Join us for the afterparty on The Starlight Stage in The Rabbit Box with Vivienne Di Marco & The Warning Strobe Lights!
Friday, Aug. 28th at 7pm
Free Admission!
Vivienne DiMarco wants you to be FREE. The Seattle-based guitarist’s debut album, Pressure, out now via Loosegroove Records, is a fantastically funky celebration of self-expression; a call of the wild urging people to express the most authentic and audacious version of themselves. Its sonic wingspan is equal parts Parliament meets Bauhaus, Ace Frehley meets Ian Curtis, Grace Jones meets Johnny Thunders. “Music to me is like a carriage ride in an old ‘50s movie where everyone has glorious furs on. It’s interstellar space travel to the other side of the galaxy. I think of it like being a cowboy alone by yourself. It’s hard work, but you have to be amazing because it’s life or death out there,” proclaims DiMarco. “You can’t be afraid to show people who you are. You must stay strong in your convictions because you have no one else to depend on when the chips are down. When I make music, I’m free to express myself. Free to not be in a box of masculine or feminine. The universe has put me here to say it’s ok—we can be free; help yourself any way that you need.” True to DiMarco’s vision, the eight tracks on Pressure, produced by Funkscribe aka Anthony Warner, offer without hesitation a full-body embrace of kaleidoscopic influences like darkwave, trance, glam, and groove. Sonically, the recording melds live drums with electronic drums, layered keyboards with long chords and minimal changes. “Pressure,” the title track and first single, is unapologetically Funkadelic, while simultaneously begging the question of how long it will take for people to be who they really are.
“I was raised in Toledo, Ohio with a strictly Midwestern outlook, don’t make waves, keep your head down and do as you’re told,” says DiMarco. “As I grew older, I realized that, in order to be happy in this life, I had to reimagine myself in different terms than the fear I was raised with.” DiMarco, who chooses to keep his true identity separate from his work as an artist, headed West with its promise of a potential holy land where he could let his freak flag fly. Relocating to Seattle, he worked as a construction worker by day to make ends meet. He’d invent the character of Vivienne DiMarco as a means to pursue, through musical expression, the complex identities he’d been suppressing. He raised his profile considerably in the Northwest after joining soul wunderkind Brittany Davis’ band as lead guitarist. Indeed, the image of DiMarco in 7-inch heels and fishnet stockings wielding a Les Paul onstage with a blind, non-binary, African American vocalist/keyboardist was a truly defiant statement in and of itself. Now stepping out with his solo endeavor, DiMarco further seeks to expand his vision that gives autonomy to everyday people trapped in their box, giving those disaffected souls the power to fulfill their fantasies. To that end, “The Storm” examines being raised in the church with Bible study and youth retreats, but summoning the courage to push back against the indoctrination. “Safety Place” is an uptempo, joyous jam that gets down and boogies as it offers solace to someone who’s lost their place in the world. There’s even a “stark ass, dark love song” in “Baby,” that begs a lover to stop the pain, during which DiMarco “cried like a child in the studio” while recording the song. “The music on Pressure is a hybrid of all the different elements of my personality,” says DiMarco. “It allows me to be this fantasy person full of confidence and relate to all kinds of different people who might be feeling the same as I did. I want to inspire people to break out, not to do what I’m doing necessarily, but to do what brings each individual joy in their own lives. We have one life to live, so go for it—let it rip.”