and acoustic drums, and the unmistakable voice and prose of doseone, the band fashions a self-sampled and live-mic'd honest to genreless music.
For Subtle, the last twelve months have been nothing short of life changing. Surviving through and recovering from a terrible tour van accident last February has led the subtle6 to their most adventurous and clear-hearted achievement, the soon to be released "for hero : for fool". A contiguous and conceptual work of album as art, picking up and running away with the motifs and musical arrangements of "a new white" and their four self-released season themed ep's. "for hero : for fool"boldly follows the B-movie dreams and midday terrors of a working-class poet, born of raw raps and the somewhat vacuum times of the last quarter century...
Their latest release "wishingbone" is a CD/DVD collection of new material, re-approaches and remixes as recorded by Subtle and a few of their closest friends… Mike Patton, Beck, Console, Hrvatski, Fog, and Ms. John Soda. The DVD features three music videos by London-based animators SSSR, tied together as a short film. Creating a twice-textured and all-era style, SSSR melds filmed miniatures, surreal sketch work, and classic animation to create a world in and of itself.
Subtle hits the stage this spring in support of the "wishingbone", touring the U.S.of A and Europe in stride. Not to be missed, their live performance parallels and elaborates on the complex and natural lengths of their recorded material. With painted backdrops, stageprops and a whole lot of middleclass mojo, it is in the midst of live performance that Subtle's works of song complete themselves.
