Live review: These are Powers at Death by Audio [11.24.07]

These Are Powers played Saturday night to a hot, packed Death by Audio crowd. Everyone was asked to move away from the wall to leave a corridor for people passing through to the back, it was a good sign.

These Are Powers had spread out from the makeshift stage onto the floor in front of the audience during their sound check and somewhere the noise that was the first song started. Bill Salas had an extensive kit of drums, electronics, and suitcases which spread out to the side and in front of him taking up most of the tiny stage. He stood, working rhythms across the expanse of triggers and actual instruments, building up progressively louder, unintuitive beats.

There are bands that can create sounds that really makes you scratch your head as a musician...I know the sound of most pedals, and I know what a guitar sounds like...so what the hell is going on stage there. I know ex-Liar Pat Noecker was playing bass guitar but I can't say I heard a bass guitar in any recognizable traditional sense. I think that's part of the accomplishment here. They're playing around with traditional semi-tribal elements, the structure, the biological beat. But it goes ever further and is like some kind of world music nightmare, filtered through an industrial sound. Whereas The Liars, Drums Not Dead album works in repetitive hypnotic way to lull the listener, These are Powers are mystifyingly tapping into some sort of primitive futurism to pull you in, this is an ancient un-ignorable magic.

I don't think I've ever really witnessed a crowd literally driven into a frenzy by the band, this was such an audio rhythm assault, and they forced the crowd along for the ride. These Are Powers were so hypnotically infectious, that little by little they persuaded the crowd to move. Every song seemed to just increase this spontaneous energy, except when given the task to clap along, which proved either too complicated to keep up for 4 minutes or, like myself, just too amazed to make a sound and break the spell.



They ended the night with 'Little Sisters of Beijing', all tribal drumming with electronic kettle drum bangs thrown in for good measure. Anna Barie infectiously chants, hoots and parts the audience running through, throwing her head and arms around anyone that will join her...out as far as the microphone cord could reach, the whole time woo woo woo-ing, it's as uncomfortably as close to a drum circle as I want to get. Could These are Powers actually make that a meaningful experience?

I'm convinced.

[Photos courtesy Pete, Feast of Music blog]

Review: Love of Diagrams at Death by Audio [11/18/07]

Love of Diagrams took the stage at Death by Audio after the guitarist Luke Horton yelled out at the last minute he had to go to the bathroom. Seconds later, running back onto the red light stage, they launched into "Form and Function". I can only imagine what has been going on in Australia lately to produce a post-post rock sound like this. Are they as out of place there as they sound here, or is there a scene I'm unaware of Down Under? Love of Diagrams prove that the simple trio is still the best rock vehicle that can run the gamut from quiet minimalism to a wall of sound. Anything else is really redundant. At the same time they have an eastern European constructivist aesthetic on their numerous show flyer's, and on bassist Antonia Selbach's collage album cover. The angular, new wave look suits the music perfectly. They must have met like any great band breeding ground: at an art school in Australia.

They aren't full of spectacle, they didn't speak in between songs. Luke pointed out that one of the songs was from their album Mosaic on Matador Records, as well as the rest of them, as if anyone was unfamiliar with the band, venturing to this former sanitation department building on a freezing Sunday night.

I couldn't see drummer Monika Fikerle's arms half the time, who seemed to masochistically use strings of fills for rhythm structure. She's inhuman, in speed and change. It reminded me of seeing Unwound and Sara Lund banging away with a snare roll for the length of a song while Justin and Vern noodled away with feedback and distortion. It's an exercise in effortless endurance.

But everything rests on Antonia's crunchy bass lines, driving every song. I imagine they write everything on her foundation. Luke adds the perfect high distorted sustain pieces to every song. Songs are all quick, Antonia and Luke singing back and forth but as if they aren't even a part of the same song; I never once thought 'duet', it's complementary but separate. Like the calculated clean artwork, there is a distinct order to these arrangements, Luke constantly would take a moment to retune in between songs and spent most of the time doubled over his guitar, straining to bend strings. They covered a Pylon song on an early EP, and the influence becomes more and more apparent every time I listen. The minimal, bass driven, alien-ness of it all.

I had an argument with a friend later about showmanship, and how if they are performing, they have an obligation, or at least have to acknowledge the idea that this is a show. I disagreed- if a band is as good as Love of Diagrams, it might mean even more that they don't need to rely on any theatrics. This is straight, simple, completely about the music. No distractions.

I guess when you're great, you don't have to be anything else.

[Photo courtesy of kristyliekwhoa from the knitting factory show the night before.]

Preview: O'Death at Death by Audio [Brooklyn, NY, 10.15.07]

I have been hearing for months about O'Death and their live show. I have been missing for months all of their live shows in Brooklyn. Well that's going to change this Monday, October 15th.

They are playing O'Death By Audio, a drop ceiling tiled office space with a stage at one end at 49 South 2nd Street between Wythe & Kent. It won't matter that the sound can sometimes suck there because O'Death comes complete with their own acoustic power. This is a mystical band from a forgotten time where people would get together on the back porch with some bathtub gin and play for themselves and friends until the sun came up. Eventually they loved music so much that they came up with a name for themselves and quit working for the man at the county store.

They love this bluegrass/hillbilly/barn stomping hootenanny mishmash as much as you will, and really that's what makes brooklyn and indie rock great in general. Play under the hipster flag if you want to. It's like the nerd table in the lunchroom...we're the only place that isn't going to kick you out.

They are just about to kick off a european tour in Ireland, and won't be back in town until christmas, so if you are going to see them, this is it. It starts at 8PM and is 7$. So cheap.