In-store: Bonjay

Bonjay

Soundscapes. Saturday, February 12, 2011.

A chance to warm up on a Saturday night with Bonjay bringing their forward-thinking pop-inflected electro-dancehall to Soundscapes. Vocalist Alanna Stuart was well pleased to be playing an all-ages show, surveying the crowd for any minors who'd be unable to see them in their usual latenight haunts. They still brought the dancefloor energy, starting with "Stumble" and "Shotta" from their excellent Broughtupsy EP.

Stuart's vox simmered on their mashed-up combo cover of Feist's "How My Heart Behaves" and "Honey Honey", and that set up a quieter middle of the set — "Creepin" worked really well in this sort of attentive environment where people were more watching the band than waiting to dance anyway.

"It's weird to be able to see all your faces, and you're sober and paying such close attention," Stuart opined. And as unusually bright as it was for them, it was also a chance for curious onlookers to watch them at work — especially to observe beat-provider Pho on the mixer and MPD's. For tools like that it's less instinctive to know what the musicians are doing — as opposed to, say, watching someone play a guitar — so I was fascinated to see just how busy he was, including keeping up with a lot of real-time percussion.

One of the rockist complaints of bands playing to backing tracks — certainly I've brought it up a time or two — is that it doesn't allow for contingency, that it smacks too much of a grim determinism where the contour of the musical experience is preordained. But it's entirely inadequate to just blankly assume that every band like this is "just pressing play" — something I saw proven in front of my eyes. At the start of their cover of Caribou's "Jamelia", something went askew, and Pho was improvising, trying to keep things rolling along, just as much as any other musician would, the two bandmates keenly watching each other to work out on the fly where the song was going.

It was a satisfying and generous full half-hour, the set ending with "Frawdulent" and "Gimmee Gimmee", a pair of more aggro bass-heavy rockers. The latter ended with Pho bringing the siren-like riddim up to the set's loudest levels, giving everyone present a jolt of energy to send them back out into the cold Saturday night.¹

Listen to a track from this set here. And as is usually the case at Soundscapes in-stores, Colin Medley was on hand with his camera, so if you want some video action you can watch the band perform Shotta here.

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¹ After spending some time in Berlin crafting material for their pending debut full-length, Bonjay have apparently been bringing it even harder to the stage, adding a live drummer to the lineup. The band is going to be headed west in September and east in October, but keep your eyes open for a hometown show.