AIR WAVES is coming to London next January!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

AIR WAVES
Thursday 31 January
The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle St, Angel, London, N1 0XT

7.30pm | £7.50 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/450528

AIR WAVES new album Warrior, the third full-length by Brooklyn-based musician, features a ominous, androgynous figure standing with a bicycle, wearing a gas mask adorned with a daisy. The remarkable image was taken on April 22nd, 1970 at the inaugural Earth Day celebration in New York City by Nicole Schneit’s dad, Martin Schneit.  Forty-seven years later, artist Em Rooney hand-painted Schneit’s original black & white photo, resulting in an image that radiates with Warrior’s indefatigable spirit, strength, and love

Like many queer women, Nicole Schneit is a warrior by necessity, fighting for basic rights, dignity, and acceptance.  Such determination in the face of hardship and injustice runs in Schneit’s family; her new album was inspired in part by her mom who was diagnosed with cancer last year. So the title ‘Warrior’ and the song are about her. The dignified fighter archetype referenced in the album’s title is explored on each of Warrior’s eleven pieces of bittersweet, empowering indie pop.  According to Schneit the song “Gay Bets”, written after the 2016 election is “about being gay and being proud and open. I was thinking about hate crimes spiking and the current state of the world. The song “Tangerine” was inspired by the film of the same name in which two trans women try to make ends meet. This movie, a dark docu-comedy shot in the contrastingly sunny setting of L.A., reflects Schneit’s battle between identity and society via Brooklyn pop rock that swings between the pastel-tinged and the downright melancholic. Warrior’s highlights, and all of the unmissable, satisfying pieces that tie them together show Schneit’s perseverance and resilience through crumbling relationships, personal adversity, and the current political climate, all leading to her most powerful collection of songs to date. Understated, subtly sophisticated, and equally empowering and comforting, Warrior launches Air Waves above the apolitical complacency of too many of the group's contemporaries.