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Music

Listen to the Writhing Squares and Their Bass, Sax and Flute Excursions Into Space

The duo bring to mind early Hawkwind, Wooden Shjips and a more motorik feel to some of the cooler sounds coming out of Philadelphia over the last few years.

Image: Clementine Grove

The Writhing Squares are Kevin Nickles and Daniel Provenzano, two guys from South Philly who construct psychy explorations using bass, sax, drum machine and flute. They’ve described their sound as sloppy space rock. I’d describe it as busted, but at times brilliant, jams that bring to mind early Hawkwind, Wooden Shjips and a more motorik feel to some of the cooler sounds coming out of Philadelphia over the last few years.

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Kevin and Dan met in high school and have been jamming since. Between them they've been in some of Philadelphia's more interesting bands include Purling Hiss, Ecstatic Vision, Spacin’ and Taiwan Housing Project. As the Writhing Squares they’ve tapped into a world of dark drones, sax skronk, and grooves that are bound together by analog synths and delay pedals.

Their debut album In The Void Above, released on the legendary Siltbreeze label, presents Provenzano's thick-fuzzy bass, riding in tandem with Kevin's sax and flute to create seven-tracks of compelling space rock.

Taken a listen below and read an interview with Dan.

Noisey: There’s a heavy psych feel to the album. Did you grow up on a typical punk diet and then discover psych? 
Daniel Provenzano: Nah, I definitely wouldn’t say I grew up on punk. We were never angry youths or anything like that. We were nerds, squares. The mid-2000s emo thing was all that was going on in our small town and it wasn’t our place. It's kind of funny that The Mars Volta’s Frances The Mute was my first step into psych. But, that album came out when I was a high school freshman. I can distinctly remember sitting in my friend Sean’s car hearing it for the first time, just freaking out. “What the fuck is this? Where did this come from? There’s nothing that sounds like this!” Kevin was into them too, so he loaned me a King Crimson live box set, I bought a bass, and I started to discover that The Mars Volta actually sound like quite a number of bands.

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Listening to Spacin’ there seems to be lots of room in the songs but with Writhing Squares there seems even more.
That’s funny, I feel very much the opposite! Spacin’ has twice the number of band members There’s more room to take risks and explore and fuck up. Spacin’ jams are very open ended, it really is total freedom! With the Squares, there is no room to hide. We both have a lot of sonic ground to cover and there is no overlap. Songs have open sections, but the whole thing hinges on us lining up on the changes. When you’re trying to do a lot with a little, you gotta be on your toes, you know? Sometimes it’s like two people walking a tightrope, but that’s what keeps it interesting. And we are drinking beer while on the tightrope.

You recently played with David Nance and Richard Papiercuts. That sounds like a great gig!
Yeah! We didn’t know anybody in any of the bands going in – it was originally supposed to be with Mordecai but they had to cancel their whole tour (dude is doing a mathematics PhD!). Richard Papiercuts got the show back on and was kind enough to ask us to play. Also on that bill was Geoff Bankowski’s fascinating project, Quietus. He played lonesome country tunes on his guitar backed by a really ace group of jazz musicians. Like a dark Astral Weeks. It was great to hang with David Nance too, he’s such a solid dude and his set was one of the best things I’ve seen all year.

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Image: Trixie Noyes

The album cover is interesting. It looks like a cross between Return of the Super Ape and Their Satanic Majesties Request.
Our friend Rodger Binyone of No-Man Illustration created it. He plays in an excellent band called Igneous Eyes whom we did a tape with last year. He’s a prolific artist and does tons of flyers and artwork all over Philly. We are such a big fan of his that we knew that whatever he came up with would be great, so I think the only instructions we gave him were “green” and “space”. To me, the monster looks like an electric Big Foot. I like to wonder if he’s coming to destroy the city, or if perhaps he’s their protector from the rest of the universe.

Why do you think Philly haas such a great music scene at the moment?
I think there’s a very deep love of music in our community. People start bands because they want to play music. Elsewhere I’ve gotten the feeling that a music scene is just another rat race, but I’ve never experienced that in Philly. It’s not like NYC where a band moves there to try to catch some wave and become the next big thing and cash in. Look, I know you basically have to play that game if you really want to make a living playing music. But in Philly, if you try to act like you’re hot shit, people are gonna laugh at you. At least the Writhing Squares will.

'In The Void Above' is available now on the band's Bandcamp page and Siltbreeze.