DIRTWIRE w/ The Spooklights at Cat's Cradle

Name: DIRTWIRE w/ The Spooklights at Cat's Cradle
Start: 2025-03-08T19:00:00-05:00
Location: Cat's Cradle

Schedule

Sat, 08 Mar, 2025 at 07:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Cat's Cradle | Carrboro, NC

—andmoreagain presents—
Dirtwire
w/ The Spooklights
at Cat's Cradle
Carrboro, NC
doors 7pm // show 8pm
$25 adv // $30 day of show
Tickets go on sale at 10am November 21
——
DIRTWIRE
Dirtwire stands poised between ancient Mother Earth and modern technology, a blend of ethnomusicology and the psychedelic trance state, gut-bucket delta blues and what the band variously dubs “back-porch space cowboy blues, swamptronica, and electro-twang.” It’s a sound informed by Dirtwire’s travels and performances around the globe, where East meets West and North joins South. From the favelas in Brazil, Femi Kuti’s Shrine in Lagos, Tokyo’s bluegrass clubs, Ayahuasca ceremonies in Central America, Gamelan performances in Bali, desert festivals in the Australian Outback, and the 20th anniversary of Kazakhstan’s modernized new capital Astana, the band spreads its message by building bridges across musical cultures in their own unique way.
Dirtwire plays an array of instruments both ancient and modern, including West African kamale ngonis, jaw harps, space fiddles, whamola basses, Rickenbacher electric 12 string guitars, bowed Banjos and mouth harps from around the globe, all interwoven into modern laptop beat creation. Hailing from the underground west coast electronic bass music scene Dirtwire finds itself at the forefront of experimental electronic music production mixing in their wide array of world instruments with sampled beats and 808’s. Dirtwire’s live shows are a communal psychedelic journey, ranging from down home boot stomping get downs, to bass and blues electronic mashups, to ethereal cinematic beat driven soundscapes. Woven into each is the exploration of where live instruments meet computer production, and where tradition meets experimentation.
・Listen: open.spotify.com/artist/0hc2qwaU2xy7LUd0FRjcHK
——
THE SPOOKLIGHTS
Banjos and synthesizers... Dulcimers and wubs... Strange flashing lights... Unexplained phenomena... The Spooklights (formerly MK Ultra) is a collaboration of Ben Miller and Pat Kay that is not what anyone would have expected from these two renowned torchbearers of Ozark mountain music tradition heretofore. It's certainly not what they expected when they traded keys to one another's bunker of busted toys and forlorn experiments during the lockdown of a global pandemic.
From a pile of spare parts and fringe ideas, these industrious cobblers of homemade gear soldered a few choice wires between Electronic Music and their trademark "Ozark Stomp Grass" producing a jangle-stomp time-machine to vessel their most bizarre implements and soundscapes. In it, they have embarked on a journey exploring hillbilly music from a distant future. Hop on in, y'all. It’s only weird the first time.
The Spooklights' debut album entitled 'MK Ultra,' an homage to the original band name, was released October 27, 2023 and is available on all platforms.
・Listen: open.spotify.com/artist/75oSyyET6r1Cvzj0HAV5Hj