Illuminati Hotties @ Black Cat [DC] - 2/22/2022
Illuminati Hotties at Black Cat (Photo ©2022 Mauricio Castro)
Illuminati Hotties is the ‘tender-punk’ project of LA-based musician, producer, music engineer, and mixer Sarah Tudzin. She’s left her mark on many notable musical projects over the years, like Weyes Blood’s Titanic Rising, Slowdive’s self-titled album, and even the original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton. But for Tudzin, there is nothing more exciting than recording, producing, and mixing your own album for your own label, turning the unhinged energy up to 11. In an interview with The Creative Independent, she elaborated on her work ethic and the benefits of being a musician with studio experience:
“If I want to run the producer into the ground, that’s just me working crazy hours. I can go down the rabbit hole in a way that the other artists just don’t have time or budget or patience for.”
She’s the quintessential studio tinkerer, and it shows in the diversity of production styles she employs in her latest album, Let Me Do One More. And as funny and wild as Tudzin can be on her recordings, her personality shines even further at an Illuminati Hotties show. From the moment she and her band walked out on stage to the tune of Kenny Loggins’s “Danger Zone,” she and her band had a lot of fun screaming, pogoing, and sticking their tongues out at each other. The frenetic “Pool Hopping,” the intense motorik of “content//bedtime,” and the honest breakup tune “I Wanna Keep Yr Dog'' were the highlights of the show.
Her boisterous on-stage persona was a contrast to her two openers, Texas’s Katy Kirby and Bristol, UK’s Fenne Lily, both of whom have excellent lyrical stylings and would fit right in with the greats at Newport Folk Festival. Even if they all have a different approach to their sound, all three artists played to their musical strengths and viewpoints to serve up great songs about breakups, self-esteem, and finding love all over again.
Let Me Do One More is out now through Tudzin’s own label Snack Shack Tracks through Hopeless Records. Fenne Lily’s latest album is BREACH, which was released in 2020 through Dead Oceans. Katy Kirby’s debut album Cool Dry Place was released in 2021 through Keeled Scales.
Photos by Mauricio Castro
SETLIST
will i get cancelled if i write a song called, “if you were a man you’d be so cancelled”
Pool Hopping
MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA
Knead
Threatening Each Other re: Capitalism
The Sway
Joni: LA's No. 1 Health Goth
Kickflip
content//bedtime
ppl plzr
superiority complex (big noise)
ENCORE
I Wanna Keep Yr Dog
Pressed 2 Death