Happiness, emptiness, history — those are the first words of each stanza in Iska Dhaaf’s song, “Happiness.” The Seattle-grown, Brooklyn-based, indie psych-rock duo translates stories into songs, some inspired by Sufi poetry and the history of the Somali people and others by books or their own lives.
The band’s name is a Somali saying that translates as “let it go,” and it’s something of a mantra. Seven months ago, they let go of their hometown of Seattle and moved to Brooklyn, and the borough is currently serving as the hub of an East Coast tour that will bring them to The Press Room in Portsmouth on Sunday, April 26.
Iska Dhaaf is drummer and keyboardist Benjamin Verdoes, formerly of Mt. St. Helen’s Vietnam Band, and guitarist and lead vocalist Nathan Quiroga, formerly of Buffalo Madonna and Mad Red. Their new album, “Even the Sun Will Burn,” is 12 tracks of gloomy, melodic, and, at times, militaristic psych-rock, with upbeat organ riffs and high-energy drums.
The video for “Everybody Knows,” one of the album’s singles, features the band performing at a Vietnam War-era USO show while one of the soldiers in the audience drops acid. The song was inspired by “Jarhead,” Anthony Swofford’s memoir about serving as a Marine in the first Gulf War. Their goal, Quiroga has said, is to create songs that induce a state of something close to spiritual enlightenment — in other words, to encourage listeners to let go of the physical and embrace the ethereal.
“I think that people can immediately see that we have worked really hard at what we have and what we do, and that our connection is really strong.” — Nathan Quiroga
To do so requires a lot of reading and, according to Quiroga, a lot of writing. The move from Seattle to Brooklyn helped with that.
“It was time for us to make a move,” Quiroga said. “We had done most of what we could in Seattle and we were just ready for a change.”
They’ve taken advantage of the shorter trips between gigs to work on new music on the road. Quiroga spoke with The Sound while driving between Gainesville and Tampa, Fla. The East Coast tour has given them opportunities to “work on the record at a coffee shop, and, you know, try to rest up a little bit,” said Quiroga.
Their relentless touring schedule in support of “Even the Sun Will Burn” has helped with building an audience just as much as it’s helped with writing.
“I think that people can immediately see that we have worked really hard at what we have and what we do, and that our connection is really strong,” Quiroga said.
“If one or two or three people can really connect with it, then next time they bring their friends, and it multiplies. We’ve started to see that on this tour, and it means so much to us when people do that.”
Living on the other side of the country has also allowed the band to get into a new creative space.
“We don’t have a practice space in New York yet, so it kind of forced us to create a little differently, and we wanted to create a little differently as well,” Quiroga said. “I think with this group, we’re going to continue making records that sound completely different than the one before it.”
“That’s all you can really ask for, is to catch somebody off guard and have them be affected by your music, and your ideas and thoughts.”
— Nathan Quiroga
On the band’s first record, Quiroga said, they tried to incorporate an array of styles but remain authentic to themselves as artists.
“That will be the through line for all of our music, but the sounds that envelope it will constantly be changing, and the style of communication will constantly be changing,” he said.
Last month, the band performed at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. Quiroga said the festival was probably the biggest event Iska Dhaaf has ever performed at, but the feeling wasn’t the same compared to small venues.
“I’m not really super into festivals,” he said. “It’s just a strange way to think about music. People’s attention spans are rarely focused. … It’s also this kind of weird athleticism that comes in with music, like everyone wants to beat each other, like a sport, and for me music isn’t really about athleticism.”
For Quiroga, playing live music is about working hard to bridging the gap between audience and performer — letting go of those barriers and, in the process, establishing a connection. He remembers a recent show in Florida where Iska Dhaaf opened for another band. They were relatively unknown at the start of the night, but by the end, they had a few new fans.
“We were really happy about that,” said Quiroga. “That’s all you can really ask for, is to catch somebody off guard and have them be affected by your music, and your ideas and thoughts.”
Iska Dhaaf appears with Sexy Girls on Sunday, April 26 at 10 p.m. at The Press Room, 77 Daniel St., Portsmouth. Tickets are available at pressroomnh.com.
At top: Nathan Quiroga and Benjamin Verdoes of Iska Dhaaf (photo by Emerald Gold)