Concert review - Future Islands with Operators

12 August 2014 (Aggie Theatre, Ft. Collins CO)

Ft. Collins is quite lucky, it seems. As Future Islands winds their tour across America, they managed to squeeze in a single show in Ft. Collins on the way to Salt Lake City. After looping through California, they'll pass through Denver later in the month at the Gothic, but that show is already sold out. So, we got to see them first and, although the turnout was good, it wasn't over-packed like a sold-out show.

It didn't turn out to be an particularly late night either. Tour mates, Operators, were the only opener and Future Islands followed them with a good show and still wrapped up their encore around 11ish.

Operators

Dan Boeckner, from Wolf Parade and Divine Fits, kicked things off with his latest band, Operators.
The line up features his previous bandmate Sam Browne (Divine Fits) on drums and electronics artiste Devojka tweaking buttons and dials. Their opening song blended a classic synth pop sound with Tom Tom Club dance beats. Crowded against the front of the stage, the trio offered a study in contrasts. Brown was deeply focused as he pounded out the rhythm, barely noticing the audience at all. Boekcner, on the other end of the line, was full of anxious energy as he paced forward and back. In between these two extremes, Devojka directed most of her attention towards her table full of toys, but she still engaged with the crowd.


As the set progressed, Operators settled into an electro-pop flavored post-punk feel, somewhat like Shriekback partnering with a laptop artist. Looping synth arpeggios and beep-boop punctuated dance grooves kept the crowd moving. While the bottom end was covered well enough, I would have appreciated a real bass player to partner with Brown's solid drum work.


While I enjoy listening to the gear-driven beats, to some extent, they leave me cold during a live performance. The obsessive knob-work and frantic activity can add a serving of sweeps and laser tones, but they never quite relate to the steady roll of the backing track. Fortunately, Boeckner's charisma and stage presence were exciting enough to carry the show. The crowd was primed with plenty of his fans, several of whom called for tunes from his older bands. Eventually, Devojka got irked enough to ask the audience member if they could play the song ("If not, shut up"). In any case, the energizing pop repetition of the music was a good warm up for Future Islands.

Future Islands

There is an aesthetic concept called the "uncanny valley", which quantifies how people react to things that are near, but not quite human. For example, robots, dolls, and clowns can each trigger a kind of aversion when they fall into that space between clearly artificial and a natural human appearance or behavior. The more times I see Samuel T. Herring perform, I can't help but revisit that concept as I watch his stylized movements and unnatural dance moves. He doesn't trigger a sharp repulsion, but  he's off by just enough to make his performance riveting in its strangeness.


While he was actually singing, he tended towards overly emotional theatricality, with melodramatic gestures and exaggerated facial expressions. In between his lines, though, he surrendered to his inner muse and chaotically danced with wild lunges and stiff-postured positions. On the one hand, this physicality was cool; there was the sense that Herring was channeling the song with his outsider-artist choreography. But as he waved his arms and crouched like a gorilla, mimed tearing away the mask of his face, or spasmed into a fixed-stare duck walk, it was hard not to be gobstopped. That oddness is certainly part of why the band has hit it so big in the wake of their David Letterman appearance.


Fortunately, Future Islands had more going for them than a sideshow performance. First of all, the band was remarkably tight. They casually delivered perfection in form of danceable tunes where every note was polished and carefully placed. That distilled performance could have turned cold and mechanical, but between the deeply personal tone of the songs and Herring's expressiveness, the music was surprisingly emotional, especially for a synth-driven pop band. In sharp contrast to their frontman, William Cashion, Gerrit Welmers and their touring drummer all played with a restrained economy. Cahsion moved the most as he played his bass, but seldom got further than two steps from where he started. Welmers almost melted into his keyboards, barely acknowledging the audience or the rest of the band, even when Herring introduced the players during "Spirit".


Future Islands slid through their set with little pause, moving from hypnotically danceable interludes to driving bass-driven darkness and then shifting into soulful brooding. Late in the set, Herring surprised me, though, with an unexpected bit of humor. During "A Song For Our Grandfathers", he spent much of the tune gazing up to his right, as though looking up to Heaven. After wrapping it up, he paused and then gestured up at the large posters that decorate the walls of the Aggie. He pointed up at the one he'd been staring at and said, "By the way, my grandfather isn't Tech N9ne." That little bit of self-deprecation made up for a lot of crazy dance moves.

Vocally, Herring veered from a strained soul tone reminiscent of Roland Gift (Fine Young Cannibals) to hoarse, death metal growls. Those changes were all in service to the whatever raw sense he was trying to evoke at any given moment. He apologized a few times about his voice, but seemed to give everything he had to his performance. By the end of the night, his tight black shirt was soaked with sweat and he looked a bit drawn. Future Islands finished out their three song encore with "Little Dreamer" and Herring was finally able to take a well-deserved break.

More photos on my Flickr.

Recording review: Rene Lopez, Paint the Moon Gold (2014)

Bless his electric Latin soul

My first taste from Rene Lopez was 2010's People Are Just People (review), which celebrated his R & B and soul roots. A year later on E.L.S. (review), Lopez reinvented himself and claimed his own genre, "electric Latin soul".  His most recent release, Paint the Moon Gold, bridges the two sides, picking up on pop influences and toning down the funky club beats, but still holding fast onto Latin textures.

Lopez introduces himself on the opening track, "Purpose and Place". Latin percussion and a restless keyboard vamp provide a background to this autobiographical journey. From Spanish Harlem to his father's record collection, he recounts his influences, casting them as signposts that led him to his calling as a musician. The personal perspective he takes here is a good example of how Lopez approaches most of his songs. Although the arrangements are fully developed, he remains true to his singer/songwriter roots by dressing up his personal experiences with just the right touch of evocative metaphor. "Steal Your Love" is typical, elevating a romantic obsession into a bodice ripping conquest. A flute winds its way through the insistent rhythm, adding an air of exotic tension. The instrumentation is solid but he could easily carry the tune with nothing more than a solo guitar if necessary.

Like People Are Just People, this album is full of retro sounds, this time reaching more for 1970s pop than classic soul. This gives the project a familiar feel, especially on easy flowing tunes like "Just a Man" or "Don't You Change your Heart". That's not a bad thing, but it can become easy to take the music a bit for granted and not get as deeply engaged. Almost as though he recognizes this, "Your Soul Is In Danger" breaks the pattern and refreshes the listening experience. Except for occasionally intoning the title through a veil of reverb, the song is an instrumental, but the mood is unique for Paint the Moon Gold. The shaker beat and weird echoes push the tune into the strange and even when a more focused jazzy groove starts up, the sinister aura smiles in from the edges. It's possible to treat the piece as a bit of camp - his own laughter on the track indicates that he gets the joke - but I could also hear it as a tip of the hat to Dr. John's "I Walk on Gilded Splinters", using horns instead of the choral backing vocals. In any case, the change-up pulls you out of complacency.

Paint the Moon Gold rises from this dark interlude and closes out with a tight, upbeat run of songs: from the soulful sway of "Midnight Love" through the danceable electro-funk of "Come Along Now" to the chill soul-revue of "Hey Papa". Lopez has put together a solid collection that will click for a range of audiences. It blends pop, soul, and funk, all spiced by a generous serving of Latin rhythms. While it doesn't push as many boundaries as his last album, I think that Lopez is finding his most natural voice.

Recording review: Red Wanting Blue, Little America (2014)

No wolves in Little America

Have you heard the story of the boy who sang “wolf?” Red Wanting Blue infuses every inch of Little America with an overblown sense of import and meaning, but the album fails to deliver on its promise, turning out to be little more than a tempest in a thimble. Perhaps if the lyrics were a bit more poetic or oblique, the songs might be able to support that kind of responsibility. But they’re buried under the fervor of Scott Terry’s vocals, which attack each tune with enthusiasm, stealing the show almost every time. Terry is a decent singer, but he has no idea how to give a nuanced performance.

The album starts with ”Hallelujah”, whose fade-in intro becomes a stirring march. Terry launches himself at his lines like the Proclaimers covering Neil Diamond’s “America”. But the opening words don’t give him much to work with: “We’re lost, I’m sure of it/ But I know the sun will rise again/ So, we will rise with it and try again/ To make our way home.” The band does seem lost. From that beginning, this song could go in two different directions; they could either tap into a personal story line, or they could make a broader statement. Instead, they split the difference, juxtaposing specific memories with vague metaphors. The justification for the title, “… listening to Jeff Buckley croon/ The Leonard Cohen tune,” falls in the former category and various roads and signs fill out the latter. Against my will, I feel my posture straighten and my chin rise, responding to the relentless snare and string accompaniment. But after the bombast of the song fades, it’s hard not to feel cheated.

“Dumb Love” redeems the album somewhat with a poppy bit of college radio rock. The members of Red Wanting Blue are competent musicians, and the production has polished them to glossy perfection, leaving Terry’s voice to provide the personality. He has the same gentle drone as Michael Stipe, but he’s spent a lot of time studying more extroverted singers like Bono, Bruce Springsteen, and Brad Roberts (Crash Test Dummies), cherry picking from their most intense moments. None of those guys are bad influences, but they all know how to tell a story, and each has a good sense of dynamic drama that Terry could use.

Occasionally, the group finds a topic worthy of the weight. “Black Canyon” takes on life’s path and the promise of an afterlife. The idea is a good one even if casting Heaven as Black Canyon is less than obvious. But they still have trouble finding a solid message, instead settling for overworked metaphors and trite clichés. It doesn’t help that they’re short on lyrics; with two sparse verses and a single line bridge, they let the chorus do all the heavy lifting. Unfortunately, that makes weak lines like, “Happiness is a balloon/ So, we steer it proudly for the blind side,” stand out that much more. Despite the less than stellar writing, the tune is an earworm that won’t let you go.

Red Wanting Blue reaches their nadir with the country pop fluff of “Drawing Board”. It’s a goofy little ditty, but they lay it on thick, wondering whether to tackle love again, then tossing out the lyrical gem, “Heroes require damsels in distress/ A kiss requires lips, no more no less/ Love requires worlds to be shaken/ Success requires that I must bring home the bacon.” It’s like a perfect storm of WTF. Is Terry saying that love is a job? Is he trying to summon up some ambition? Has he ever had a soul kiss? Honestly, I have no idea. All I know is that neither the sweet female harmonies nor tight exchange of acoustic and electric guitar riffs can salvage this one. For an even stranger moment, check out their video for "You Are My Las Vegas", which features Red Wanting Blue's mothers performing in drag as the band.

Pop music has never required lyrical depth, and I’m sure the band has plenty of fans that love their anthemic delivery. Coupled with the silky production and session-quality musicianship, their hand-wringing theatricality is geared toward audiences that appreciate the music on “American Idol” or “The Voice”. Red Wanting Blue has a clear path to commercial success with Little America, but I’m still waiting for the wolf.

(A version of this review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review: Bassnectar, Noise vs. Beauty (2014)

Trippy, danceable, and catchy as hell

Go ahead, judge Bassnectar’s latest release by its cover. Bits of analog are scattered into the digital interstices, the repetitive patterns turn out to be somewhat irregular and it’s not clear what the overarching meaning is, although one is implied. Noise vs. Beauty delivers on all of that as it juxtaposes both titular elements in a fairly satisfying proportion. Longtime fans will find plenty of the throb, grind, and intensity they’d expect, but Bassnectar continues to color outside the traditional electronic lines, which makes him accessible to other audiences.

He indulges his predilection for crossing the organic with synthetic sounds right from the start. The opening track, “F.U.N.”, is a collaboration with Seth Drake, remixing one of Drake’s original symphonies. It launches with a lightly reverbed piano motif that is quickly woven into a pretty tapestry, with synth string layers and delicately echoed tones. This intro creates a sense of plans unfolding, but then gives way to a mix of dark, orchestral strings and shriller violins that portend an approaching threat. Bassnectar takes that tension and seamlessly transitions into an electronic buildup. Swirling mechanical vibrations and dubstep belches of bass drift in and out of the mix, but a quiet interlude reveals the piano and string skeleton that seemingly still underpins the piece. After another anxious slab of head-twisting pressure, the thoughtful finish virtually suggests that despite the Sturm und Drang, everything will play out as intended. Another nice feature of this track is that it’s purely instrumental. While most of Noise vs. Beauty reflects the personalities of the guest vocalists, “F.U.N.” and a small handful of instrumental tracks let the music and production speak for itself. Aside from the opening cut, “Ephemeral” is another intriguing instrumental, offering crystalline mazes of introspective distraction.

Although those voiceless islands provide fine moments of clarity, the guest singers do make some strong contributions. In particular, W. Darling adds the perfect pop polish on the lead single, “You & Me”. The song leads off with a U2 guitar riff that captures the Edge’s trademark chorused echo, but instead of Bono’s strident tone, W. Darling’s breathy sweetness is refreshing. Early on, the tune sounds like a Missing Persons reissue, but it slides into EDM with a tight rhythm and pulsating synth arpeggios. The chorus is an infectious affirmation that makes this song the earworm track of the album. Bassnectar does a good job of matching production to the guest. In sharp contrast to the easy flow of “You & Me”, “Noise” chops and mutates Donnis’ low key, casual rap delivery into a confrontational assertion, “I do what I want to do/ I do what I like.” His untreated voice is a touch defiant, but the pitch-shifted, cough syrup-infused sections darken the mood into sociopathic menace. When the noisy clash of saw blade whine and bass scrape eventually take over, it just feels like an inevitable explosion, like Chekhov’s gun.

Aside from “You & Me”, “Mystery Song” is most likely to catch on with a wider audience. The mix takes a solid synth-wave tune worthy of Siouxsie and the Banshees and gives it a wicked, electronic serrated edge. Samantha Barbera from BEGINNERS effortlessly flips from detached moodiness on the verses to wilder acting out for the chorus. The lockstep beat and sawtooth bass update the sound, but stay in service to the song’s innate new wave pop. Bassnectar throws in some odd ideas that ultimately work out very well, especially the mid-song drop that pushes everything deep underwater before letting it bob back up to the surface. As a result, Noise vs. Beauty is trippy, danceable, and catchy as hell.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)