Weekly Feature #206b: Sticklips, live at Unkle Mike’s on July 17

There’s nothing quite straight-forward about this four piece’s slippery, somewhat dissonant, winding folk music. With sounds of fingers sliding up and down acoustic guitars, crystalline vocals and blatantly strange electronic interjections, Sticklips’ tunes leave listeners curious as hell. There are so many unanswered questions in each song. Music that seems like it should be so easy to figure out, with nice female vocals and some quirky instrumental aspects, instead creates riddles with its lyrics and ever surprising musical changes. There’s a depth in Johanna Warren’s thin, yet enticing vocals that makes it more than what it seems. In a song like “Cattleships and Bruisers,” the bass line is low and whispering and it change in a heartbeat from sweet and acoustic to uplifting and electric as waves of feedback enter without a moment’s notice. There is an eerie, ghostly quality to Sticklips’ sound as it combines so many aspects but spits it out in a pretty unique way. – Read Lauren Piper’s interview with the band here.