Gig: Kurt Vile

Kurt Vile (Woods / Arc in Round)

Lee's Palace. Wednesday, July 13, 2011.

Early openers Arc in Round were a total mystery to me, but it turned out they not only shared Philadelphia roots with the night's headliner, but frontman/guitarist Jeff Zeigler (in a Swans t-shirt) has produced a couple of Kurt Vile's albums as well. Here, the quartet were playing some songs from their second EP (reasonably titled II), as well as its earlier counterpart Diagonal Fields. The opening number was a slow-building and spacey instrumental, and some of those elements were present in the songs that followed, although they were more tethered to the unforced vocals.

The most interesting elements might have been provided by keyboardist Mikele Edwards, who added some nice sonic textures as well as lead vocals on "Spirit" that hinted at a friskier Beach House. A sample of their recorded material (with many of these songs making a reappearance on the band's self-titled full-length) definitely showed a confidence with the studio — an assuredness that wasn't yet replicated on the stage. With more cool detachment than hands-on passion, there was plenty of time spent looking down at instruments and not much effort expended on engaging the crowd while tuning between songs. Closer "Hallowed" didn't quite orchestrate a big rock ending, with the set sort of petering out at its end, but on the whole this was tasty stuff.

Listen to a track from this set here.

As I surveyed the stage set-up between sets, I noted a little fragment of cassette tape caught against the top of the stage, and briefly considered lifting it to serve as the kernel of my own Woods cover band. That would have been a discard from tape-manipulator G. Lucas Crane who was, quite literally, moving up in the world: he now had his gear on a stand and a little stool to sit on, meaning he was no longer rendered all-but-invisible to most of the crowd while sitting on the floor as he had in the past. Lighting some incense as the other members of Woods took the stage, his role is to supply some whooshing disorientation under the music as well as distorted backing vocals.

Also movin' on up was singer/guitarist Jeremy Earl, who was looking a little tidier than previously with a freshly-trimmed beard that gave him a look more like an MIT student than a member of a hippy commune. The band actually played with a modified lineup for the first few songs with local hero Matt "Doc" Dunn sitting in on drums for a couple songs, starting with Sun and Shade's lead-off track "Pushing Onlys".¹ They chased that with At Echo Lake's "Suffering Season", which sounds like a melodic extension of their previous cover of Graham Nash's "Military Madness".

Every time I've seen the ever-prolific band touring a new album, they were already playing songs from the next one, and this would be no exception, with "Bend Beyond" (which would become the title track of the their 2012 album) getting a fine airing, tasty Crazy Horse guitar breakdown included.² After that, they showcased their quiet, more introspective side with the back-to-back-to-back run of "Rain On", "Be All Be Easy" and "Say Goodbye" — lovely songs all, though it did lose the audience somewhat, with some folks starting up conversations and more using this as the time to hit the bar.

After the similarly quiet "Get Back", I was hoping the band would tackle their unexpectedly Faust-y "Out of the Eye", but instead the set closed with a long, jammy version of "I Was Gone" — a concise tune that's under two minutes on record, but here using that structure as the starting point for a ten-minute excursion, stretching out into a bit of widdly-wah noodling. It was a very fine set, but the fifty minutes were gone in a blink.

Listen to a couple tracks from this set here.

That was really what I had come to see, so as the crowd surged in even tighter for headliner Kurt Vile, I was prepared to relinquish my spot up front for a bit more elbow room. I'd liked a few of the songs that I had originally been exposed to, but I'd merely been semi-impressed the previous time I'd seen him. Mind you, what I'd heard of his then-new Smoke Ring For My Halo convinced me I should keep paying attention, so I didn't move too far back.

This tour brought a different band alignment on stage, without the mostly-superfluous harp they'd sported before. As the set began, Vile (in a Deerhunter t-shirt) was playing a 12-string acoustic for "Overnight Religion" (from his '09 breakthrough album Childish Prodigy) before moving to his six-string for the new album's "On Tour", delivered with a laconic delivery that recalled J Mascis.

A lot of the unrushed songs settled in at around the five-minute mark, though there were a few quicker ones, like the rather-compelling "Jesus Fever". Vile was not much for banter — and he might have benefited from a guitar tech, with a couple bursts of tuning ushering in prolonged between-song silences.

It was a surprisingly devoted and attentive crowd, and amongst his few remarks, Vile commented on the "beautiful audience". That held up even after "Ghost Town" built up into an extended solo and ushered in a quieter mid-set stretch with "Baby's Arms" and "In My Time". The tasty, sardonic "Society is My Friend" took things back up for the set's last segment, which also included the monochromatic driving drum machine beat of "Freak Train" (dedicated to Sandy and Damian from Fucked Up), which ended with a slightly spazzy saxophone solo before the main set ended with "Smoke Ring For My Halo".

After that, the encore seemed pretty much assured, given that the drummer didn't bother getting up from his kit. But it turned out to be a sedate closing, with the mellow "Runner Ups" and Vile's solo turn on "Peeping Tomboy" finishing things off.

This was a much-cleaner sounding set than that Great Hall experience, which certainly made it far more appealing. As someone casually interested in Vile's work, this didn't tip me into active fandom, but once again, it did enough that I'll keep my ears open for whatever he does next.

Listen to a couple tracks from this set here.

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¹ "I'm pushing onlys / To waste the years away / In tattered clothes, in these same tattered clothes / That I pushed through yesterday." I mean, tell me about it.

² There'd also be a sped-up version of that album's "Find Them Empty", stripped of the keyboards that would later adorn the recorded track.

Gig: Omar Souleyman

Omar Souleyman

Lee's Palace. Wednesday, July 6, 2011.

Even in the "flat" internet era of culture, it's a weird, random crapshoot when it comes to encountering things from outside our own sphere — and seemingly even more random to consider what catches on. As such, I was a little surprised — but rather pleasantly so — that Syrian wedding singer Omar Souleyman was making it here for a gig.

I was curious about whom the audience would be for this — the fact that the show was at Lee's hinted that the presumed crowd was more from the "rock" side of things than the "world" side. That would dovetail with the marketing reach of label Sublime Frequencies, who had introduced Souleyman to a Western audiences beyond the diasporic communities. And, indeed, as folks started to trickle in, there were "plenty hipsters," according to my notes. Also: music nerds, crate diggers and folks who like a certain kind of trance-inducing dance music, regardless of its provenance.

There'd be no opener, and as ten o'clock rolled around it was filled in pretty nicely. There was an austere stage setup, with just a single mic stand and a double-racked pair of Korg keybs — Souleyman was without the electric saz that he has toured with in the past (as can be heard on the Haflat Gharbia/The Western Concerts live album) so it would just be him and keyboard player Rizan Sa'id.

After a brief introduction by Sublime Frequency's Mark Gergis, Souleyman took the stage, the set starting with the toned-down, almost ambient drift of "Mawal Hejaz", acting as a sort of moment of pause before things really got moving. But after that, the dance party was on — the remainder of the show would only include seven songs, but they were all long ones each stretching out to fill the hour-long set.

Souleyman sings traditional songs touching on eternal themes (mostly love won and lost) but this is thoroughly modern music. Powered by turbo-speed, electrified dabke beats and wiggly synth lines, at some points in doubletime bursts and in others acting as a call-and-response echo to the vocals. Each song leads with Souleyman's "heeeeeeeeeeeyy!" and he quickly had the crowd worked into a dancing, clapping roil.

Souleyman surely does know a thing or two about how to work a crowd, even if, by North American standards, his body language is strikingly minimal. He's not animated, but definitely into it. In the instrumental passages, he'd tuck the mic under his arm and lead the crowd in triple-burst claps, the faint flicker of a smile under his moustache. He had a repertoire of about four basic gestures:

1. "come closer"
2. clap-clap-clap
3. upraised index finger, as if he were denoting the first item in a list
4. shaking the microphone like a rattle

And yet there was no doubt that he was an entertainer.

Musically, Souleyman has been releasing cassettes since the mid-90's and has a pretty huge repertoire, but I was able to pick out some of the "hits" like "Leh Jani" and "Shift al Mani". And though the songs are all built from the same musical palette, there's enough (like the mutated disco groove of "Mendel") to distinguish the songs if you're so inclined.

For most of this audience, the individual songs weren't the point so much as the whole of the experience. Given how much energy one could spend dancing away, the hour-long set felt like about the right amount — but not quite enough for the knot of enthusiasts up front who kept up a chant of "O-MAR" to try and bring him back for one more.

It was interesting to try and gauge the personality behind Souleyman's persona. His image, with his always-present keffiyeh and aviator shades, impart a vision of stone-faced unknowability. And though there's no doubt plenty cultural cues that I'm not picking up on, his look seems to be most craftedly "Other" — as I'm sure some Culture Studies grad student is busily dissertating on right now.

I know there are some with more of an inside view of Arabic culture that scoff a bit at Souleyman's relative success — that he's just a wedding singer, and that you could go to a marketplace and pick up umpteen tapes by guys just like that. And perhaps that's so — but that's no less true for pretty much any "indie" band I dig, and that doesn't make them any less special. And from an outsider's view, it's also tempting to say that if there was a musical genius on the stage at this show, that it was Sa'id, with his compositions, post-modern rhythms and insanely gnarly keyb work. But in the end, the reason that this works and the reason this was a memorable show is the same as it is for anything that invokes the body-movin' imperative: "shut up and dance" trumps most any analysis you can come up with.

I posted a track from this show at the time here — and now there's also one more here.

NXNE 2011: Saturday (Part 1)

NXNE — North by Northeast Festival, Toronto, 2011.

Saturday, June 18, 2011 – Part 1. Featuring: Cartoons, Ivan & Alyosha, Guards, Wild Nothing

N.B.: I had written some contemporaneous notes about the festival here. This redux version comes with a few additional observations as I have now had time to properly go through my recordings.

8 p.m.: Cartoons @ Comfort Zone

By Saturday night, the long slog of NXNE was getting to me a bit, and I was more than a little groggy and in need of a pick-me-up. After the first band I was going to see wasn't close to getting on stage as the hour approached, I was in no mood to wait, so I walked over to CZ to find Cartoons already on stage. As it would turn out, being five minutes late meant I missed about a third of their very brief set. Points for not overstaying their welcome. Their abrasive, AmRep-styled guitar-skinning was pretty invigorating stuff, and I managed to pick up a few lyrics like: "You're stupid!" and "Kill the hostages!" in the shouted din.

Later on, more pieces here would fall in place for me, like putting it together that the band is fronted by Denholm Whale (who also serves as the bassist for Odonis Odonis). Cartoons is part of the Buzz scene, centred around that local DIY label and The Garage, its not-metaphoric, now-defunct venue of choice. Many members of that loosely-connected network have been building momentum in the city's scuzz-punk underground, and now that the likes of METZ and The Soupcans have been taking T.O.'s ugly side to the wider world, this substrata of bands might be getting some more attention.

Listen to a track from this set here.

9 p.m.: Ivan & Alyosha @ Lee's Palace

That set certainly gave me a jolt, though with my underlying fatigue, it's around here that my notepad starts mentioning things like "seeing hallucinations almost". As I headed up to Lee's, getting in with folksy combo Ivan & Alyosha taking the stage, my next comment was far less cryptic: "Ah — here's the earnest shit that I've been dodging so far."

Part of that arose from the fact that this by no means my first (or second, or third...) choice for this timeslot. There were a couple things farther afield that I was more interested in — but seasoned NXNE'ers know that the Saturday night is always a hassle for getting around. Between the big, free show at Dundas Square, Luminato, and some manner of MuchMusic event, the east-west streetcar lines were pretty unreliable, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to get anywhere and back without missing something, as I knew I would be headed to Lee's down the line. So I figured I might as well get in there while it was still quiet and see whoever was playing the early slot there.

There was, in fact, no Ivan and no Alyosha to be found (they are, indeed, characters The Brothers Karamazov), and my somewhat snide first impression of the Seattle band turned out to be not wholly justified. Having four guys lined up across the front of the stage, with an electric guitar, two acoustics and a single floor tom for percussion did create the notion of a rustic folk-rock combo, though it turned out that the usual drummer wasn't present (possibly due to those omnipresent border issues) so the percussion here was as a result of the bassist filling in.

Musically, this would fit next to the northwestern rootsy, harmony-laden, bearded adult-alternative band of your choice. That might sound like I'm consigning them to "generically bland" status, and yeah, that was kinda my feeling at first. But as the set went on, they won me over a little on the strength of their comfortably stripped-down, likeable songs. There were some nice touches as well, like the echo-y ruffles during "Easy to Love".

Playing songs from their then-current Fathers Be Kind EP as well as tunes from their '09 full-length, plus a few from a still-forthcoming follow-up, they were also genuinely gracious on stage, glad to be sharing their songs, even if it was to a thin early crowd. Though it must be noted that the place was filling in as they played, and by the end they were getting good applause for songs like "On My Way" and the profane clap-along "Glorify" that closed it out.

10 p.m.: Guards @ Lee's Palace

Now it was starting to get busy for the night, with the Saturday Night crowd filling in as NYC group Guards set up for what looked to be a more theatrical set. There was a large backdrop with a freemason-ish logo, a lamp on stage topped by a stuffed bird and a smoke machine obscuring everything. The music had a similarly theatrical heft, dabbling in atmospherics of menacing gloom that were mixed with jaunty shots of lightness.

Between the fog and my perception slowly becoming even more unreliable, I wasn't entirely sure what I was seeing, wondering to myself if, in fact, I was seeing an omnichord on stage. That turned out to be the case, and one the more unique elements of the band's sound were the little trills it provided underneath everything else. Interestingly, though it sounded central to the songs, it was apparently the player's first show with the band.

Or maybe I'm just more inclined to pay attention to omnichords. For most people, however, it's ubiquitously mentioned that vocalist Richie Follin is the brother of Cults' Madeline Follin, though that doesn't mean much to me. He seemed to bring a poppy sensibility and classic rock'n'roll changes, reminding me a bit of Bradford Cox's tin-pan-alley side.

There were interesting moments, but a lot of this didn't connect for me. "Sail it Slow" did just that a bit too much, and when they slowed down again for an extended run through "Trophy Queen" toward the end, it didn't quite carry the crowd along. The upbeat material, when tended to come along in two minute-ish bursts (including a cover of MIA's "Born Free"), fared better, but there wasn't quite there enough to stick in my head.

I hadn't given much more thought to the band since this set, but it looks like the hype cycle is coming back around for them, with a single just dropped and their debut full-length out in early 2013.

Listen to a track from this set here.

11 p.m.: Wild Nothing @ Lee's Palace

By eleven, there was a really full house for Wild Nothing, showing how once again I'd missed the boat on a buzz-y band. Which is mildly strange, as this was the sort of thing that I do casually enjoy — the jangly roll of The Smiths, but with its morose-y vibe replaced by a more upbeat, optimistic delivery. Conceptually not so far from, say, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Originating as a recording project from singer/guitarist Jack Tatum, he was here backed by a sympathetic three-piece band. In theory, that should have opened up the sound a bit from the self-recorded material (on which Tatum played nearly everything) but the band wasn't exactly jamming out on the arrangements.

Starting with "Golden Haze" — the lead-off title track of the then-new EP that followed on the band's full-length debut — the set would be filled with trebly guitars and gently dance-able beats. The pleasingly bouncy "Our Composition Book" won me over and from there I enjoyed the set pretty well. The music is mostly situated in a fairly narrow stylistic patch, but there were enough variety to keep things interesting. Those minor variations weren't always to the good — "The Witching Hour"'s slower tempo dragged a bit and pushed Tatum a bit out of his natural vocal range.

The songs were then all new to me, but the EP and full-length Gemini album, out for more than a year, had apparently been around long enough for the crowd to have favourites, as there was a cheer at the opening notes of "Chinatown" and "Summer Holiday". And also long enough that Tatum already had a couple new ones to mix into the set. "Disappear Always" would emerge on this year's sophomore album Nocturne, and set-closer "She Falls Down" (a bit colder, and more mechanical than the template, here slowing things down in an interesting manner and gaining gravitas) was even tastier, though it doesn't yet seem to be released.

It was an efficient ten-song set, straightforward and without much banter or showmanship, but a good introduction — I grabbed a copy of both discs on the way out the door.

There was a positively huge lineup for Twin Shadow as I made my way out, but that wasn't the set for me. I was headed off for something far weirder...

Listen to a song from this set here.

This was a long-enough night that I'm splitting this account in two — the rest can be found here.

Gig: The Ex & Brass Unbound

The Ex & Brass Unbound (The Swyves)

Lee's Palace. Wednesday, May 18, 2011.

There were looming dark clouds over the Annex, but it wasn't quite raining out as I made my way into Lee's. There was a slightly unusual vibe in the room, as it had been taken over for the night by the Music Gallery, creating an unusual hybrid environment. Which meant, to the good, that a recording of the Ethio T.O show was playing in the background as the crowd filed in — but also, to the bad, Lee's was smelling extra skanky, as if someone had poured a few beers on the floor before closing the night before and left them to maltify the air.

And in curated MG fashion, Johnny Dovercourt was on hand to introduce the evening, alongside Rough Idea co-presenter Ron Gaskin. Looking around me, I figured it might have been through his influence that it looked like more of a jazz crowd than what you might expect to see at Lee's — which fit well with the openers.

Although I had never seen The Swyves¹ play before, I was certainly familiar with the component parts. In one sense, it's a bit of a roles-reversed version of Canaille, who I've seen a lot, as both bands feature Jay Hay and Jeremy Strachan up front on reeds. In this case, though, the band is Hay's creature and a vehicle for his compositions, which gives the band a very different sound. They were joined by Dan Gaucher (also of Canaille) on drums and Aaron Lumley on double bass.

Hay handled all the horn parts on the band's self-titled album, which intercuts its free-range hard-bop with some more textured sound compositions. Live, though, the band was more solidly just grooving, getting right into it with "Please Put On the Kitchen Mittens" galloping off like Ornette before the more restrained "Sleeping Giant". Hay and Strachan switched off on baritone, and generally there was no shortage of bottom-end action going on in tracks like "Radius". There was also a nicely balanced attack from all members: Lumley played with a lot of physicality, sometimes strumming more than plucking at his strings, like he was looking forward to the headliners and about to reach for some power chords. There was also some good hard hittin' from Gaucher on closer "Cross-Eyed".

The Swyves' lively combination of situatedness in tradition with forward-looking striving to overcome the pains of in-der-Welt-sein is in the best jazz tradition, but like a lot of the other bands you can see these guys working on, genre imposes a false limit to their appeal. I'm glad they were on this bill; they deserve to be heard by punks, noise-heads, pop fans and indie kids.²

Listen to a track from this set here.

The sound-world of long-running Dutch band The Ex is so expansive that "punk" is wholly inadequate as a musical descriptor. But in terms of ethos and independent spirit, they certainly represent a model that any punks worth their salt could emulate. Their lengthy discography contains more collaborative albums than those by the group on their own, and the numerous paths those collaborations have explored have helped to keep the band constantly striving and exploring in new directions.

The last time they were in town it was as part of an extended group playing behind Ethiopian saxophone legend Getatchew Mekuria, and the spirit of that was certainly being maintained in this recombination of The Ex & Brass Unbound. As the name suggests, this was indeed a hybrid creature, with the four-piece core band augmented by an international four-piece horn section with dual saxes, trombone and trumpet. I recognized reedsmen Ken Vandermark and Mats Gustafsson; they were joined by Wolter Wierbos as well as Roy Paci, who had played the trumpet parts on the band's recent Catch My Shoe.

Watching The Ex play live is a life-affirming joy, especially in seeing guitarists Terrie Hessels and Andy Moor bouncing around — and nearly off each other — like atoms in an excited state. That happened right off the top, as there was only a quick hello from vocalist/guitarist Arnold de Boer before the band launched into the dual-guitar interplay, slightly funky backbeat and the subtle hint of a horn line of "Maybe I Was The Pilot", the opening track from the new album.

The extra players stepped forward more on the apocalyptic visions of "Cold Weather is Back", vamping away in alarm as the interlocking guitars were stuck in a sustained tension groove before the horns (who were tackling all of this without charts) ended the song in an extended skronk-off before the guitars picked up the insistent one-note riff of "Double Order", which extends the likembé-inspired guitar tone the band had previously explored, while de Boer pitched in little bloops by dipping the headstock of his guitar down to his keyboard. Unlike that show with Getatchew Mekuria, where I was a bit confused by de Boer's presence, here he felt more familiar and integrated into the band, and with the focus on newer material there was less occasion to think of him as a mere stand-in for founding vocalist G.W. Sok.

After all the joyfully-agitated energy, there was a bit of a rest with drummer Katherina Bornefeld coming up front to sing Hungarian folk tune "Hidegen Fújnak a Szelek". That longtime live staple originated on Scrabbling at the Lock, the band's 1991 collaboration with Tom Cora, which also provided "State of Shock", the setlist's next selection, with the horn section taking the place of Cora's cello.

Touching on the band's African inspirations, they played "Eoleyo", a Mahmoud Ahmed tune that's surely one of the most insidiously catchy songs ever devised. This time 'round it might not quite've reached the heights of when the band played it with Getatchew Mekuria, but it was still pretty great. That was chased with "Lalé Guma", another old Ethiopian number, complete with skronking sax solo from Gustafsson.

As recorded, the songs (especially the material from Catch My Shoe) aren't in a hurry, but live, they were stretched out even more, and the main set went nearly seventy minutes with only ten titles, finishing off with album-closer "24 Problems". The band came back for a massive version of the totally amazing "Theme From Konono" and tried to leave it at that, but the crowd called them back again.

No wonder — this was undoubtedly one of the best shows of the year. Especially in the early-going, it was almost overwhelmingly amazing. Every time I've seen The Ex play, they bring such "thereness", a force that puts you so concretely in the moment that it feels like a soul rejuvenation, and for days afterward I felt like I'd paid a visit to the fountain of youth.

Right after the show I'd posted a song from this set here — and now I've added another one here.

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¹ Do note that "Swyves" rhymes with "gives", and definitely not with "wives".

² The band's 2010 album came out on Blocks, which might put them in the presence of that kind of broad musical coalition. There's also a newer bunch of tasty goodness you can check out at their bandcamp.

Gig: Godpeed You! Black Emperor

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (Total Life)

Lee's Palace. Sunday, April 24, 2011 (evening show).

I wouldn't say that I was a particularly ardent fan of Godspeed You! Black Emperor (even when they were known as the less-confoundingly punctuated Godspeed You Black Emperor!) during their original run. But like many, I was eventually convinced by their quote-unquote cinematic post-rock style, a hugely-influential brand of crescendo-climbing instrumentalism, highly evocative stuff despite (owing to?) its lack of reliance on lyrics to carry the emotional heft. For such a cryptically anti-mersh band, a lengthy "hiatus" was a canny marketing move, and there was no shortage of pent-up demand to see them upon their return. The band clearly could have played one of the city's larger, barn-like structures, but instead elected to play a mini-stand of shows at the relatively cozier Lee's.

No surprise that for a band whose popularity had only increased during their absence, there was a pretty mixed crowd with back-in-the-day-ers mixing freely with those who would have been in elementary school the last time the band passed through town. And similarly, there was a broad mix of punks, noise-heads and representatives of a whole Constellation of sub-sub-genres on hand.

The support act for this show was Total Life, a side-project for Growing's Kevin Doria. I didn't know anything about his main gig, so I had no particular expectations as a lone figure stepped on stage behind a table of electronics. After he plugged in some stuff and switched things on a short blast of white noise got the crowd's attention, but the sound steadied out after that.

The day's afternoon show featured an opening slot by The Sadies. That would have been rather fun on its own merits, of course, but I had seen them just a week previous — and, anyways, Total Life's near-undifferentiated drone felt like more of an apt set-up for the main action. Near-undifferentiated drone is the key thing here — those who were aggravated by noise (or didn't bring earplugs) would likely have found this to seem like just one irritating, unceasing blare. But there was variation here with overtones slowly rising and falling against the humming electronic background — like a train passing in super-slow motion in some sort of alternate universe where noise gets converted to a thick liquid that weighs you down and the doppler effect is suspended. A couple guys behind me started howling, like this was causing some sort of werewolf-like transformation to them.

After about eight minutes of churning build, Doria started to add some pirping notes in counterpoint — once you're into the headspace of this stuff, you can start to appreciate the impact of fine-grained differences in the sound. And I don't know if the people around me were into it like that or were merely silenced by the overwhelming volume, but there was a surprising level of attentiveness during what would be, in most contexts, considered distinctly uneasy listening.

More than twenty minutes in, a low pulsing thrum created a sense of propulsion — at least in the sense that a glacier has a sense of propulsion — ending with an accelerating figure to give the whole thing a feeling of lift. All told, a rather satisfying half-hour dronescape. Looking around, it was obviously alienating some people, but I rather enjoyed this. A bit of a strange thing to stand and watch, this is the sort of thing I'd like to be sitting down for — a hammock would be even better.

Listen to an excerpt from this set here.

Between sets, there was some top-notch jazz on the PA (MJQ, I think) and then it faded out. For several minutes, there was only the sound of chatter in the room, until, very quietly, something started emerging in the background. In fact, it I weren't waiting for the "Hope Drone" I wouldn't have noticed it for a couple more minutes, when the bank of old-school film projectors behind the sound booth kicked into action and the lone word "HOPE" appeared on the screen behind the stage. Projectionist Karl Lemieux is listed as a member of the band alongside those on stage, and that seems very fitting, as his overlapping montages from those pronouncedly analogue projectors did as much to create emotional states as the musicians he accompanied.

That appearance of "HOPE" focused the crowd. As the chatter settled down, one guy shouted, "I've been waiting my whole life for this!", and people broke out into applause. The crowd waited as the drone slowly picked up, a weird interzone between show and non-show with the prerecorded music (heavy on amp hum and bowed cymbals) playing to the empty stage. That lasted for more than ten minutes, building in volume, before the band's eight members took the stage one by one, not rushing as they settled into their (mostly-seated) positions, tuning their instruments and puttering around in preparation.

And then as a slow theme from Sophie Trudeau's violin emerged, the band finally eased into "Moya".¹ With an introduction the length of most other band's songs, it was no surprise that the band hadn't switched over to some new economy of form — the slow unfurling of the music is definitely one of their trademarks. And so, a concert that would be longer than most would only have seven songs. That restrained maximalism would be delivered by a lineup that included two drummers, a pair of bassists and usually three guitarists.

An Eastern European-styled violin solo announced "Albanian", an unreleased song that the band was playing live before their hiatus in 2003. It worked its way into something could have once been a folksong, the drums building up to a rollicking whirling dervish rhythm, leaving the bent guitar notes and busts of feedback-drenched wah to imprint the band's identity onto it. A recorded voice giving a nostalgic recounting of Coney Island ("They don't sleep anymore on the beach") was the segue into "Monheim", arousing the loneliness of nearly-lost memories — and meanwhile the medieval images on the screen melted into the words "THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY".

During "World Police and Friendly Fire", someone in the front row went down in a heap, causing a brief stir as the crowd around her helped her back to her feet. The guitarist up front — I believe it was Mike Moya — offered his water to her just before the images on the screen morphed into apocalyptic flames.

The big, loud crescendos tend to be the easiest parts to talk about, but I often enjoy the quiet interludes even more, like the detuned swirliness leading into "The Cowboy" as the screen showed trains travelling through landscapes. And the opening of "Gathering Storm" came with perhaps the most optimistic imagery — plants in a field, a home, a kitty — lending a palpable feeling of ascendance, even when the footage proceeded to reveal that the house was old and collapsing in on itself and the music began to evoke its title more strongly.

Closer "The Sad Mafioso" had a different sort of apocalyptic energy, and it was here that the band's abstract political stance was more foregrounded. A stock ticker printing the message "ANALYSIS FOCUSING ON PROFITABILITY" was intercut with a sign reading "The end is nigh" before switching to footage of a garbage dump. Only towards the song's end did it hint at a response, with footage of people protesting — a collective response, a call for united voices from a voiceless band.² And then the set ended with the reverse of the opening, with members filing off one by one through the haze of a drone. It was over two hours, and a little exhausting — but at the end the screen didn't need to say "HOPE".

At the time of the show I posted a song here, which is now joined by another here. The latter also contains a link to the Live Music Archive, where you can stream or download this entire set.

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¹ The band referred to the song on the setlist by its alternate title "Gorecki" — it's "an adaptation of his third symphony," by guitarist Mike Moya, wikipedia tells me.

² The band's non-hierarchical, release-no-manifestos approach made their reappearance a striking pre-echo of the Occupy movement that would emerge later in the year. There's probably an excellent essay to be written on this topic, if it hasn't been done already. Please send links if it has.

Gig: Nomeansno

Nomeansno (METZ)

Lee's Palace. Monday, April 4, 2011.

Out for a dreaded Monday night gig amongst the Crusty Punx and other relics who looked like they weren't going gently into the weeknight. Those in attendance included Loud Arguing Dudes and Guy Who Repeatedly Shouts Outs People's Names From Across the Room ("Bill! Bill!") — screw this text messaging. Amongst a menagerie with a lot of folks who gave the impression that the used to go to a lot of shows, man, there'd be some grumpy faces in the office tomorrow morning. They were also people who didn't give a fig about t-shirt protocol — there was a large contingent out in their iconic Nomeansno WRONG t-shirts.

So, a decent showing for openers METZ, even if the crowd gave the impression were going to take a wait-and-see stance toward the local trio. With the big headliner drumkit set up near the front of stage left, Hayden Menzies' kit looked pretty puny by comparison, but it still generated plenty noise. And per the band's custom, the only source of light was from the illuminated kickdrum — which, on Lee's high stage, put it blindingly at eye level.

Even with that giant drumkit taking up real estate, this was the largest stage I've ever seen the band play on, and guitarist Alex Edkins had some extra room to wheel about as he powered the band's abrasive noise-lurches. With a hint of scabrous Jesus Lizard-y yelp-squelch, by "Dry Up", it was pretty clear the band was winning over some of the Crusty Punx. Maybe it's just having a slightly bigger space to fill than I've seen 'em in before, but they were a bit less overwhelmingly loud — not that they were delicate or anything, but there was some overhead for the dynamics and this might have been the best I'd ever heard 'em sound.

Playing their usual mix of tracks from their singles ("Dry Up", "Negative Space") plus newer ones presumably bound for their still-forthcoming album, they played seven efficient songs, moving quickly along, and sounding almost eager to get off the stage so they could hear the headliners.¹

Listen to a song from this set here.

The last time I saw Nomeansno I went into it with no small amount of trepidation, fearful that time might have robbed some of the vitality from what had been one of my favourite bands back in the mid-90's. But that show's velocity careened right past nostalgia in a hurry, and this time I was more enthusiastic going in. Certainly for the bulk of the crowd — including a panorama of about three generations of leather jacket-wearing punks — none of this was an issue. My only worry was in wondering how far back from the stage I'd have to be to avoid getting jostled by bodies bouncing from the pit.

Making a stopover in T.O. before flying over for some European dates, the trio were in gregarious and feisty form. "We're from Vancouver, Canada's premier hockey town," said bassist/vocalist Rob Wright, gleefully taunting the crowd to some equally amiable boos.

With a fairly immense catalogue spanning three decades to draw from, there's a lot of stuff for the band to dip into and I was pleased with the selection of "Angel or Devil" (from 1995's fab The Worldhood of the World (As Such)) to start things off. Right from the start, all of the hallmarks were there — Rob's powerful, driving bass, as much of a "lead" instrument as Tom Holliston's guitar, both of whom were pushed along by John Wright's thunderous, stop-on-a-dime drums. Without pause came the funky post-punk guitar line animating "I Can't Stop Talking" (from the less-beloved Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie) making the song sound incredibly more vital than I recall.

I was also glad that there was some new material in the mix. A pair of recently-released EP's provided several songs to the setlist, including the ace new "Jubilation", which, like so much of the band's material, makes a joyful song from the darkest of outlooks ("nothing left to hold on to in this wicked word / that's jubilation"). "Slave" and "One and the Same" were less endearing, but I'm still super-glad to see the band not just meekly accepting the easy ride down the nostalgia act route. And with a whiplash-inducing motion, they followed those newest songs with one of their oldest, reaching back to Mama, the band's 1982 debut full-length for "No Sex".

Call 'em codgers, but they're still pretty physical on stage — Rob managed to unplug his bass while Holliston sang "The Hawk Killed the Punk". And that led into a particularly driving and frothy version of "Teresa, Give Me That Knife". Watching them pump out song after song, it was admirable to see how damn vital the band remains, still nimbly navigating tempo changes and other rhythmic detours. And still treating the songs as if they were raw emotions ripped from the flesh, like when Holliston put down his guitar to grip the mic stand and lean into his vocals for "Metronome".

No shortage of highlights and no letup in a set lasting about an hour and twenty minutes — though the band might have been wearing down during set closing one-two punch from high-water mark Wrong, with a couple bum notes audible during "Oh No! Bruno!". Regrouping for a pair of encores that added another twenty-minutes to the proceedings, the night closed with the triumphalism of "Victory", and once again raging against the dying of the light carried the day.

Right after the show, I'd posted something old and something new here. And now I've done the same again here.

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¹ METZ will be headlining a stacked lineup on the first night of Wavelength's TWELVE! festival, Thursday, February 16, 2011 at Parts & Labour.

Gig: Destroyer

Destroyer (The War on Drugs / Mantler)

Lee's Palace. Thursday, March 31, 2011.

Mantler was a savvy choice for an early opener at this show, dovetailing nicely with the headliner's smooth and mellow new direction. Chris Cummings has been doing that for awhile, and here the trio was playing to a relatively thin crowd, but probably one with a lot of people who hadn't been exposed to Mantler's superbly-composed lounge-pop before.

On a stage crammed with gear, Cummings' Wurlizer and Jay Anderson's drums were squeezed right up near the front of the stage. Along with Matt McLaren's bass, the band produced a snappy funk from the low-key leadoff of "Playin' Along". "I Guarantee You a Good Time" won over some of the crowd and as the place filled in, the band held their own in terms of amount of attention being paid to them — which is always a victory for the first band up playing to people here for someone else. And Cummings elicited some cheers as he stood up to rap out a verse on closer "I've Been Destroyed". After the set, I overheard one guy approvingly describing the set to a late-arriving friend as "kinda like Bacharach", so it seems that the tuxedo-clad singer managed to make something of an impact.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Playing songs from their then-pending Slave Ambient album, Philadelphia's The War on Drugs were, at the time of this show, still mostly talked about as being the band Kurt Vile used to be in. That album would go on to make something of a splash, and put the band on an upward trajectory to a point where they're now generally being considered on their own merits. But still, I guess the seeds had been planted, as there was a fairly-full house for the quartet.

A balky microphone rendered Adam Granduciel's vox in opener "Best Night" staticky and incomprehensible, but his guitar work was pretty tasty. I dunno if it was that bad mic or something else, but he seemed to be in a testy mood at the outset: "Can you put some fuckin' sauce on it?" he desperately sneered at song's end — which, as "Baby Missiles" started, apparently meant some massive reverb. He'd repeat the call a couple more times in the set, to the extent that a few guys in the crowd were soon also calling for more sauce on it.

Underneath the sauce, his vocal delivery registered as sub Dylan-y, a flavour which was imparted even more strongly in "Buenos Aires Beach", with a folk-rock 12-string-style guitar part. So there were some tensions here between the band's retro-y fundamentals and the more contemporary tweaks. For the latter, besides that fashionable reverb, there was a tidy regularity to the rhythm section — drummer Steven Urgo was holding things together with a laptop and click-track. That imparted a sleekness, that when set against the Americana-ish vibe of the vocals, seemed to be the band's most distinguishing feature — as if they were trying to find a synthesis between a stack of Tom Petty albums and another of Thrill Jockey discs.

The mellow "Brothers" did bring their old bandmate to mind, sounding like it could nestle quite nicely on a mixtape next to Kurt Vile's "Jesus Fever". But even better was "Coming Through", where the guitar tone channelled Lindsay Buckingham and the steady rhythm channelled nothing so much as Fleetwood Mac in a concise three minutes, a more intriguing package than closer (and older track) "Arms Like Boulders" which stretched out more and leaned a bit more on the Dylanisms.

It was a forty-minute, eight-song set from the band, a lot of them in the five-minute range, in that zone between popsong concision and jammy looseness. And as the set progressed, Granduciel's mood improved — a few songs in he was fixated on the notion that the hometown crowd might, at any time, start a chant for Destroyer's saxophone player Joseph Shabason.

Listen to a track for this set here.

Shabason's "You Belong to the City"-esque sax licks would indeed be central to Destroyer's new sound on Kaputt. On stage, that was reproduced alongside trumpet player J.P. Carter (Fond Of Tigers, Inhabitants). The 80's-inspired smoothness was the album's big talking point, but somewhat unsurprisingly, in the live setting it all sounded like, well, Destroyer, with the new stuff getting scuffed up a bit and the older songs getting some smoothed-out treatments. But there's no doubt that soft-rock vibe was palpable right from the start with album-opening track "Chinatown".

Before the show, I was having a beer with J., and mentioned how it'd be interesting to finally see Destroyer play, upon which he swiftly reminded me that we had, in fact 'em, back in 2008. On being told, the memories of that show flashed back into my consciousness, mostly about the quote-unquote eccentric behaviour of leader/vocalist Dan Bejar. That persona was on display here, as the band launched into "Blue Eyes", with Bejar stopping the song after its first line. He was peering back to the soundman, thinking he was being signalled, though it turned out to be a false alarm: "I'm hallucinating," Bejar muttered, one of the few verbal asides he'd offer. On the whole, Bejar — who wasn't wielding a guitar this time around — came off as more closed off and inward-directed than previously, though still to some degree like he was playing a character.

Instead of wild-eyed rock prophet, though, his mode here was closed-eye visionary, delicately gripping the microphone as he sang. Like his multi-layered lyrics, it's hard to know whether to take his presence at face value — while on stage, is he self-consciously playing the role of anguished artist? Does he maybe really feel that way a bit, but then plays it up for gravitas? I don't assume to say, but there were times that he looked acutely uncomfortable. On the other hand, he also showed a sharp awareness of his surroundings: as "Painter in Your Pocket" was getting started, Shabason was struggling with a beer bottle when Bejar non-nonchalantly reached in his pocket and handed him an opener.

Behind the frontman was a seven-piece band, giving full-force to the new material's lush arrangements. It admirably rendered the Kaputt material with the same smooth hammer deployed on the album and applied the same treatment to the older stuff in the setlist. "It's Gonna Take an Airplane" (from 2004's Your Blues) was considerably bulked up from the original's acoustic guitar/flute mellowness, there was an excellent version of "My Favorite Year" and a spatter-y "3000 Flowers" that melded a rocking edge with the sax line.

Of the new songs, "Downtown" was notable for featuring dual bass action. "Suicide Demo for Kara Walker" featured the same extended intro as the album version, the song stretching past the eleven-minute mark but never feeling too prolonged. The main set closed with the weird disco-isms of "Song for America", and a slowly decaying synth pattern kept playing as the audience called for an encore. Returning to the stage Bejar commented, "as always, you're too kind," about his most protracted direct communication to the crowd.

The encore would only turn out to be one song, but that would be the expansive "Bay of Pigs". Clutching a handful of lyric sheets, Bejar returned to the stage accompanied only by a guitarist and keyboard player Larissa Loyva (whose backing vox throughout the night were a key element of the band's sound) though eventually the rest of the band would filter back to join in as the song slowly ramped up from floating textures to mutant pop. There was an enjoyable crack in the façade when, mid-song, the musicians nearly broke each other up, the "da-da-dums" punctuated by Bejar's half-cut-off laughs. Even if this was a less-forceful show than when I'd seen them before, it was more insistent on my memory, and I reckon that this time I won't forget that I saw Destroyer play.

You can check out something from the latest album here, or listen to an older track get the Kaputt treatment here.

Festival: CMW 2011 (Thursday)

CMW 2011^* (Thursday) (feat. The Wilderness of Manitoba / Miracle Fortress / Imaginary Cities / Young Galaxy)

Thursday, March 10, 2011.

This is an expansion of my initial notes from the festival, which can be found here.

8:00 P.M.: The Wilderness of Manitoba @ Lee's Palace

For their first time at Lee's, these local folk harmonizers were happy to be playing in their own backyard ("just a twenty minute walk from our house"), making for an easier time than the bands coming from all around the world. They were also playing, at the outset, to a crowd that they could have fit in their house, facing the that typical festival early-slot slightly antiseptic sight of an empty-ish bar with about a half-dozen camera-toting types in front of the stage, snapping away — and not much else.

Showing some awareness of the environment they'd be playing in, the band put together a very well-constructed setlist. After starting with "Hermit", just to announce themselves, they followed with a few quieter songs while the room was quiet — "The Great Hall" got a very nice reading — and after that ramping it up as the place filled in, ending with their more rambunctious material. That meant Will Whitwham's vocals weren't lost along the chatter too much. There was also a nice mix of older and newer material, with "Evening" and the fine new "Chasing Horses" rubbing shoulders before the set closed out with a rollicking version of "Dreamcatchers".¹

Listen to a track from this set here.

9:00 P.M.: Miracle Fortress @ Lee's Palace

"We'd like to introduce you to some new songs," said Graham Van Pelt as he finished his preparations. True to his word, he presented a set filled with material that would emerge a couple months later on sophomore album Was I the Wave?. He also brought his own lights, laser-y pinpoints that zigzagged around the dancefloor, occasionally blinding audience members with direct light blasts² while leaving the stage almost entirely in darkness. The Remain in Light-ish textures of "Tracers", including an extended instrumental intro, showed off Van Pelt's new sound, which brings a definite unified sensibility, although a rather different one than he displayed on his first album. Although I'd had a hint that this was the direction he was going in, one got the sense that some people in the crowd were disappointed that it was different songs and a different sound that what they already knew.

Also on stage was drummer Greg Napier, who also plays alongside Van Pelt in Think About Life as well as in his own project Special Noise. Right up front and facing the singer, he was turned perpendicular to the crowd — a layout that may well bring to mind Woodhands, which can only raise unflattering comparisons to that band's Paul Banwatt. Here, rather than driving things, Napier felt more like window-dressing, adding accents to the rhythm tracks. The show could have gone on without him, but he did add some kineticism on stage.

It turned out to be a relatively quick set — just five songs — ending with the I'll-House-You-isms of "Raw Spectacle". But it was certainly enough to make a bold statement of what his new album would be like.

Listen to a track from this set here.

10:00 P.M.: Imaginary Cities @ Lee's Palace

Weirdly enough, when I had previously seen Winnipeg's Imaginary Cities, it was also while I was waiting to see Young Galaxy. And the most glib evaluation I could give of them would be to say that they are a pleasant diversion to pass the time while you wait for another band.

That last time 'round they were pretty new as a unit and a generally unknown quality, their biggest calling card being Rusty Matyas' known affiliations with The Waking Eyes and as a touring member of The Weakerthans. But less than a year later, they definitely had a few woo-hooing fans, and, impressively, one dude who stood up front, mouthing all the lyrics to himself.

And there were signs of a band with a lot more miles on the road — "Say You" had a bit more belt to it, and the band presented with more swagger generally. Marti Sarbit's soul-referencing vocal stylings are the band's best feature, and she was in good form here.

Some of the material felt like stuck-in-first ballad-fodder, like "Where'd all the Living Go" — even if it gave Matyas and the bassist a chance to show off some co-ordinated "rock" moves. And it was good to see that the band is expanding their songbook with new material like "Cherry Blossom Tree" and "Marry the Sea", but maybe because the set was front-loaded with the older, road-tested stuff and the latter part with more of their newer songs that I found it most pleasant at the start followed by diminishing returns.

They certainly put their all into it. By the time the band went out with slow-dance "That's Where it's at Sam", Sarbit sounded winded. And they'd clearly won over a few more people, though ultimately it just doesn't seem like they're fated to have a particularly electrifying effect on me.

Listen to a track from this set here.

11:00 P.M.: Young Galaxy @ Lee's Palace

Swapping fire for water, Young Galaxy decided to push themselves out of their safety zone, reinventing themselves with a glossier, more-dancefloor/less-rock sound on their Shapeshifting album, which they were launching with a quick tour before pausing for some parental leave. And though it is a sonic departure, it's also a continuing evolution from where they had been. Including, for example, in the increased reliance on Catherine McCandless as the lead vocalist, announced here right from the start on "Blown Minded". She has a striking vocal presence, and puts a more unique stamp on the music than partner Stephen Ramsay. For this show, whether it was the challenge of playing new songs with a new lineup or the added wrinkle of being pronouncedly pregnant, she wasn't quite nailing all her marks here — "Phantoms", for example, felt like it was just hinting at its potential.

"It's all so new for us. It's like a new band, basically... it's the first time we've played these songs live." said Ramsay, who was still in top form in handling the bulk of the banter. Now a five-piece, Ramsay (guit) and McCandless (keyb and electronics) were joined by an additional keyboard player, bass and drums, and for this being the first show for this incarnation of the live band, it went generally well. That Ramsay was pretty open about it all ("we're not slick yet... so thanks for your kindness.") made it feel more endearing than stiff.

"This is the dance test," Ramsay said before "Peripheral Visionaries", and after an opening shapeshift-y trio of songs, there was an "old one", with "Queen Drum" to act as a reminder of the past. Even it had some additional electronic textures in the background, and in another switch, "Long Live the Fallen World", which had served as set closer for the past while, had been supplanted by "B.S.E.". That'd be "Black Swan Event" to the less acronym-minded, and its refrain of being "intoxicated by re-invention" was sort of the key to the whole thing.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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^* A note on nomenclature: for years both the industry showcase and music festival components were known as Canadian Music Week. But as of 2009, this was deemed to be too simple and straightforward, and the music portion was "rebranded" as Canadian Music Fest, under the aegis of the larger Canadian Music Week. I see no reason to put up with this and will simply refer to everything as CMW — although there was a part of me that also considered using the slightly cumbersome "Canadian Music Fest presented by Canadian Music Week" throughout.

¹ No pending live dates for the band, but if you're seasonally inclined, they've just released a couple xmas songs.

² Miracle Fortress: come for the songs, stay for the free laser eye surgery! It should be noted that at CMW, with so many media types around, a standing-in-the-dark type of stage presentation often has the unintended effect of forcing the photogs to break out the flash, kinda undermining the effect.

Gig: The Radio Dept.

The Radio Dept. (Young Prisms)

Lee's Palace. Monday, February 7, 2011.

I do my best to avoid Monday shows, which means when I do go out it's usually for a touring band who I'll not get another chance to see again any time soon. And perhaps that was felt a little more keenly this time 'round, with the night's Swedish headliners making their long-awaited local debut. Oh well, at least Monday shows start a little bit earlier.

It actually looked as if the early start time might have as much to do with openers Young Prisms having to get home before curfew. Which is to say that the four-piece out of San Francisco looked like they might not have gotten into the club were they not up on stage.¹

Certainly some of the sounds they were generating were of an older vintage than the players — and at a time when plenty of bands are finding fertile room to explore in the period where "alternative" was becoming "indie", it seems positively classicist to be looking instead at the time when "college rock" was becoming "alternative". Which is to say that Young Prisms' terrain was characterized by music that was smeary but melodic, with overlapping, passed-around vocals mostly handled by Stefanie Hodapp. Definite hints of Sonic Youth and pick-yr-shoegazing reference. Showing their affection for the latter, at the centre of the set, "Breathless" was connected to another song by a relatively lengthy segue of guitar haze.

Actually, both there and in a few other spots, my main complaint was that Matthew Allen's guitar tone could have been a little more aggressively Bloody — most of the time his sound wasn't so much steel wool as itchy sweater, and there were places where a bit more spiky noise would elevate the material. Still, the overall flavour was generally tasty, indicating the band is off to a decent start — the individual songs weren't overwhelming but there's something here. I did like how Stefanie Hodapp's languid vox rubbed up against the guitars. There were shades of our own Mean Red Spiders in a frisky sort of mood — closer "Softer" (a brand-new one) especially brought MRS to mind. Not strikingly new, but this the sort of thing that I dig.

Listen to a track from this set here.

I try to avoid stereotypes as much as possible, but it's hard not to see the evening's headliners as vague avatars of presumed Scandinavian traits: polite, reserved, efficient. So when vocalist/guitarist Johan Duncanson greeted the crowd with a concise few words ("We're The Radio Dept. from Sweden. Thanks for having us.") it seemed about exactly right. If you were going to describe the band's appearance, "unassuming" would come to mind, with three blokes that you could easily imagine playing pick-up soccer after a day of designing safety features for consumer products. They looked like any three Swedish guys you'd pull off the street — which is to say there was a certain amount of stoicism on stage. It was even a rigorously egalitarian set-up, with the trio (who play without a drummer) spaced out evenly across the front of the stage.

I'm far from an expert on the seemingly limitless amount of spookily well-executed pop-rock emerging from Sweden, so I can't say much to situate the band amongst their peers. In fact, I hadn't really distinguished them from the background noise of ten thousand bands competing for my attention until notices for their third album (2010's rather fine Clinging to a Scheme) started piling up. Once I did get my hands on it, I was pretty quickly seduced by the band's effortless music, humane but by no means rough-hewn and packed with spectacularly memorable songs.

Clearly I wasn't the only one that had been brought on board, given the sold-out venue, and that increase in profile had obviously opened some doors for the band. This had enabled them not only to make it over to North America to tour, but also to help bring the newer fans up to speed with the release of the career-spanning Passive Aggressive: Singles 2002-2010 compilation. Given that was the release that the band was ostensibly promoting, it made sense that they started off with "Freddie and the Trojan Horse", one of the non-album tracks on that set. This song (and some others throughout the set) had a two-guitar setup — Martin Larsson would subsequently switch over to bass as required.

My only concern coming in to this show was how much presence and spark an unapologetic "studio" band would bring to their live show. They certainly weren't out to impress with their gear — Duncanson had but a teenie little rehearsal amp on stage. Roaring walls of sound this ain't, but it is sleek, well-crafted pop, quietly impassioned in a way to draw the listener in.

The setlist seemed meticulously-planned to cover as many facets as possible, with Clinging to a Scheme's "This Time Around" followed by a back-to-back pair of excursions to 06's Pet Grief ("I Wanted You to Feel the Same", "The Worst Taste in Music"). Then a b-side ("Messy Enough") and another retrospective pair, from 2003's debut Lesser Matters. Although received wisdom is that the band's earlier material hadn't crossed the terminator from shoegaze to dreampop, except for the relative balance of guitar to synthesizer there's more continuities than radical breaks. "Why Won't You Talk About It" and "Ewan", both with that more prominent guitar sound, still weren't exactly a noisefest or anything.

Regardless of whether the songs came from the breakthrough album or anywhere else in the discography, the crowd immediately recognized and cheered each song. And while the band wasn't too demonstrative, they did seem impressed and spurred on by the enthusiastic crowd, even if you had to read between the lines in Duncanson's banter ("You're too kind.") to perceive that.

The quieter "Domestic Scene" was pretty tasty, but for a while in the late-middle part of the set, I was pondering to myself on the utility of seeing this sort of live performance. This is contained, carefully-crafted music, and the band's means of production imply they're never really going to tear it up. It's a solid representation of their music, but not particularly different from the recorded versions. Of course, where there's amazing songs behind it all, it hardly matters, and as "Heaven's On Fire" kicked in, it made me feel churlish to doubt the power of the band.

In un-rock'n'roll fashion, the set ended with the band leaving the stage one at a time, leaving the backing track playing. And in a less dramatic gesture than a roadie coming to stop the squall by pulling the last guitar off a feedback-squealing amp, here the music ended when someone came and pressed a button on the laptop.

After that, the house music came up as if that was it, but the crowd kept clapping for a couple minutes, and finally the band returned to play the glide-y/dreamy "The City Limit" (another old one from Pulling Our Weight), still looking a little surprised at the extent of the adulation being sent their way. And then, pretty much precisely one hour after taking the stage, it was done.

Looking back, I have no regrets that I went. It was a solid but not particularly exciting show. Certainly not the sort of thing where I'd feel compelled to head back to see 'em. However, it looks like I'm the odd one out here. Although this show was a long-awaited local debut for the band, they've already made their return, and will be back in town yet again in short order² — so obviously this is turning some peoples' cranks.

Check out an older song from this set here or a newer one here.

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¹ Another manifestation of their youth was their keen food-related chatter between songs, which accounted for nearly all the banter during the set.

² The Radio Dept. will be back in town at The Mod Club on Thursday, November 17, 2011.