SXSW 2009 Review: Dosh at the Mohawk

It’s not really fair to mention Andrew Bird when talking about Martin Dosh, because the Minneapolis-based musician’s eclectic brand of jazzy experimentalism has merit with or without its ties to the increasingly popular Bird.

But at the same time, the parallels between the two collaborators are undeniable. They both rely heavily on looping instrumentation, distill hard-to-grasp experimental sounds into hook-laden arrangements and seem to have a keener understanding of the fundamentals of music than many in the scene today. And with all of that, it seems they have both found a winning formula.

The nappy-haired, scraggly-faced Dosh took the indoor stage of the Mohawk on Wednesday night and showed the audience the possibilities of electronic improvisation. He would cue synth samples, then turn to the drumset to bang out a few syncopated rhythms before setting them on a loop. He’d then manipulate the sounds and push them back over themselves before turning back to the drumset. The explosive power of this looping and layering was none more apparent than in the frantic sprint of “If You Want To, You Have To.”

Though Dosh ably breezed through the first few songs on his own, his backing band was a welcome addition later in the set. Saxophone solos added a jazzy, naturalistic counterpoint to the electronic rush, which Dosh then distorted and looped back into the mix. In addition, electric guitar lines added a subtle but rich texture to the music.

Maybe you know him by name, or maybe you just know him as the backing tracks in another musician’s songs, but either way, Dosh is worth your time.

Originally published in the Austin American-Statesman’s Austin360 19 March 2009.

SXSW 2009 Review: DD/MM/YYYY at Emo’s

When the guys in Toronto’s DD/MM/YYYY (Day Month Year) sing, there’s no way of knowing what they’re saying. But whether they’re blaring through your headphones or banging on their instruments onstage, you probably don’t care. It’s fast. It’s frantic. It’s steady, tight and hard-driving, yet still as wild as a spastic strobe light.

When this experimental audio assault — a technical post-hardcore onslaught devoid of nearly any trace of melody — hit the crowd at Emo’s on Wednesday night, some audience members were frozen in place. But many others couldn’t resist the urge to dance and groove to the unpredictable, off-kilter rhythms, especially during the bouncy guitar riffs of “Imagine,” which sounded like an instrumental performance of “Blitzkrieg Bop” on speed.

The experimental five piece’s setup onstage centered around the drums, which had an extra snare and splash cymbal affixed to the front of it. The band was constantly swapping instruments, but one member would always pound away behind the set while another whacked out complementary rhythms out front and shouted into a microphone attached to various effects pedals.

Throughout the performance, the cuts from the band’s latest album, “Black Square,” officially released just this Tuesday, were obvious standouts. The slow-building blast of the melodic “No Life” was distinctly different from angular rockers like “Bronzage” and “Digital Haircut,” but they hit equally hard.

As the set progressed, it became clear that DD/MM/YYYY didn’t just sound ferocious — they were really ripping through their songs. Drumsticks splintered, snare heads busted, guitar strings snapped and effects pedals came unplugged.

“Everything’s broken,” one member said from the side of the stage.

But the delivery always sounded controlled, and it kept the crowd entranced through the 40-minute set.

Originally published in the Austin American-Statesman’s Austin360 19 March 2009.

SXSW 2009 Review: Anathallo at the Mohawk

The dreamy indie pop of Chicago’s Anathallo plays like a spacier, synth-driven Sufjan Stevens, and if you listen to the soaring melodies and twinkling orchestral instrumental work on their albums, you’ll probably expect something timid but charming from their live performance.

But Anathallo’s Wednesday night showcase on the indoor stage of the Mohawk was nothing short of explosive. The seven-piece would begin one song softly shaking handheld bells, and by the middle bass drums were booming over complex vocal arrangements, all of which stopped and started with well-planned precision to let floating piano progressions swell.

The band’s sharply executed performance was no accident. The tightly packed crowd before the stage waited anxiously for Anathallo to set up well past the time their showcase was scheduled to begin, but the band made sure they were ready before diving into their set, assuring the sound techs in the back of the room that they’d cut a song to make up for the lost time.

This extra attention to detail paid off. Old songs like “A Great Wind, More Ash” began with blasting drumbeats that slipped into a stumbling romp, while the bobbing vocal filler of “Italo” from last year’s “Floating Canopy” swam swiftly over brass instrumentation coupled with distorted guitars.

The only downside? The snippets of discernible lyrics you get from Anathallo songs hint at intriguing storylines — the band explained before “Lost Ring Finger” that the song is about Neil Armstrong and an unfortunate accident with a grain truck — but you can never quite follow them because the vocal delivery is so fast and densely layered. But the band’s aural ambience alone is worth getting lost in.

Originally published in the Austin-American Statesman’s Austin360 19 March 2009.

SXSW 2009 Scene Report: Mellow Owl at Club 1808

Club 1808 on E. 12th Street may not be in the heart of the South by Southwest action, or even an official venue of the festival, but it’s hosting plenty of talented independent acts for free through Saturday.

Among Wednesday’s acts, which spanned everything from the brass-accompanied piano pop of Pterodactyl to the electronica-infused noise rock of Rad Racket, was Mellow Owl, the experimental folk outfit more widely known as Peter and the Wolf.

Though the songs of Mellow Owl’s frontman Red Hunter are typically stripped-down acoustic numbers on his albums, you never know what you’re going to get live. Hunter played the African kalimba for “Strange Machines,” while he pounded out “Black Saltwater” and a new tune on a keyboard backed by programmed hip-hop beats.

Touring bandmate Remy L.B.O., who manned the drum machine and bass guitar, said he and Hunter wrote and arranged the new songs during Hunter’s time in Los Angeles so they would have enough material to tour behind on their way to South by Southwest.

Mellow Owl doesn’t have any official SXSW showcases lined up, but they’ll be playing at Creekside Lounge on Friday, OK Mountain Art Gallery on Saturday afternoon and again at Club 1808 on Saturday night.

Other performances at Club 1808 over the next couple of days include DD/MM/YYYY and Maps and Atlases.

Originally published in the Austin American-Statesman’s Austin360 18 March 2009.

Concert Review: Andrew Bird at Paramount Theatre

Andrew Bird may have looked lonely standing by himself before the Parmount’s sold-out crowd on Thursday night, but he certainly didn’t sound it.

Armed with nothing more than a violin and an electric guitar, the pencil-thin songwriter took the stage dressed in a sleek navy blazer and brown slacks and proceeded to pluck, strum and draw his bow across his violin to produce sounds that ranged from mournfully sinister to yearningly optimistic.

But Bird rarely let one instrumental part stand on its own for long. Backed by four speakers shaped like giant phonograph horns, he looped countless violin lines over vocal filler, claps and, of course, his impossibly powerful whistles. In effect, what looked like a solo act sounded more like a dynamic, textured, one-man orchestra.

For the first 20 minutes of the nearly two-hour performance, Bird didn’t play a single song from his albums. Instead, he constructed soaring classical compositions that, surprisingly, were some of the most gratifying moments of the set.

“Sorry, I had to indulge myself,” he said as he kicked off his Italian boots. “I played Carnegie Hall the other week, and I think this sounds just as good.”

The album cuts were just as captivating. The plucked violin loops that backed “Plasticities” were so rhythmically powerful they nearly made up for the absence of a drum set. And Bird’s spastic movements and guitar stabs during “A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left” brought to life the disjointed theme of the song.

Bird left the stage after a few more album cuts and a couple of covers, but was called back twice for an encore. For the final song, he set aside the loop pedals and relied on nothing but his violin and the haunting melodies of “Weather Systems,” showing that no matter how he chooses to play his songs, Bird knows how to make them resonate.

Originally published on the Austin American-Statesman’s Austin360.

Concert Review: Don Caballero at Red 7

Whether it was the result of poor venue planning, overly ambitious supporting acts or arrogance from the headliners themselves, instrumental rockers Don Caballero played a set less than an hour long Sunday night at Red 7, likely leaving some fans feeling shortchanged.

Preceding Pittsburgh’s progressive math masters was DD/MM/YYYY, a hard-hitting five-piece from Toronto that ripped through abrasive guitar riffs and screeching keyboard lines backed by two drummers who banged out syncopated rhythms in off-kilter time signatures.

But by the time the 40-minute performance was done, it was already 12:40 a.m., and Don Caballero had yet to lug their gear onstage. Slowly, the band members rolled out a light orange carpet for drummer Damon Che’s set and readied a video camera to record the performance.

When the headliners eventually started playing a little after 1 a.m., the crowd was ecstatic. Che didn’t exhibit much movement as he pounded out his rapid-fire rhythms, but they often sounded like the work of more than one player.

Guitarist Gene Doyle’s performance was almost as mind-boggling, as his fingers danced over complex riffs that were then looped back through his effects pedals. It wasn’t quite as entrancing as original guitarist Ian Williams’ signature two-hand tapping, but it showed that this latest incarnation of Don Caballero holds its own.

One of the highlights of the show was the performance of “Palm Trees in the Fecking Bahamas,” a simpler, more melodic tune from 2006’s “World Class Listening Problem.” Unfortunately, the moment was short-lived, as the band had to leave the stage a little before 2 a.m. without enough time for even a short encore.

Originally published on the Austin American-Statesman’s Austin360.

Concert Review: Peter and the Wolf at Rancho Relaxo

In both sight and sound, Peter and the Wolf’s Red Hunter is the epitome of a seasoned traveler. The young songwriter, with his full beard and shoulder length hair, played a short but surprisingly energetic set on Thursday night in the garage of the Rancho Relaxo for the house venue’s final show.

Though the album versions of Hunter’s poetic folk songs are typically stripped down and lo-fi, the addition of a bass player and drummer took the live performance to a new level. Hunter almost never stood still, constantly jumping up and down while singing songs about adventures on tropical islands and trips by sailboat.

Further adding to the exotic feel of the set was Hunter’s use of the kalimba. He pounded out alternate renditions of songs spanning many of his albums with the tiny African thumb piano, including lesser-knowns “Strange Machines” and “A Race Around the Earth.”

But all the songs — from “The Ballad of Red Hook,” a tribute to a forgotten New York Town, to “City Birds,” an ode to a homeless fisherman — conveyed a sense of fluid movement and longing.

As the show came to a close, Hunter passed around a bowl in hopes of gathering $32 in donations to finance his trip to the West Coast the following morning. Yes, $32. “That’s really all you need to get across the country these days,” he said.

Originally published on the Austin American-Statesman’s Austin360.

Concert Review: Owen

After two and a half years, his fourth full-length and a slew of international dates, Chicago’s Mike Kinsella of Owen returned to Austin to play Thursday at Emo’s, much to the excitement of a group of dedicated fans.

As Kinsella took the stage after fellow indie-icon Caithlin De Marrais, formerly of Rainer Maria, the crowd began clamoring before the stage in hopes of seeing some of Kinsella’s intricate acoustic riffs in action.

And even though live the songs were stripped of the many instrumental layers that make his albums so engaging, Kinsella’s unconventional tunings and complex guitar lines made the music sound full. “Bad News” created the illusion of two guitars, while during “Playing Possum for a Peek” the rapid classical fingerpicking brought the crowd to a hush.

“How do you do that?” one listener called out during the latter.

Between songs, Kinsella was laid back and conversational. He talked to the crowd about everything from the recent election to their drinks of choice for the night. During songs, he seemed enthused by the audience’s response. He belted out an energetic rendition of “Nobody’s Nothing,” and sang just above a whisper to the tongue-in-cheek “Good Deeds.”

He even had some listeners singing along to “Good Friends, Bad Habits,” despite telling them beforehand that they probably wouldn’t be familiar with the hard to find track.

Near the end of the show, Marrais and openers El Mays joined Kinsella onstage for a playful blues-rock version of Huey Lewis’s “If This Is It” to close out the night.

Originally published on the Austin American-Statesman’s Austin360.

Concert Review: Ghostland Observatory at Stubb’s

To kick off the weekend, Austin’s Ghostland Observatory played one of two consecutive sold-out shows at Stubb’s on Friday, blasting their spastic electro pop down Red River. (Ghostland will play Jan. 30 at the newly renovated Bass Hall, it was announced recently.)

Winds whipped and temperatures were dropping as the performance began, and many audience members were wearing only T-shirts and jeans.

But once frontman Aaron Behrens and multi-instrumentalist Thomas Turner took the stage, no one seemed to care. Behrens began prancing back and forth, pounding his fist in the air while shrieking his high-pitched melodies, and the packed space before the stage became a sea of grooving bodies and waving arms.

Adding to the frantic mood of the night was a carefully synced light show. Flashing strobes and twirling lasers swelled, stuttered and twirled through the stage smoke to the pounding beats.

As Behrens and Turner broke into the chorus of “Sad Sad City” halfway through the set, someone in the middle of the crowd tossed hundreds of multi-colored glowsticks into the air, and the audience was soon adding to the light display. After a few songs, however, security confiscated the fluorescent toys.

Turner traded his spot at the synthesizers for one at the drums for a few songs, while Behrens picked up a guitar, but by the set’s end they were back to electronics. They thanked the crowd for supporting them, then played an encore of early fan favorites “Silver City” and “Rich Man.”

Originally published on the Austin American-Statesman’s Austin360.

Concert Review: Mountain Goats at Antone’s

The nasally sneer of the California-based Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle doesn’t appeal to everyone. In fact, to many, it’s downright annoying.

But just a couple songs into the band’s set on Saturday at Antone’s, it was clear that despite his off-putting vocal inflection, Darnielle delivers his expertly crafted words with more passion and precision than most of his folk-rocking peers.

During each song, the singer was animated, strutting around the stage in staccatoed movements with his acoustic guitar, but always returning to the microphone in time to belt his vibrant verse in perfect pitch. His backing band, made up of nothing more than a bass guitar and drums, pounded out energetic rhythms that gave the simple, lyric-driven songs a surprisingly dynamic sound for a three-piece.

The sold-out crowd was with the band completely. They cheered ecstatically as the hard-driving numbers reached their climaxes, and when Darnielle sang subdued songs like “So Desperate” in a voice that barely reached above a whisper, they were so silent that you could hear the whoosh of passing traffic just outside the venue’s doors.

This undivided attention did not go unnoticed. After playing “Dinu Lipatti’s Bones,” Darnielle explained the song’s despondent origins and thanked the crowd for singing along. From that point on, he delivered similar monologues between songs with words almost as eloquent as the lyrics of the songs themselves.

Opener Kaki King joined the Mountain Goats onstage near the end of the set to perform songs she and Darnielle wrote for their recently released “Black Pear Tree” and “Satanic Messiah” EPs, before the Goats burst into an uptempo encore of “This Year.”

Originally published on the Austin American-Statesman’s Austin360 3 November 2008.