Wavelength 514 / Burn Down the Capital present: Hush Arbors / Jason Ajemian / Loom / Spiritual Sky Blues Band
Placebo Space. Saturday, February 5, 2011.
On a snowy Saturday night, headed out to Blansdowne to see a show where I knew pretty much nothing about any of the four bands. While that could be a dangerous undertaking, I felt secure there'd be something interesting to learn about, given that the show was being co-presented by Wavelength1.
I found the venue above an automotive repair shop, but the Placebo Space turned out to be far more delightful than that might indicate. It was a "shoes off" show which added a livingroom sort of feel to things. This'd be a relatively posh version of the semi-venue, a notion that intrigues me so. Cheerful and tidy, the centre of the floor was occupied by a big heap of cushions that would slowly be claimed for seating as the room filled up.
The space very much had an artsy loft feel, and the crowd on hand felt a bit more like a group you'd see at an opening than a rock show. All around the room, the walls covered with canvasses, including some cool grey large-scale silkscreened industrial landscape shots that registered more as visualizations of memories than photos. There were also some colourfully fractal-type paintings behind the corner of the room where the bands were set up. Those paintings made for an interesting backdrop for General Chaos' colourful projections, swirling all night behind the bands. That certainly gave the gig the air of a Wavelength show, but that notwithstanding, the sensibility of the show felt a little closer to fellow co-producer Burn Down the Capital.2
I had no idea who Spiritual Sky Blues Band were, but as they set up, I recognized Jay Anderson (on drums, also of Steamboat, Biblical and many other projects) and Doc Dunn (on guitar, also a member of MV & EE as well as making lovely sounds on his own). The trio, rounded out by Gaven Dianda (in Saffron Sect with Anderson, also of Tijuana Bibles and ex-Flashing Lights), played an improvisory — or even jammy — sort of psychedelic derivé, ambling through cosmic headtrips. After a couple minutes of noodle-widdle on the guitars, as if they were building up steam, Anderson kicked it in and things started in a more rocking way. At times the band featured a raga-ish (in a Mike Bloomfield kind of way) slow unwinding, a willingness to stay inside one musical spot and shine their flashlights into every corner before moving on. That made this a good soundtrack to lean back on a cushion and nod one's head, watching the General Chaos lights slowly spin — like the universe spins — behind them. And feel cosmic, dude.
The set unfurled as one continuous jam, but it waxed and waned as the band moved from idea to idea. This sort of stuff could go on for hours, but on a night with four bands on the bill, the forty minutes was probably enough.
Listen to an excerpt from this set here. Or, if you'd like a more psychedelic experience, I'd point you to this youtube clip.
The name Loom is doubly suggestive — besides the rich associations of weaving things together, there's also the slightly menacing notion of looming over someone. Although at this show Brooke Manning showed signs of a musician finding her feet, there was more than enough here to suggest that her work was tapping into a richness that suggested both of those definitions.
At the outset, Manning was not brimming with confidence and swagger. In fact, as the band prepared to play, she actually solicited help from the crowd with tuning her guitar. Manning was front and centre in an unconventional trio, backed by Elaine Kelly (whose solo project is called Carnival Moon, and can also be spotted playing in Lake Forest) on harp as well as Maya Postepski (also of Trust and Austra), seated on the floor playing keyboards. The keybs would be really essential to shaping the sound here, dark and creepy and menacing. On opener "Grown", Postepski generated a John Carpenter soundtrack-worthy hum. That plus the subtle harp notes and Manning's snaky guitar figure created a hushed and menacing mood, at odds with the lyrics: "I'm so busy thinking about kissing you / and I want to do that without entertaining another thought". The tone of the music was more like the looming presence of a nightmare — perhaps knowing up front the calamity that one's desires will cause, but pushing ahead nonetheless. The song was quietly devastating and entirely awesome.
Manning had trouble getting "Dream Doe", the second song, off the ground. She was visibly flustered, even apologizing to the audience. This contributed to an extra-spare set, as during that song she narrowed her focus to her vocals, not playing her guitar part and relying on Kelly and Postepski to carry her along. In one sense, her demeanour helped sell the songs, giving them another layer of wounded anxiousness. And after that, she put the guitar down and she leaned into the lyrics, singing with her hands linked behind her neck. Everyone was pindrop quiet — she had the room. The rest of the set unfolded with a tentative sense of handling something valuable and delicate — even the nominally upbeat "It is Love" was less sure than it would later become, feeling here more like a fragile aspiration than a confident statement.
A very noteworthy introduction. I've already seen Manning a couple more times since this set, and the songs have held up every time — even as Manning's confidence has grown in leaps and bounds. Her album Epyllion is coming out on Nevado Records this fall, and should be considered a most-anticipated release.
Listen to a song from this set here.
I was, like most of the crowd, still milling about and chatting when Jason Ajemian started howling to announce his presence. When he paused to suck in another lungful of air and set back to it, people in the room joined in, in some sort of impromptu collective unburdening. Apparently satisfied with the focus that provided to everyone in the room, he then set to his stand-up bass with a vengeance, thwacking away at it in a highly percussive manner, with one mallet stuck in the neck and using another to hit the strings. His vocals at the start were a little unhinged as well, asking what I think was the musical question "Is Yrself Structural?".
Ajemian was playing totally unplugged and unamplified in the small space, dragging has bass back and forth to get right up close with different members of the audience. His playing was "free", in the jazz sense, and even when plucking the strings, it was still strongly percussive and filled with liquid-like tempo changes. And then, unexpectedly, he flipped the script on everything he had done so far by plunging into a magnetically engaging cover of Stan Rogers' "Northwest Passage".
After telling the story of how on the previous night someone had requested "The Gambler" and he'd obliged, of course the crowd wouldn't let him go on without doing it. And everyone joined in to sing as the song got through a verse and chorus. With the back-and-forth going on between Ajemian and the crowd, it felt more like hanging out in a friend's living room than a gig. He closed out with his own "100 Rainy Days", bowed and melodic but the playing still expressive. And unexpectedly, that led back into a reprise of "The Gambler", and the set ended with the crowd clapping and singing along. Fantastic stuff from a set I had no expectations about going in.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Ajemian stayed on stage — or, more exactly, moved back onto the stage area from his perch at the edge of the seated crowd — to back up his friend Keith Wood, who is the driving force behind Hush Arbors. Normally playing with a full band, on this night it was just the pair with Ajemian backing Wood's acoustic guitar and high, keening vocals. This stripped-down format suited the room and the late hour, intimate crowd vibe.
The set lead off with "Follow Closely" from 2008's self-titled effort3 but most of the songs came from the more recent Yankee Reality. The most distinctive thing here was Wood's helium-voiced reverb-heavy vocals — Woods' Jeremy Earl comes to mind a little here — which were put to work in the service of his folk-y compositions. If "New Weird America" is indeed a genre, this would be a part of it.
The band featured mostly compactly-constructed songs, though "Devil Made You High" extended out for around seven minutes. Ajemian's bass (here nimble and more conventionally handled than during his own set) and vocals were a warm complement, and he added some nice rat-a-tat percussion on "Coming Home". There was a slightly rootsy undercurrent throughout, but most clearly on closer "Whisky", played specifically because Ajemian wanted to hear it.
Enjoyable stuff. It didn't make the same strong impact on me that Ajemian's set had, but it was a most pleasant way to round out the night, after which I put my shoes back on and tromped out into the cold and snowy night.
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 For the didactically/historically inclined, it was WL 514.
2 Anyone looking to explore further into the realms of "weird"/"out" music — from mutant pop to spazz to noise to drone — would do well to trust the curatorial skills that Tad beings to his Burn Down the Capital shows, which concern themselves more with pushing musical limits than chasing trends, all while fostering community and putting on shows in new and interesting places.
3 Wood has released quite a lot of music under the Hush Arbors banner, but this was the first to get wider distribution from the Ecstatic Peace label.
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