Gig: Damon & Naomi

Damon & Naomi (Amor de Días)

The Horseshoe Tavern. Wednesday, May 25, 2011.

The evening's rain swept in earlier than expected, and with it a chill in the air. That kept me from walking, and I was forced to watch the inky eveninglight slump over the day through the streetcar window. The city looked abandoned.

Those hiding from the rain weren't doing it at the 'Shoe, which was also eerily empty as I made my way in. Not even music playing on the PA, so I could hear rainwater — I hoped — rushing through the overhead pipes. The room smelled like a wet sock that had been tossed onto a radiator.

Off to the side by the merch table, I could hear Alasdair MacLean chatting with earlybirds dropping by to grab records. As someone who generally rolls their eyes at the whole idea of "branding", this was a sobering reminder of just how much value there is in a band name: the last time MacLean passed through town, fronting The Clientele, he was playing to a full house. Now, with Amor de Días — his new project with Lupe Núñez-Fernández¹ — he was the opening act at a show playing to a couple dozen people.

In fact, this would be the quietest show and the quietest crowd I'd ever witnessed at the 'Shoe. And at the very least, if there was going to be a small crowd, I was glad that it seemed as if every person who showed up was here to listen. As the set started, I was leaning against the pole on the left side of the dancefloor as MacLean invited people to move up. Soon, there were a few folks moving their chairs onto the dancefloor as the band — joined on stage by Heather McIntosh on cello — led with the mostly instrumental "Foxes' Song".

Amor de Días' album is a spare, wispy thing, and live, it was even moreso, presented without the quiet rhythm tracks and additional textures from a bevy of guest musicians. Instead, there was mostly just two voices singing softly together, acoustic guitar and the low notes of the cello to craft the simple beauty of "Dream (Dead Hands)".

Before "Harvest Time", previously released on The Clientele's Bonfires on the Heath, Alasdair commented, "You may recognize this as a song by another band I was in. [beat] It's a song by Depeche Mode." Jokes aside (and the slightly painful finality of his use of the past tense to describe The Clientele), it turns out, that the song was indeed originally recorded for this project, and subsequently repurposed for The Clientele. Its country meadow vibe and pre-industrial sensibility ("everything here has a place and a time / we're only passing by") evokes a sense of nature existing as something larger than us, here before and after us — a notion far from the suburban light.

But it's important to note that this is not just a songwriting project for MacLean, but very much a partnership. And it's the contrasting textures of Núñez-Fernández's songs that really set this apart, moving things from MacLean's heath-rambles to the gentle bossa nova of "Late Mornings". There's a common ground in the two approaches, mostly in the shared fragility and spaciousness of the songs, and room for the two voices to gently rub up against each other.

Except for "New Wine", the setlist would mostly stick to the material from the album — they even chose to tackle some of the more abstract stuff, like Núñez-Fernández's "Birds", which did employ a quiet electronic backing track.

The forty-five minute set closed with "Wild Winter Trees". The whole thing was quite wonderful and entrancing — the only thing was lacking was a crackling fireplace and a window with a view over glen and vale.

I posted a song here right after this show, but now I've also added some more here.

As the between-set turnover ended, I wandered back from the front bar to find that someone had taken my spot by the post — but there was an invitingly empty chair on the dancefloor for me to claim. This would turn out to be an excellent set to be seated for. Truth be told, I was more here for the openers than Damon & Naomi, a band that I had always casually appreciated, but had never really explored in depth.

The product of the longstanding partnership between Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang², this former rhythm section now specializes in a sleepy and decidedly less-rhythmical folk-rock. This duo — with Yang on keyboards and Krukowski on acoustic guitar — also had an extra member at hand to fill out their sound, and the slightly soft-rockish vibe from Bhob Rainey's saxophone fit right into the music's defiant limpidity.

They started by featuring songs from their then-new False Beats And True Hearts, but did find time to spotlight material from a catalogue now eight albums deep. From Within These Walls³ there was the advanced downerism of "Lilac Land", which gives off a little hint of "Hey You", after a couple valiums. And in the absence of Ghost guitarist Michio Kurihara⁴, Alasdair MacLean pitched in on electric guitar for "Ueno Station", which was about as loud as the set got, as well as the quieter new "Nettles and Ivy" ("nettles and ivy / twisting until they die").

As the band played the quietly swirling "Helsinki", it was, somehow appropriately, eerily cold and silent in the room. I could occasionally hear the clack of someone playing pool out in the front bar, but otherwise, nothing. The band did ramp things up at the finish, as all three members of Amor de Días came on stage to pitch in on an extra Gram Parsons-y version of the Rolling Stones' "Shine a Light", with Krukowski noting, "this is as rock'n'roll as we get," while commenting on feeling the vibes of country music past in the Horseshoe's walls. Encore "Turn of the Century" (from 2002's Song to the Siren) closed out a rather satisfying hour.

Listen to a track from this set here.

It was an excellent night, and the quiet spaciousness in the room made it even better — this exact same show would have been awful in a packed, chatty room. Yet, I worry about the economic viability of artists tromping around the country (and across oceans) if they're playing to crowds like this. Still, I did what I could, and went and bought a disc from MacLean, shook his hand and thanked him for coming. Hopefully these deliberately low-key bands will garner more attention when they make their way back.

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¹Núñez-Fernández is also one-half of Pipas.

² It's probably obligatory to add "formerly of Galaxie 500" after their names even though, by this point, they've now spent far more time overall just being Damon & Naomi.

³ Speaking of Within These Walls, the band showed a pretty advanced sense of self-awareness and ability to laugh at their own mordancy:

Damon: The darkest album of our dark careers...

[someone in the crowd "woos"]

Damon: ...we gave ourselves a challenge... to make it even sadder. Y'know: "that's sad, but how sad can you go?"

Naomi: ...and how slow also...

Damon: Yeah, 'cause people think we're slow and sad, but, y'know, to us, we're just normal. So we thought, "what if we were slow and sad to us?" Where would that end up?

Naomi: We horrified ourselves.

Damon: Yeah, so that's that album. Anyway, pick up a copy on your way out!

⁴ Kurihara, who has been collaborating with Yang and Krukowski since 2000's With Ghost, had originally been slated to complete the band on this tour, but visa problems had kept him from making the trip to North America.