Optical Sounds' 2-Year Birthday Party (feat. Your 33 Black Angels / The Hoa Hoa's / Postcards)
The House of Everlasting Super Joy. Saturday, July 10, 2010.
After a full day outside for Afrofest, grabbed the subway over to Dundas West, and walked over to Sterling to find the mysterious House of Everlasting Super Joy. A somewhat unusual neighbourhood by T.O standards — call it, I guess, pre-gentrified, with the detritus of industry still near at hand. The spot turned out to be a loft-style space, clearly the domain of a bohemian squadron of musicians and visual artists. The walls were covered with psychedelic paintings, and on top of that, there were blankets hanging on two walls, acting as screens for a particularly excellent installation of General Chaos' swirling lightshow, the projectors stashed on elevated ledges and in position to totally fill the room.
As I arrived at just past midnight there were a good few people standing outside, an "ALCOHOL INSIDE ONLY" sign on the door — some basic measures to keep a BYOB party from overwhelming the neighbours. Inside it was sweatingly hot as I poured myself a hearty snifter of brandy, taking in the surroundings. The party had been set up as a two-parter, with a first trio of bands (The Auras, Vicious Delicious, Planet Creature) going earlier on before a DJ break. But it looked like I was in time to catch the second burst of bands starting after midnight.
There was a pentagram on the floor, and throwing caution to the winds, I positioned myself in the centre of it as Your 33 Black Angels finished their preparations. Bowing to the heat, there was soon a couple shirtless members amongst the multitude on stage1 — seven members deep (and at that, without their regular bass player). The lineup included a second drum kit, keybs and three guits up front, including main vocalist Josh Westfal. Even with all those hands on deck, the material was well-arranged, with the guitars playing well-defined parts and not just mashing more of more on top.
I'd seen the NYC-based crew playing with the Hoa Hoa's before and knew that they were a good complement to a show like this. Leading off with the self-explanatory "Le Boogie Électrique", the band's material ranged from Byrdsian folk-rock raveups to bursts of Stones-y swagger, but with a fiery intensity throughout that obviates all suggestions of mere revivalism — or, as one song suggests, "I Had a Modern Night". Playing a lot of material from their latest disc Pagan Princess, they stretched things out in a couple spots, like on "I Want Something I Can Hold In My Hand" and closed with a burst of energy in "Blinding Light". I was glad to have caught these guys again, and with what looks to be an increased association with Optical Sounds — the new website says that one of the bands coming soon to OS "rhymes with Your 33 Black Angels"2 — I do imagine they'll be heading back up here soon.
Listen to a track from this set here.
By the end of that set, as I looked around me, everyone's faces were starting to look like lumps of playdoh that had been left in a microwave. As the band finished, I ducked outside, where it was about a million degrees cooler and the air less like soup, and managed to cool off a bit along with nearly everyone else from what was a pretty healthy crowd. It hurt a little to have to go back inside, but I'm willing to make certain sacrifices for The Hoa Hoa's.3
Keeping things simple setup-wise, there were no keybs for this one, just guit/bass/drums and the band in party mode, joined by Cameron Ingles on tambourine. Femke Berkout was wearing a tie-died skirt that went well with the lightshow, and there were psychedelic bursts all around as the band led off with an intense, frenzied run through "The List", guitars way up and vocals way down in the mix. (This'd be a problem more of less throughout the set, so while it sounded pretty mindblowing while the band was playing, it sounds a bit muffled on the playback.)
Mixing things up on the older material, Richard Gibson sang "Vinyl Richie" with some sort of effect that made his voice sounde like the 13th Floor Elevators' electric jug. An amp or something failed, with the guitars dropping for for a moment, but the band kept playing through it. There was — yet again! — a brand new song from the band. Richie called out a title for it, but I couldn't quite make it out. This one brought, say, Screamadelica to mind, and there was also the still-pretty-new summer-vibed "Falling". For the always-incendiary finale "Blue Acid Gumball", the band were joined by Don Matsuo of The Zoobombs on extra guitar, giving the song an even more frantic feel than usual.
Needed another sojourn outside after that. The crowd had thinned out a bit — it was past two by now, and a few less bodies squeezed inside made it a bit more tolerable for another out-of-town band of friends to Optical Sounds. Montréal's Postcards have played with The Hoa Hoa's before, but this time, we had a stripped-down version of the band. Not sure if this was just a travel arrangement or a permanent shuffle, but we were left with vocalist Dimitri and guitarist Filip, the latter controlling the icy new wave textures of the backing rhythm tracks that they played to.4
Last time 'round, I'd found the band to be fairly minimal anyways — if not slightly too monochromatic — so this setup wasn't actually a huge change in direction. The slight stiffness of the drum tracks actually worked with their sound, although the low-end often sounded a bit distorted through the room's PA, which didn't really fit with their aesthetic. There were also some technical problems — something caused the backing tracks to konk out in the middle of one song, and dealing with that robbed the band of a lot of their momentum. After some fiddling, they re-started the track, but still had trouble getting through it, that one ending up being a mostly instrumental version.
When this setup was able to put the focus on Dimitri's vocals, it worked fairly well, as he sang with an emotive, plaintive tone. In combination with the impersonally blank drum machine beats giving something you could shuffle to, the set was enjoyable enough, but I wouldn't think this was the band at their best.
And after that, heading homeward, pretty exhausted after a day and a night of music. A worthy celebration, though, of the ongoing achievements of one of the city's pre-eminent DIY communities.
1 I use this phrase metaphorically, as there was, in fact, no stage, just a corner of the room for the bands to set up in.
2 Have you checked out the new Optical Sounds website? It has a nice, uncluttered design with the music right up front-and-centre where it deserves to be.
3 But just to be clear, I am not willing to make any sacrifices in the centre of that pentagram. That's just asking for trouble.
4 When I saw them before, they were a quartet, though their CBC 3 page lists them as a trio — I have no idea if that's up-to-date or not. Their myspace doesn't add much information at all, but their facebook lists the membership as those two "and friends". No last names supplied anywhere I looked.
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