Puro Instinct >> The picture becomes more complete

I can't believe it's still California Month, tremor #45:

Puro Instinct - "Slivers Of You" (re-recorded version)

(Mexican Summer Records, 2010)

Under their original name Pearl Harbor, this band of sisters, Piper Kaplan (vocals) and Skylar Kaplan (guitar, backing vocals) released this song on a 7" single and a 12" EP in 2010.  Then they had to change their name, so they chose Puro Instinct, and re-recorded this song that fall for their debut album, Headbangers In Ecstasy.  They made it more punchy and radio-friendly, while keeping its dreamy, blurry DNA.  Both versions are great, but I just prefer the second one.  It always feels like it's about to spin out of control or get too pretty, but the centrifugal force of its dark undertones holds it all together.  You have to face the facts that the sibling vocal harmonizing here is pretty spine-tingling, even if you're not into this kind of music.

The vocals can be very hard to make out, so here are some of the lyrics:
"Jaundice blondes in blue chiffon"... "Soakin' up the midnight sun"... "I'll take my time hangin' you out to dry"... "Slivers of you comin' through; the picture becomes more complete"... "Invidious and insidious; on a warpath with no remorse"... "She wears their rags like a bodybag and lets her life run its course"...
Male voice: "You never know who's got it"


Here is a remix posted about a week ago by some guy named Secret Circuit.  It starts to get dark and trippy at about the halfway mark:

 

A site called The Agit Reader asked Piper: And working with your sister, what’s the process like when you write songs? Are these collaborations more than one person writing everything?

Piper: It’s all pretty arbitrary. For instance, on “Slivers of You,” I came up with the bass and the beat, the keyboard part, and the vocal melody. I played everything I had recorded for Skylar and told her to come up with a fucking shredding hook and see how it goes. She probably toyed with it for 10 or 15 minutes. I left the room and all of the sudden I hear [mouths guitar lead]. I ran back in and said “That’s the one.” She fucking nailed it. That’s usually how we work.

I have to agree with her about the guitar riff, which is just so cool and surfy and jazzy.  Johnny Marr would've been proud to have come up with it.  In that interview, she also said Pearl Harbor was more or less a satirical coup to poke fun at the whole “beach bonanza” that was going on.  She's referring to all the recent beach-themed band names like Beach House, Best Coast, Wavves, etc.

Puro Instinct's secret weapon is its deep, funky basslines, such as the one in "Stilyagi," which is Russian for "Style hunters":

As I mentioned, way back in 2010, when the band was still called Pearl Harbor, "Slivers" was released as a limited-edition (300 copies) 7" single, but only in Japan.  This was the original, slower, more somber version of the song, which you can stream here.  An early, slower version of "California Shakedown" was the b-side.

Japanese "Slivers" 7"

L-R: Skylar, Piper

I decided to go see them in July.  First up was the extremely entertaining Kate Bush acolyte Geneva Jacuzzi.  Then the very hyper John Maus, but I left for a while and saw only his last song.  Puro Instinct began with "Slivers Of You," which got me really psyched.  Due to the low turnout (only a few dozen people), she seemed a bit annoyed as the show went on.  At the end, after getting no applause for an encore, she said pretty loudly off-mic to no one in particular, "Let's get the fuck out of here," then made a beeline out of the room through the remaining crowd.  So I of course decided she was kind of a brat, or was maybe just upset that half the crowd left after the John Maus set.  (Pitchfork had run a glowing review of his new album that very day.)  I should mention that she was evidently very drunk all night.  Outside the club, she was crouched on the curb talking to someone.  I told her that crowds tend not to ask for encores in New orleans for some reason, and hence not to take it too personally.  She seemed to appreciate hearing that, and gave me a big drunken high five, and then when I mentioned I had driven an hour to see them, she just about bugged out.  She asked me what I wanted from their merch table, so I mentioned the "Slivers" EP, then she darted back into the club and came back out and gave it to me, informing me that it was their last copy.  (It still had a piece of torn notebook paper saying "$10" taped to it.)  As if that wasn't nice enough, she gave me an even bigger high-five before handing it to me.  I was like... "Huh?  Someone is high-fiving me for taking some stuff without paying for it? Isn't that backwards?"  I asked her if they had any of the Japanese "Slivers" 7" left, and she kind of laughed and said nope, and mentioned that she had never even been given a copy for herself.  Later, she seemed excited about the concept of sneaking into one of NOLA's famously creepy cemeteries, but I pleaded strongly with her entourage not to let her / them do it.  Hence, I saved Puro Instinct's life on July 8th, 2011... You owe me, world.  To make up for my karmic depletion after being given the 12", I went back in and bought a nice white t-shirt with gold ink for $15.  I had already bought Headbangers on CD at the merch table earlier in the night.  (This album is definitely a grower.)  The 12" turned out to be warped and essentially unplayable, due to bouncing around in their tour van for weeks, but I think it's a great souvenir and I'd never sell it.

Important note: I'm not telling this story to try to seem cool or a scenester, etc., but rather to give a slice-of-life vignette about a relatively obscure touring band, and to show how one's perception of a person is sometimes way off.  There's a fine line between name-dropping and merely recounting events, and I try to never ever name-drop.  Some people try to avoid meeting musicians because they're afraid they might be dicks in real life, but in this case, it was the exact opposite, and hence the picture became more complete. Anyway, I'm doing this for the benefit of someone who's reading this in 10 or 100 years, or for someone today who may be thinking about going to see them live.  Obviously, you should.  And I love reading about people's experiences with seeing / meeting obscure bands in the '80s & '90s.  I especially try to chat up bands when the turnout has been really low, to show a band that they do have fans and that it was not a wasted trip.  This can help convince them to return to your city in the future.  Then again, there can be other reasons why they'll return:

Piper and PI's roadie / merch guy getting sloshed on purple drank and ketchup in the French Quarter before their show on 7/8/11.

I will add that if you read through Puro Instinct's (and Pearl Harbor's) dizzying array of blogs and other websites, you'll learn that their wit is second to none.  I could be wrong, but it seems to be Piper who is mostly responsible for doing all the writing and photo-posting on their sites.  Check out the strange things offered on their Kickstarter page.  Their TwitPic page has some occasional gems.  Okay, that's enough.  This has to be the most links I've ever put in one post, and I hate reading anything with too many links.

I made an impromptu trip to see Jessica Lea Mayfield in Baton Rouge last night, and it was good and all, but I'm not sure why I did it.  No, that's not true; my specific thought process was: "What if she becomes the next Cat Power and I could've seen her for a few bucks?"  (I missed Cat Power in Baton Rouge in '98 and am still upset.)  I was on the fence until I stumbled onto JLM's cover of Nirvana's "Lounge Act" and realized her voice is pretty remarkable when she actually projects it.  Most of the time she seems catatonically depressed, though, both live and on record.  A bad thunderstorm, the first significant rain here in two months, kicked in literally right before JLM started playing.

Planets with similar climates: Velocity Girl - "Crazy Town" (1993) & "Finest Hour" (1995), Juned - "Hearts To Bleed" (1995), The Church - "Columbus" (1985), Liz Phair - "Supernova" (1994), The Posies - "Dream All Day" (1993), Lush - "Nothing Natural" (1992).