Month: May 2013

ARTIST PROFILE: Nightlands

nightlands_largeNightlands is the solo project of Dave Hartley, who plays bass for The War On Drugs. On his own, he makes dreampop records that reveal new  elements upon each listen, like gems that throw off a different light every time you pick them up. His voice is lush and warm, and he often records himself singing in multiple registers, lending a choral quality to the vocal tracks–which is by far one of the most interesting aspects of his musical style. His first album, Forget The Mantra has expansive electronic underpinnings, while his new work, Oak Island (Secretly Canadian)–released earlier this year–has a decidedly more cohesive sonic narrative, with inventive, R&B-inspired brass lines and soaring, romantic melodies that make you feel like you’re floating in space, eliciting simultaneously sad and happy thoughts, perfect for anyone who’s recently had their heart broken, with just enough melencholia to open up those crevices of pain, but not too much that it takes you down. Take a listen to the album’s beautiful first track here.

AudioFemme was lucky enough to get a a little chat in with Hartely, to discuss his musical journey since the age of 13 when he picked up a bass for the first time, how the unconscious affects our creativity, and how we can all take steps to look at ourselves with more circumspection. Less heady stuff too, like Dave’s dream collaborations–which include one of my all time favorite producers (maybe you can guess who it is).

Here’s what he had to divulge to us:

Thanks for taking the time to speak with us, Dave!

AF:    Tell us a little bit about your musical background? At what age did you know you wanted to be a musician? What kind of music did you listen to growing up? How many instruments do you play?

DH: I have always loved and been interested in music, but I think the shift occurred when I realized that I could feel good about myself through music instead of sports–when I was 13 or so. As hard as I tried, I just wasn’t great at basketball–the bass guitar came easily to me. I can actually remember being in my friend Andy’s basement and picking up his Peavey bass and cranking his massive Trace Elliot amp to 10 and hearing the entire house shake when I hit an open A note.. I went home and begged my Dad for a bass immediately.

The first tape I owned was ‘Born in the USA’, then came the Beatles, LL Cool J, Michael Jackson, Boyz 2 Men, things of that nature. In middle and high school I started to get really into classic rock and angsty grunge. Pretty standard stuff–I’m a child of the suburbs. It wasn’t until I moved to Philadelphia that my real musical education began.
Bass is my main instrument, but I’ve been playing guitar forever and trumpet since I was a boy. I can play drums and some keys/synth. Anybody who has been in bands for 15 years, well, you just learn by osmosis.

AF:    What inspired your decision to go solo?

DH: I never considered it “going solo”, per se, I just started recording music by myself. Secretly Canadian wanted to release it, I was happy to have them do it, and soon enough I started trying to get a live band together. The War on Drugs (and other bands I play with) take up a lot of time, but there is also significant down time between records and tours. I wanted to write my own songs and stack vocals the way I like to.

AF:    It’s been said that your new album, Oak Island, was conceived of with the help of your bedside tape recorder, which you used to document dreams and other night time musical epiphanies. That’s so cool! How do you think your unconscious affects your creative process?

DH: That was actually my last record, Forget the Mantra. I really think our brains are constantly taking stimulus, rearranging it, and spitting it back at us. When we are asleep it slips past our natural filters, I think. I’m always hearing melodies and things while I’m falling asleep.. I think they’re always there, it’s just really hard to tune into them. For Oak Island, I didn’t use this technique, simply because I’m better now at accessing that part of my brain. I can write songs without a bedside tape recorder…. although someday maybe I’ll go back to it.

AF:    Is Oak Island a real place, or is it metaphorical?

DH: Both. It’s an island off the coast of Nova Scotia where people have searched for rumored buried treasure for hundreds and hundreds of years. It represents, to me, mystery without end.

AF:    Are there aspects yourself that you discover through the music you make?

DH: Absolutely. I’m always surprised at the lyrics that come out of me. I don’t mean them to be coherent, but they often are extremely coherent. I didn’t mean to write ‘Other People’s Pockets’ about getting lied to by a friend, it just came out all at once.

AF:    Do you think Carl Jung would like your new album? What about Freud, what would he think?

DH: It’d be pretentious of me to say yes, but perhaps Jung and Freud would be interested in analyzing my dream tapes–there are some really crazy, unhinged things on there.

AF:    How does your new album differ from Forget The Mantra?

DH: It’s much fuller, with more low end. I didn’t really play any bass on Forget the Mantra because I wanted to test my musicianship as a non-bassist. Also, I’ve played bass for so long, that it is very hard to use it as a writing tool. It’s one of the last things I add. It’s much easier to write a song on an instrument you have little knowledge of. I also mixed Oak Island professionally with my good friend Brian McTear, so it is just sonically different. I also worked a bit more on songcraft, honing the lyrics and rearranging things a bit. Forget the Mantra was all about committing early.

AF:    Which Mantra should we forget for that matter, and why?

DH: It’s just a play on words. It’s repeated and therefore becomes a mantra. It’s a paradox.

AF:    How have your work and your artistic leanings generally evolved from your earlier days with The War On Drugs?

DH: I’ve learned a lot through The Drugs. I have tremendous respect for Adam and have definitely learned a lot from watching him and being around him, although we have totally different brains and working styles. When I started playing with him 7 years ago, I don’t think I was really capable of making an interesting recording.

AF:    Your tagline is “Onwards and Inwards.” What does that journey entail for you? What do you think we can all do to begin taking those first steps inward?

DH: Great question. That is my tagline because ‘Onwards and Upwards’ never made sense to me. I’ve never been a social climber. In a fit of anxiety and depression I nearly enrolled in law school a few years ago–that would have been a tremendous mistake. I am not a mystic or an academic or a rigorous intellectual; I simply think that we must be careful that this experience of being human on the planet Earth doesn’t just wash over us as “normal” or, heaven forbid, “boring”.

AF:    If you could collaborate artistically with anyone, living or historical, who would it be?

DH: I’d love to work with Brian Eno. He is a hero of mine. He is a man whose talent is almost exclusively this uncanny ability to look differently at things.

I would also love to play bass in the Rolling Stones.

AF:    If you weren’t a musician what would you be doing with your life?

DH: Writing elevated science-fiction.

AF:     What is the most inspiring place in the world for you?

DH: San Sebastian, Spain.

AF:     Is there a superpower you wish you possessed?

DH: No.

AF:     What exciting stuff do you have planned for the coming year?

DH: Some fun tours, recording projects and some sojourns across the continent and world.

Thank you so much for talking to us!! Your new album is a real work of art.

 

Making Records and Mudpies With Vårmakon

On Saturday night, half of New York City filed into Grand Prospect Hall for DFA Records’ twelve-year annivesary party, hosted by the aural, modern day equivalent of Jay Gatsby – Red Bull Music Academy, who have been throwing insanely well curated parties, shows and talks in far-flung venues all over the city over the past month or so.  Tickets were hard to come by, released in bunches only to sell out immediately.  So if you couldn’t get one, or if, say, you don’t prefer the glossy synths and throbbing beats of Yacht, James Murphy, or Planningtorock so much as you do Pharmakon’s heart-rending shrieks or Vår’s punishing electronic wave of noise, then you did what around a hundred or so people did instead and crammed yourself into pop-up DIY venue The Rink.

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At the former (possibly current?) photo studio, there were no laser beams.  Just a built-out loft with a sweep in one corner, covered in white plastic, Anthony Naples DJing remixes of the theme from Twin Peaks, a metal tub filled with water, and a pile of dirt.  That was, until Pharmakon and Vår took the stage, together (billed cleverly as Vårmakon), just after 11PM.  They wore matching white shirts and black pants that vaguely gave them the appearance of cater-waiters, but instead of rattling off the nightly specials with the skill of a Marlow & Sons pro, they hunched morbidly over a table of gear illuminated by red spotlights and took turns playing each others songs, each seamlessly blended into the next.

The event was hosted by Pitchfork and Sacred Bones Records, the latter of which just released Abandon (Pharmakon’s debut) and No One Dances Quite Like My Brothers (Vår’s first full-length).  As such, it was meant to serve as a release party, but toward the end of the set it turned into something a little more like Spa Castle; each member of Vår doused themselves in water and rubbed dirt all over their clean white shirts, faces, arms, each other.  When Margaret Chardiet finished performing “Crawling On Bruised Knees” (her quintessential set closer) she joined the boys in literally soiling themselves, then the group played one last song as a filthy whole.

varmakon1I’ll admit that antics like this make my job as a music writer and observer of musical happenings way, way easier.  It also makes Instagrammers blow up Twitter with pictures of Elias Rønnenfelt wearing a blindfold.  And that’s probably the goal Pitchfork and Sacred Bones had in mind when staging the whole thing.  It’s not that I wasn’t expecting something slightly controversial to occur during the performance after witnessing Vår’s onstage makeouts last summer.  But honestly, it would have been better if Vår had just played their record, which is phenomenally beautiful and heavy but has these very strange, ultra-gorgeous pop inflections.

And Pharmakon?  This woman does not need gimmicks.  Her voice, and her vision as an artist, have made my pulse quicken every single time I’ve had the pleasure of catching her riveting performances.  I liked the idea of the two entities collaborating, but I had imagined Chardiet’s signature shrieks over Vår’s dark, atmospheric washes, something new created by the act of playing collaboratively.  I almost heard in my head her voice blending with Loke Rahbek’s, or with Rønnenfelt’s, or the three of them singing (or screaming, or whatever) together.

Instead, I was reminded of Johnny Ray Rucker III, a goofball kid I went to art school with.  We referred to his girlfriend as Art Boobs because he hung all these naked pictures of her covered in fake blood up in the dorm hallway (it was with her consent; she was a bit unhinged as well).  I know art school is a magnet for weirdos, but even among weirdos this kid stood out as weirder then the rest.  Once, he announced a noise show he’d be performing by himself in the fluorescently-lit student center.  During it, he screamed, he writhed around on the ground, he mauled a perfectly innocent sandwich, and doused himself in chocolate syrup.  This is what Pitchfork has reduced Pharmakon and Vår to in my mind, and both are way, way better than that.varmakon4

So what’s behind the shenanigans?   Is social media to blame?  Are record labels and blogs and booking agents so desperate to generate buzz that they’ll encourage bands to forgo any emphasis on their music and turn its live iteration into a circus?  Should we veteran show-goers be glad that someone is giving us something to comment on, whether those comments are snarky or awed or some mix of both?  It’s hard to know for sure, and that’s one of the reasons it’s a weird and wonderful time to be in thick of it.  I might have found Vårmakon’s performance piece slightly trite, but I certainly enjoyed scrolling through my friends’ Vine feeds of the lasers over at Grand Prospect Hall.

LIVE REVIEW: Angel Olsen @ Glasslands 5-19-13

The first twangy strains of Angel Olsen’s “Lonely Universe” drift over a packed crowd at Glasslands.  The girl next to me goes breathless.  She swoons, gasping this is my jam as though we’re teenagers and Rihanna just came on the radio, but Olsen’s measured, sorrow-tinged crooning is far from club jam, and the girl standing next to me is actually Sharon Van Etten.

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Angel Olsen at Glasslands.
Angel Olsen at Glasslands.

This is how you know Angel Olsen is the next thing in indie folk – her biggest fans are the heaviest hitters in the same genre.  Whether it’s Bonnie “Prince” Billy asking her to join up with his Cairo Gang or Marissa Nadler posting a lilting version of a Richard and Linda Thompson song the two covered together on soundcloud, Olsen is poised to follow the same trajectory.

The singer-songwriter honed her unique vocals by recording homemade tapes as a teenager in St. Louis before relocating to Chicago.  It was there that she perfected her warbling, soulful wail, channeling something at once mournful and powerful.  She released a six-song EP, Strange Cacti, on Bathetic in 2010, and it managed to grab the attention of the right people.  Soon after, she was introduced to Will Oldham through Emmett Kelly, and her work with the pair taught her the joys of singing with a full band, learning harmonies and traditional folk songs while writing the material that would appear on last year’s stunning full-length debut, Half Way Home.  Jagjaguwar is set to release her next offering, having signed her in April of this year, so at this point there’s pretty much nothing stopping Angel Olsen.

Whether her confidence is innate or bolstered by the reality of impending success, Olsen is far from a shrinking violet onstage.  Lyrically, her songs are intimate and confessional, even seeming forlorn at times, but she infused them with an unflinching fierceness during her set at Glasslands last Sunday.  Comprised mainly of familiar material, the live renditions were fleshed out by a full band that even included lush cello.  It was a pleasant surprise to hear these usually sparse songs transformed, but the most poignant and heart-wrenching moments came during an encore in which she performed solo, calling on the same unabashed strength she’d displayed with four other musicians behind her.  It was impossible to keep my eyes from welling up, and I imagine that this was the case for many other attendees.

Olsen might be billed as singer-songwriter but in a way she’s also a hypnotist, able to project a compelling electricity into a crowded room; the show that night was sold out but there were moments when I could have been the only person there.  Part of that is in the revealing nature of the stories she is willing to sing, but there is also magic and seduction in the space she creates just by singing at all.  With that voice, names from a telephone book might sound just as devastating.  Instead, she casually delivers lines like “it’s known that the tiniest seed is both simple and wild” and it comes off simultaneously as winsome musing and a kind of warning; simple and wild are the perfect pair of words to describe Olsen herself.  What comes next from her could be totally unexpected, but it is sure to possess all the timeless allure that’s captivated fans and her musical contemporaries alike.

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LIVE REVIEW: Beat Music at Rockwood Music Hall

MGrockwoodreleasepartyThe house was packed at Rockwood Music Hall for the album release party of Beat Music this April 25th.  A solid vehicle for Mark Guiliana’s signature brand of drumming, Beat Music combines jazz, rock, drum n’ bass, experimental electronic, and more, and melds these styles into a new amalgamated genre.  Modern Drummer magazine states Mark Guiliana “may well be at the forefront of an exciting new style of drumming.”  Guiliana’s precise yet unpredictable technique is thrilling to experience.  An equally eclectic cast of musicians joined him on stage for a night of densely packed rhythms and dark yet danceable electro-inspired hooks.

Guiliana gained acclaim for his long-time partnership with jazz bassist Avishai Cohen.  The pair toured internationally, and notably played and recorded at world class jazz club Blue Note, among other such venues.  Guiliana joined the electro-groove trio Now vs. Now with keyboardist Jason Lindner and bassist Panagiotis Andreou, and the group continues to perform in New York City and abroad.  Beat Music is a new iteration of Guiliana’s highly stylized drumming and original compositions.  This release marks the first album under the Beat Music moniker.

To pin down Mark Guiliana’s style is tricky, as he seems to have created his own technique.  He continually changes up rate, phrasing, dynamics and instrumentation so his sound constantly evolves.  He anchors the music with his aggressive, inventive beats, and simultaneously establishes subtlety and nuance.  Musicians in the audience were quick to absorb his penchant for a-typical time signatures and mathematical precision.

Steve Wall and Guiliana are responsible for weaving electronic texture into the music.   Wall uses a Novation Launchpad to trigger recorded vocal samples, such as dial tone operator messages and sampled quotes from speeches.  The recordings sometimes disintegrate into bizarre, warped tones that can give the music a psychedelic feel.  These speech recordings are interspersed throughout the songs, and add narrative to the set as a whole.

Singer Jeff Taylor made a guest appearance part way through the set.  He is the modern jazz rock incarnation of Tom Waits.  Taylor nearly explodes onstage with energy and a bent towards uninhibited expression.  He throws wild curve balls with his voice.  He oscillates between an exposed, breathy pop quality, and a rumbling, raspy low belt that seems unhinged from reality.  He scats, screams, whispers, croons, and electronically enhances and distorts his voice.

Taylor scaled back a bit for a duet with jazz vocalist Gretchen Parlato.  Parlato slowed things down by deploying her smooth, hushed tones on a gentle yet smoldering song “Heernt.”  She brought some much appreciated femininity to an otherwise male dominated set.  Parlato and Guiliana recently announced their engagement, so fans can hope for more collaboration to come.

Chris Morrissey is a smart addition to the group, as his bass playing is as inventive as Guiliana’s beats.  Morrissey gained experience playing with a long list of Minneapolis based artists.  As I spent my college weekends driving into the Twin Cities to see bands like Mason Jennings, Haley Bonar, and The Bad Plus perform (all of whom Morrissey has played with), it was a treat to see a fellow Minnesotan establishing himself in New York.

Long-standing collaborator Jason Lindner manned the synth keyboard.   Lindner’s love for complex rhythms seems inseparable from Guiliana’s musical vision.  The two thrive on each other’s energy and match one another in technical ability.  With over 35 recordings under his belt, Lindner is an active player in the jazz tradition.  He seems to be having the most fun on stage, and his exuberance is contagious.

Although Beat Music focuses on Mark Guiliana’s signature drumming style, the music ultimately relies on the individuality and technical mastery of a colorful lineup of musicians.  This project is a fresh take on a wide range of genres, and defies typical categorization.  Beat Music is for listeners who like to be challenged and surprised.

The Beat Music album was released under Rockwood Musical Recordings, and is available for download at http://rockwoodmusichall.com/recordings/10-mark-guiliana-beat-music.html

DEMO REVIEW + EXCLUSIVE: Violet Machine

VM StageViolet Machine, a recently-formed indie rock quartet from Brooklyn makes music that inspires nostalgia for the early 00s.  You remember, that one year Interpol hit the scene and provided NYC’s newest batch of millennial transplants with a soundtrack that, for most of us, will never ever lose its meaning or cease to make our hearts pound when we hear it? Many bands tried to follow in their footsteps; tried to scale those same illustrious heights the New York darlings managed to conquer within a matter of years, thanks to two momentous albums.

Most failed miserably at the task of building on the foundation Interpol laid, because their specific brand of drawling, brash, stripped-down indie rock just sounds derivative at best unless every musician in the band can deliver on the underlying conceit of the songs they’re writing. And this requires more talent than most possess. Subsequently, the tunes often fall flat, so to speak.

Violet Machine emerged onto the Brooklyn indie circuit early this year, and within a few months, breathed life into, and provided direction for a genre that had lost its way over the last decade. In essence, they are achieving what so many before them failed to. Their demo comes out next week, and promises everything we’ve been missing: the perfect balance of instrumental complexity and gripping, affected vocals that capture the attention of the listener and transport them into another world of city lights, heartbreak, longing…all those motifs that most artists seek inspiration from, but can never really in turn, transform into sources of inspiration unto themselves.

The first track off their demo, “Starlight”, begins with what could be construed as a formulaic, gritty and textured minor chord progression underpinned by catchy drums. Until that is, the vocals come in, soaring and tinged with retro hues, and hook you. The instrumentation is suddenly lent depth and dimension that wasn’t apparent before and the song itself as a whole begins to expand and appropriate space in the room, leaving one eager for the next verse. Though the melody is reminiscent of those written by so many before it, from shoegaze trailblazers like The Pixies to the resident bad boys of The Strokes, there’s something refreshing about lead singer Rob Majors’ voice. Most likely, it’s that you know it reflects how he actually sounds, as there’s very little post-production tinkering to the songs. However, there’s also an ineffable quality to it, that can best be described as simultaneously relateable and otherworldly.

“So Close The Birds”, their second track, begins with an ominous guitar line executed with Flamenco stylings that leave one wishing for snare drum or at least fuller percussive dimensions –perhaps the one element I would surmise this composition lacks. Majors’ vocals come in after a few bars though, and  jolt the listener back to some memory of a times passed, not too distant a memory that it feels illusory, but distant enough to jar the nerves. Once again, the strength of the songs lie in their capacity to capture and expand on music that already happened, of which there wasn’t nearly enough.

“On The Take” also begins with an iconic guitar melody (definitely sensing a signature style emerging), that provides a foundation for the rest of the song, which is perhaps slower-paced, and more soothing than the prior two tracks due to its washed vocals that blend in with the guitar and bass for most of the song. It sounds almost as if you’re hearing through the receiver of a telephone, melodic and lyrical intimations that can feel placating and exciting alike.

Violet Machine has a long trajectory ahead of them, especially given the fact they are retrieving a genre of music that got seemingly kicked to the curb years ago. Their demo gives us a narrow glimpse into what they are capable of musically, and what lies ahead for them creatively. We got our hands on an exclusive release of the first track off the mix, “Starlight”,  so you can see for yourselves.

STARLIGHT-Violet Machine

 

Liars Bring New Songs To NYC

After thoroughly enjoying last summer’s set at Webster Hall, I was pumped to see Liars not once but twice this past weekend.  The first show was in the Met’s Temple of Dendur, which is about as epic as a setting gets.  The band literally played amongst the ruins of the monument, built in 15 BC by Petronius, Roman governor of Egypt and relocated to the museum’s Sackler Wing in 1978 after being gifted to the United States to save it from flooding created by the Aswan Dam.  The acoustics were either awesome or jarringly echoic depending on where you were standing, and where you were standing depended on gallery officials adhering to fire codes, but hey.  The trippy projections flashing behind Angus Andrew and company were probably more than twenty feet wide and plenty enthralling if your vantage point was less-than ideal for watching the band.

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Liars in the Temple of Dendur.
Liars in the Temple of Dendur.

The following night, Liars visited (le) poisson rouge for a show that by then was starting to seem like it had been cursed by King Tut himself.  First, the venue changed from Brooklyn’s Masonic Temple for unspecified reasons.  Scheduled openers Lower Dens dropped off the bill around the time the venue change was announced.  Doldrums stepped up to occupy the opening spot but were foiled by the theft of Airick Woodhead’s laptop and passport, so the Toronto band never made it to Brooklyn, and Liars took the stage promptly at 8:30.

liarslpr

Both sets included songs from WIXIW, Liars most-recent (and most electronic) release.  Considering that they’d already toured in support of the record, it was surprising they were doing these shows at all; as it turns out, the purpose of both was to debut all-new material.  The new songs are, once again, heavy on the electronics and driven by pounding beats, but possess a darkness and urgency not unlike the mood of 2004’s witch-worshipping classic They Were Wrong, So We Drowned.  The only actual foray into that material was during the encore at LPR, which ended with crowd pleaser “Broken Witch”.  There were no encores at the Met so for those who, like myself, had attended both, it felt like a treat.

You can watch a video for “Who Is The Hunter” (from WIXIW) here.  Below, check out video of a new song, which according to their somewhat cryptic handwritten setlist might be called something like “Can’t Hear”.  It’s far more relaxed and sparse than some of the other new stuff they played, lest ye naysayers worry Liars are losing their edge.  The fact that Angus Andrew is pushing forty at this point doesn’t seem to be slowing him down at all.  They’ll be playing MoMA PS1’s Warm Up this season on August 31st.

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Single-Minded Obsessions, Exaggerated Enthusiasm

Deerhunter released their fifth studio album, Monomania, and didn’t play an NYC show.

So Audiofemme went to Washington, DC.Deerhunter at Sixth & I Synagogue

 

Bradford Cox seems to me at times less like a human being and more like a mutable idea, an enigma, more persona than person.  And after nearly ten years of Cox’s well-documented onstage antics and acerbic attitude I’m almost positive that’s the way he wants it.  The music he’s made, both under his solo moniker Atlas Sound and with his band Deerhunter, has defied definition by drawing from many stylistic elements so as never be pinned to just one genre, but with newest effort Monomania (out May 7th on 4AD) Cox may be making an attempt to affix himself to a grittier, more garage-influenced sound.

This time around we see him ditching the dresses for a get-up one might find on a thrift store mannequin – ratty black wig and snow-leopard print polyester.  He famously debuted this alter-ego (referring to the character a few times in the media as “Connie Lungpin”) during an unhinged performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, walking offstage at the end of the performance with his band still playing, his fingers bandaged and looking bloody (which was a supposed tribute to his father who’d had a woodworking accident a few days prior).  The amount of buzz the performance generated is as good an indicator as any that Cox knows exactly what he’s doing.

There’s a specific segment of the population that can hear a phrase like “nocturnal garage” and go oooooooh! and with Deerhunter fans, the overlap is ridiculous.  When the band’s website announced Monomania describing the material as such and casually hit other reference points like fog machines, leather, and neon, Cox’s single-minded obsession became our own.  Recorded in NYC in January and February by Nicolas Vernhes, the material on Monomania is culled from  a supposed caltalogue of over 600 songs which seems like a lot unless you’re familiar with the way Cox operates.  Just before the record’s completion, the band saw the departure of bassist Josh Fauver, an event that almost shelved the whole project.  Josh McKay stepped up to fill the position, and along with new guitarist Frankie Broyles, the newest incarnation of Deerhunter was born.

With it has come announcements to headline and curate ATP London, where Cox and co. will reportedly play three of their studio albums in entirety and Cox will also perform as Atlas Sound, meaning that Cox is going to be playing pretty much nonstop that entire weekend, and that it’s clear he thinks the only music worth hearing is his own.  The band is also scheduled to play a slew of other festivals, from Austin’s Psychfest to Portugal’s Primavera to NYC’s Governer’s Ball, but no proper tour has yet been announced.  I kept waiting for an announcement about some secret show in Brooklyn’s back alleys, but the closest they were coming was to Sixth & I in DC.  And I had to know.  Would Cox show up as Connie Lungpin?  With or without fingers?  And what would nocturnal garage sound like in a synagogue?

By the time the show rolled around I’d heard the album in its entirety and though it didn’t immediately blow me away, Deerhunter albums almost never do; something about them creeps up on me and then I realize it’s all I’ve been listening to.  More than anything I wanted to hear the songs in a live setting, more raw and more raucous.  The space was gorgeous and the sound super loud, the audience of around 200 seated in pews for the college-radio sponsored show.  The first act, Mas Ysa, was a bedroom-producer type who sampled Counting Crows and worried he was going to cry – needless to say, a bit awkward.  Jackson Scott performed in between – as a band, not as one person, although presumably one of the people in the band was the 20-year-old Asheville songwriter.  While the group started off sounding a little too derivative of the headliners, by the end of the set they offered up uniquely textured shoegaze-tinged stoner jams.  It had to have been one of their first shows and it’s got to be nerve-wracking to open for an act that so clearly falls in line with your influenced, but they managed to pull it together nicely.

Cox, replete in his Fallon get-up, apologized early in Deerhunter’s set for any incongruities, explaining that this was only the band’s second show (meaning with its new members, obviously).  They opened with a droning jam that lead into “Cryptograms” which set the tone for the rest of the night; the majority of the set drew from Monomania, with a few tracks from Halcyon Digest, but everything seemed filtered through Cryptograms-era effects.  Most tracks were lengthened by long, noisy solos and connected by interludes in the same vein.  The sound cascaded in the dramatic, domed space, rumbling guitars causing old woods to vibrate.  The audience didn’t move much, caught in the trance the band was bent on creating.  And Cox was relatively tame, allowing Lockett Pundt to take lead vocals here and there, swinging his guitar haphazardly above his head only sparingly.  They closed the set with “Monomania” and Cox abandoned the stage while his band played on, slinking down a hallway only to return for a blistering fifteen-minute-plus encore of “Lake Somerset”.

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Noticebly absent was anything from Microcastle/Weird Era, but that doesn’t mean the show wasn’t satisfying. The live versions of the new material proved to have the flesh they’ve been accused of lacking, thanks mainly to the vitriolic snarl of Cox’s live vocals, so doused in reverb on the recording.  Overall, Monomania has the messy feel of a careening drunk who passes out before anything catastrophic happens but in that way it’s also less exciting than you want it to be.  As the band’s fifth album, it’s also a bit of a promise that Cox has made to the world – making music is not only the one thing on his mind, but that’s all that ever will be.  No matter what bizarro personas he adopts or madcap stunts he pulls, no matter how he tries to obscure it with the act of performing the part of rock star, he will always be driven to create – nothing else really matters, regardless of who blogs about the charade surrounding it.  The costumes, the masks, the droll, quotable witticisms he tacks to these projects are more a way to amuse himself, and he allows us to participate in that entertainment, questioning what it all means.  But at the core, it’s the music which he’s obsessively written and recorded that will be his legacy.  Bradford Cox does not care if you get the joke, no matter how much time you spend wondering if you’re in on it.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]