Pennyroyal

"Pennyroyal came awfully close to stealing the whole show with their effervescent, energetic indie pop." - mnartists.org

Interview - KDEC 100.5 FM

We got a disc of the new Pennyroyal album in the mail last week, too. They’ve got the album on Bandcamp but you can only hear one track, “Crossing Bridges.” What a tease. What ’til you hear the whole album — we have been playing it two and three times a day here in the shop. We fee like it’s the best thing that ever happened to our stereo. You can hear the first track, “M List,” just by visiting their website (here). A band that’s always been too good for any single genre, they flirt with new wave and disco on a couple tracks, especially “Record Machine,” which you can hear here. Do your ears a favor and click on that link — “Record Machine” is irresistibly great pop music. It’s the sort of song that reminds us why we starting hanging around a record shop in the first place. - Hymie's Vintage Records - Dave Hoenack

It’s almost impossible to imagine Places as an album, simply because five or six more songs this good seems like an impossible dream. If this were an album it would be at the top of the top 10 list we started posting on Monday. This is our favorite local release of 2012.

According to the EP’s Bandcamp page (here) “co-singer/songwriters Angie Oase and Ethan Rutherford … coincidentally brought in five songs about the places/cities that impacted them,” and rather than can them for a second album they recorded them for this, a shorter release – The result makes Places a “concept EP” (if such a thing exists), driven by a healthy sense of urgency. The two strongest tracks – “Minot (Whynot Minot?)” and “NOLA (Monday/Tuesday)” made up the sides of a 7? record released last year (frustratingly at 33rpm, making me look like a dumbass every time I play it in a DJ set) but any claims this EP shouldn’t count because it comprises some old material (ie pre-2012) are refuted by the three additional tracks, especially “Cleveland (Aeroplanes & Rockets)”.

You’re not looking at the ‘official’ cover of this EP, by the way. You’ll see it if you click on the link above, this was just what the discs looked like (Yep, anymore the digital release is the ‘official’ one). There is something else really awesome on their page for the EP, too – It implies there will be a second Pennyroyal album, which is sure to be worth the wait.
- Hymie's Vintage Records - Dave Hoenack

Culture Queue 6-24-12: "Twin Cities Pride"
This week on Culture Queue, we join in Radio K's annual celebration of the Twin Cities Pride Parade. Our GLBTA show starts with reporter Emma Nelson examines the process of same-sex adoption. Senior Producer Zach McCormick checks out the headliner of Loring Park's Pride Festival, PennyRoyal.
In our second half, Brianna Hanson joins producer Noel Clark in counting down the Top 7 GLBTA achievements to be proud of. Alex Mehrtens ran down some of the parade attendees to ask of what they are most proud. Finally, host Mark Sheely leaves the friendly confines of the Twin Cities to check out how Pride is celebrated in rural Minnesota. - Radio K

Genre-bending, two harmonica players-having, blond mohawked singer-led Pennyroyal plays Cause to celebrate the release of its EP, Places. Just a handful of tracks, the EP will still leave listeners completely sated. Like a highly evolved, adaptive beast of music, Pennyroyal puts a glam spin on the rock ‘n’ blues sound other bands are circling in on today.

Listen to “Minot” and you’ll detect an almost terrifying genius powering lead singer Angie Oase’s at once ethereal and guttural vocals. Set against the landscape of a steady bass line and pitch perfect guitar hooks, Oase leads the charge onto the gates of musical heaven. Chart this territory on a map and you’ll end up somewhere between The Clash, Neko Case, and the Alabama Shakes with a glam sheen. Perfectly balanced. Pennyroyal will be joined by Me and My Arrow and Dreamland Faces. 9 p.m. $5. –LB - Secrets of the City

Not only is Pennyroyal one of the best new local bands you probably haven't heard, but it also has one of the best stories you'll ever hear about how two people met to form a band.

Angie Oase, the group's blonde mohawk-haired frontwoman, was playing solo sets around town in 2009 when she started covering a song called "Sarah," by an obscure Seattle songwriter named Ethan Rutherford. She got his CD from a friend of a friend. As Rutherford quipped, "My mom and sister were the only other two people who'd heard it."

Lo and behold, one night while Oase performed the song at Anodyne coffee shop in south Minneapolis, there sat a flabbergasted Rutherford, who had just relocated here to attend grad school at the University of Minnesota. Oase, too, was a transplant, having moved from Minot, N.D., to attend Macalester College.

"It was one of those things where you go, 'What are the chances?'" Rutherford said. "We had to do something together after that."

Finding each other across thousands of miles was just the start. Pennyroyal would go on to bridge a cross-section of musical influences to become a band that's hard to peg but easy to appreciate -- part Pretenders-style sass, part Velvet Underground-ian drone, part modern alt-twang.

Rutherford, the guitarist and part-time singer, is the Velvets nut in the group. Oase (pronounced like "ohs") grew up on old-school country and channels Patsy Cline better than a lot of pure-twang singers -- never mind that she looks as if she should be in a riot-grrrl act or Wendy O. Williams tribute band. Bassist Bill Hoben and drummer Jake Mohan are metalheads who also play in an instrumental hard-rock band, Wizard Fight.

These seemingly disparate influences were part of what made Pennyroyal's 2010 debut album, "Sad Face/Glad Face," such an interesting listen. Now, though, the quartet sounds much more coalesced and solidified on its follow-up EP, "Places," which it will promote Friday at Cause Spirits & Soundbar.

"A lot of the songs on our first album we learned while we were still getting to know each other, personally and musically," Oase recalled before a rehearsal session last week.

Soft-spoken and quick to laugh, the 28-year-old singer now knows her bandmates well enough for them to brag about her having her high-school basketball team's record for most three-pointers in a season. When it's suggested a yearbook be dug up for confirmation, she shot down the idea.

"You'll see why I have a mohawk," she cracked. "I've always had the worst haircuts."

The visual and emotional focal point of Pennyroyal, Oase was dealing with conflicted feelings about moving to a big city and coming out as a lesbian when the band formed. Those feelings of alienation could be heard throughout the debut and are especially prominent in the newer, Spoon-like gem, "Minot." In it, she sings, "A Minot of broken strings / A Minot of lost endings / I untie myself of these things."

"Minot" was originally released as a benefit single last summer when flooding ravaged Oase's hometown. It then became the basis for "Places," a five-song collection referencing different towns. "Mad City" is based on a trip to Madison, Wis., where a gig unknowingly got canceled. "New York Kids" riffs on the pursuit of coolness around Brooklyn. Cleveland and New Orleans are the EP's other two stops.

While the "city" songs were all written coincidentally, Oase sees one loose thematic tie: "There's a sense of escapism in them, of wanting to be somewhere else," she said.

Pennyroyal appears quite content staying put in Minneapolis in the coming months. Other upcoming gigs include a May 13 in-store at Hymie's Records (3 p.m.) and a May 18 slot during the 331 Club's Art-a-Whirl bash. One reason for putting out the EP now was to round out all these set lists.

Ironically, one song the band never includes in its sets is "Sarah," the one that originally brought its leaders together. "We've tried it, but it just doesn't work," O - CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER , Star Tribune

From this point forward the night became a little more conventional, but it isn't exactly the term I'd use to describe Pennyroyal, the night's next performer. Headed by the bleach blond fro-hawked Angie Oase, the band sports not one but two harmonica players. What intrigued me most about their performance was the versatility and eclecticism of genre hopping they brought with them to the stage. One song sounds like a sad Irish ballad, the next sounds like folk, blues and rock, the next sounds more like a modern take on punk or indie rock, and the next has more of an Americana vibe; it was with this diverse palate that Pennyroyal drew the largest crowd of the evening to the small corner of the bar and provided the longest set as well. A distinct highlight of the evening took place about halfway through their set as the projectionist happened to put up a documentary about the Arctic which matched the lyrics they were singing (about making it through the winter and ice, etc.), then added further intrigue by playing the short film in reverse. Pennyroyal turned out to be the perfect bridge between the art and presentation of Dreamland Faces and the blues/psychedelia of Vampire Hands. - City Pages Gimme Noise, Warren Wills

Before their big slot at the Uptown Pride Party on June 24, the scene’s prettiest-voiced mohawked singer, Angie Oase, and her harmonica-equipped band Pennyroyal are issuing their full-length debut "Sad Face/Glad Face" with a release party Friday at the 331 Club with the Rank Strangers (9 p.m., free). The 11-song set charmingly captures her Neko Case-like crooning over a collage of styles, including rollicking Americana and powerful, moody punk — part Patsy Cline and part Patti Smith. - Snapshots

Stellar debuts by 4onthefloor, Carnage and Pennyroyal rank up there with perennial favorites.

Pennyroyal, "Sad Face / Glad Face" -- That blond mohawk on singer Angie Oase's head sure does belie the high, piercing, hair-raising sound coming out of her mouth. She looks like a U.K. punk-rocker but sings like she left the Cranberries to join a Patsy Cline tribute band. Her band's full-length debut counterbalances her pretty voice with raw, echoey and vaguely Americana-flavored rock that's as elegant or gritty as it wants to be. The most punk thing about it is the attitudinal songwriting style of Oase and guitarist/co-vocalist Ethan Rutherford. "The rock stars in this town should head on down to L.A., and leave me with my simple music to play," she sings in "Simple Music," a call-to-purity that defines the album. - Star Tribune, CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER