Divisadero

It is just before twilight. You wait in anticipation for the first glow of the sun to appear over distant hills. Vast, dark plains stretch out on all sides. Empty desert roads wind for miles in all directions to who-the-hell-knows-where. The rhythm of the engine and a misaligned tire thump in time; they threaten to overpower the lonesome AM signal creeping through your stereo. This is the place where reality, daydreams, hallucinations, and memory collide. Civilization breaks down at the edges and superstition creeps in. The place between
place. Between here and there. Between sleep and awake. This is the place Los Angeles-based 5-piece Divisadero wants to transport you to when you hear
their music.
Under that open desert canopy Marco Monteclaros strums his guitar as he croons dreamy, melancholy songs that contain as much hope as they do loss.
Below, Brian Cosgrove’s driving bass guitar, flourishes of glockenspiel, organ and spoons locks in step with Mike Mitchell’s dynamic drums and percussion. Above, Pauline Lay’s soaring string arrangements and Josh McCool’sgazy feedback-laden guitar and weeping musical saw rain down on Divisadero’s canvas of sonic soundscapes that LA Citybeat’s Ron Garmon describes as “dream rock with suture wounds that show what they’re holding back.”
Formed in late 2006 as minimalist guitar-based trio, the band rapidly expanded in members and instrumentation when it was clear that their compositions were too ambitious for the small ensemble. After proving themselves on stage in both Los Angeles and San Francisco including The Viper Room, The Knitting
Factory, Spaceland, The Echo, Silverlake Lounge, Safari Sam’s, Pehrspace, and the Eagle Rock Music Festival, Divisadero recorded their debut album “Lefty”,
a concept album about a boxer facing his biggest opponent: his own family. Both a tale of one man’s fall from grace and the breakdown of the American
family, the album’s story was constructed from artifacts and public records of the boxer’s life.
Self-recorded and self-produced between the summers of 2007 & 2008 in rehearsal spaces, in living rooms and hallways and an art gallery, the conceptual
integration in Divisadero’s “Lefty” goes beyond the story interlaced throughout the lyrics. In “The Boxer’s Daughter” the listener experiences the domestic dispute between father and daughter as the song gives way to rough and tumble guitar noise. This is followed by “Lefty Goes Soft”, where the boxer’s remorse
can be felt in the swells of the bittersweet string arrangements. In “The Fight”, the sounds distant siren vocals envelope the dazed boxer as he goes down
during a big fight in the ring. The final track “I Dreamt Of The Apocalypse” describes Lefty having dreams of the apocalypse as swirling ambient noises and backwards harmonica make the listener feel like they might also be somewhere “between sleep and awake”.
Since the completion of the album, Divisadero has been performing consistently and promoting “Lefty” as well as looking to the future. “We’d like to compose a film score some day,” says Marco Montesclaros, “our sound lends itself to something like that.”