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Denmark’s indie rock Raveonettes return to Austin, at last
First things first — this time they’ll be here. Sharin Foo swears on it.
“Yeah, two times we had problems with visas and couldn’t make it there, but we’re taken care of now,” says Foo, one of two principal members of Danish indie rock band the Raveonettes. The latest document snafu happened less than a month ago when bandmate Sune Rose Wagner couldn’t get his visa approved in time for South by Southwest.
But talking by phone from a tour stop in Chicago last week, Foo said she and Wagner are looking forward to getting in front of audiences who have heard their just-released fifth full-length “Raven in the Grave” and will be able to interact with the songs more than crowds earlier in the tour.
“Because the record wasn’t out yet, the shows had a feeling that people didn’t know how to react to the songs since we’re playing so much of the new record on this tour,” Foo said. “I’m looking forward to having more interaction, because with two drummers along with Sune and myself, we’ve got the best live lineup we’ve ever had, or at least the one that I like best.”
Foo said having two drummers was essential to realize the synth-driven and at times nearly electronic elements that dominate the new material, with one percussionist triggering loops and other effects that add even more haze to the band’s brand of distortion-heavy garage pop.
“For this tour, we needed to have those unique layers of sound, and we could have had someone who was like a DJ handling that, but we wanted there to be a more physical element to it,” she said. “It’s always a very interesting discussion for us after we do a record and get ready to go out on tour, because we have to figure out what’s going to make this music work best when we do it live. (Writing) is a very intimate thing because it’s just Sune and I at that point, but then we have to work on bringing other people in in the right way for what we’ve created.”
“Raven in the Grave” isn’t a drastic departure for the band — the overall vibe is still boy-girl pop cloaked in Jesus and Mary Chain-style fuzz — but its nearly goth overtones make it probably the most distinct-sounding record the band has produced. Put another way, songs like the new “Recharge and Revolt” or “Forget That You’re Young” would sound out of place on any of the Raveonettes’ other albums and represent a specific musical approach, whereas most of the rest of their work could’ve been interchanged among records and feel at home.
Foo said the Cure-ish musical direction of “Raven…” wasn’t intentional, but the pair found the moody atmospherics fit their creative spirit as they worked through an identity crisis (her word) that plagued the early writing and recording sessions.
“There was a crisis we were having because we were questioning the future of the band, where we go from where we were after the last record (2009’s “In and Out of Control”) and whether there was much point in being a band anymore,” she said. “Even though it feels very dark, I find it to be hopeful, and once we got going, we found this restless energy and it felt sort of rebellious. Once we got going we found it to be re-energizing, so it was like we were rebuilding the band and it was sort of us against the world.”
The Ravenottes play Tuesday at Emo’s, 603 Red River St. $15. With Tamaryn and Shapes Have Fangs. emosaustin.com.
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