STARFRUIT
booking: starfruitohyeah@gmail.com
Starfruit is an ensemble/entity formed in 2016 by frontperson/composer/multi-instrumentalist Ava W Boehme ("AY-vuh BAY-me") based in Dallas, Texas. The ensemble fluctuates in size and sound, most known for performing as a 5-6 piece group, though occasionally performing with as many as 10 members, delivering high energy, transcendent performances. In a time when many artists minimize their lineups, there’s a communal power in experiencing several people playing together as an orchestrated unit - feeling the impact of acoustic drums surrounded by multiple vocalists, piano, mallets, synths, guitars and saxophone. Dallas based cultural publication, Central Track, called Starfruit "one of Dallas's most adventurous pop groups."
After self-releasing their debut 7” EP in 2017, Starfruit released their first full length, Wild West Combat in January of 2020 via Dreamy Life Records. Starfruit’s ambitious debut album harnesses elaborate arrangements with moments of frenzied improvisation contained within elegantly organized orchestrations, with nearly half of the songs accompanied by jubilant homemade music videos.
“The lyrics of Wild West Combat deal with my experience of transitioning as a nonbinary trans person living in Texas - finding my identity, birthing myself, and navigating a Wild West where emotional and physical safety felt scarce,” explains Boehme. To celebrate the album's release, Starfruit coordinated a multisensory performance show at the historic Texas Theater in Dallas, which Central Track called "a surreal, boundary-blurring realm...filling the venue with a joyful noise that's as real as it gets."
Starfruit followed the release of their full length debut with Tender Tape, a collection of love ballads accompanying Wild West Combat's bombastic cacophony with a soft refuge. "I’ve been enamored with the concept of music that loves you. Not just love songs, but music that commits the act of loving the listener," says Boehme.
In the wake of the cancellation of their first national tour in support of Wild West Combat in spring of 2020, Boehme used their reserves of energy to write and orchestrate Starfruit’s sophomore LP, Be Begin Beginning Begging. The title reflects a perpetual churning of growing and becoming, without ever arriving - signified by the painting of a swallowtail butterfly by artist Jamie Lerman on the album’s cover.
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Starfruit released the first single off the album - the angular 6 minute triumph, 'Fire Fighter (Hold Me Tighter)' in March of 2023. A swoop of Texas dates culminated in a legendary DIY single release show on the rooftop of Deep Vellum Books in Dallas, where the title of the album was announced. The show was documented by multiple cameras Boehme passed around the audience.
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The group followed the first single with the contrastingly ambient, 'A Tall Tree' at the end of the spring. The fantastical epic's music video features the group in cheeky Tolkien inspired costumes, filmed in large part in an abandoned elementary school that was torn down shortly after filming.
Be Begin Beginning Begging serves as a total vision of Starfruit’s prowess. Packing the hard hitting weight of Black Sabbath (or Led Zeppelin, another favorite gender) with a frilly majesty reminiscent of Kate Bush’s early albums, repeated rhythmic patterns that are at first alien and challenging become hypnotic and cathartic. Boehme’s voice soars at the top of angular rhythmic sculptures with emotive Joplin-esque rawness and belting resonance like a trans Rob Halford. The high vocal harmonies merging with Boehme’s are from the pipes of operatically trained vocalist, Michelle Mackey. Mackey and Boehme became friends playing in various ensembles together at Booker T. Washington High School for The Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, Texas.
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The album’s 13 tracks are punctuated by lush ambient interludes featuring saxophonist Garrett Wingfield’s granulated saxophone, manipulated by Wingfield in the synthesis software, Max MSP - a process Boehme dubbed “Sax MSP.” The album is expertly sequenced, providing the listener with valleys of reprieve and jolts of loudness - 48 minutes woven in a hyperbolic time chamber. Somewhere between the rich textures and bombastic drums lies a spirit of resilience and ecstasy.