III Points Gave Nine Miami Musicians Pizza, Weed, and 48 Hours to Make Music Together

For as long as the independent music operation — that is, any endeavor not tied to or backed by a major label — has existed, so too has the compilation. In certain circles, no meaningful or in-depth exploration of a favorite artist’s discography is complete without stumbling upon a loose track one never knew existed on an obscure compilation long-relegated to a used record bin.

While this sort of thing is popularly thought to be reserved for the punk and indie crowds (think late '80s and '90s Sub Pop and Merge Records signees) III Points and Little Haiti's 10K Islands recording studio have partnered up to bring this storied tradition to the contemporary Miami music scene. Conceived as a way of bringing great musical Miami minds together, the Swerving Serpents Vol. 1 compilation functions as a preview for the forthcoming III Points festival in addition to offering a much-needed platform for a few beloved, yet sometimes overlooked local acts.

Each track on the compilation presents a heretofore unheard collaboration between Miami artists. According to the press release, the tracks comprising Swerving Serpents Vol. 1 were spurred on by, in III Points' own words, “48 hours in a state of the art music studio, a bag of weed, a box of pizza and total creative freedom.”

The first fruit of these undoubtedly sticky and assuredly icky labors — Poorgrrrl and Nick León’s “Bored Games" — was released yesterday. Somehow sounding like both a worthy successor to the Beatles' “Revolution 9” and what would happen if the rapper Kitty signed to Warp, “Bored Games” certainly lives up to the promise of its hazy origins.
Asked who smoked the most weed or ate the most pizza (or both, probably) in the studio, Poorgrrrl offered the following: “I didn’t eat any pizza.” Semi-corroborating her story, Nick León added that “the pizza/weed intake was pretty even. We smoked a lot of weed, and the pizza only lasted for five minutes.”

In addition to what Poorgrrrl calls the “mental evacuation” of “Bored Games,” the next three Mondays will see the weekly release of the remainder of Swerving Serpents Vol. 1, featuring the likes of Miami acts Deaf Poets, Austin Paul, Twelve’len and more, all culminating in the September 29 release party of the compilation at Bardot. While we doubt Bardot will be offering free weed (the jury is still out on the pizza) we’re confident the event will be sufficiently lit. 

Swerving Serpents Vol. 1 Release Party with Poorgrrrl, Nick León, Deaf Poets, Virgo, Twelve’len, Twelve Tales, Austin Paul, SNDNGCHLLZ and Byrdipop. 10 p.m. Thursday, September 29, at Bardot Miami, 3456 North Miami Avenue Miami; 305-576-5570; bardotmiami.com.