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The
iridescent lighting rig is in motion with the music. Some
of the lights are stagnant but flashing, while others are motorized
and reactionary. Within the sequenced and synthesized realm
of electronic jam music, lighting can be the difference between
dancing and watching.
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Brothers Past can capture
an audience anywhere, and the Bowery Ballroom
on Friday, November 25 was no exception.
This is the type of electronic band that could bewilder a
daytime audience at an outdoor music festival. Yeah,
the lighting helped, but their up-tempo jams are nearly flawless,
and their songs inspire a lyrical curiosity and intrigue.
My body was in motion the whole time, except for a few intense
musical moments where I just stood absorbing… and perhaps
swaying slightly. These particular moments were scattered
as keen vocal melodies, peaking jams, and softer precise transitions.
Tom Hamilton
(singer/guitarist) frequently uses a computer on stage to
sequence different beats behind many of the songs. At
a singular moment he dropped a beat for Rick Lowenburg (analog
and electric drums), who lost the rhythm for a second before
falling in sync. The two of them laughed, and the rest
of the show was played to near perfection. Clay Parnell
(bass/vocals) has a good sense of how to fill out empty musical
space while still driving the rhythm, and Tom McKee (keys/organ/synth/vocals)
is often adding digitized sounds and melodies that can have
you raving or thinking back to 8-bit Nintendo video games.
When Brothers Past
first made it to my ears, they made an impression with their
recent album, This Feeling’s Called Goodbye
(SCI Fidelity Records). It demanded my attention with
McKee’s synthesizer, tossing eclectic noise into the
mix of swift, tight songs. The album varies its mood
from song to song, but always seems to be fresh with new melodic
ideas or new synthesized sounds to follow. A song like
“Celebrity” sounds icy and dark, and starts with
the lyrics “We are your Gods/We are your beautiful people/Stare
all you like/Just don’t look me in the eye.”
It moves to a very pretty piano rhythm (possibly sequenced)
with faint echoes of feedback in the distance. |
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The vocals are airy
and melodically unique, though at moments indiscernible.
The color of Tom Hamilton’s voice is something vaguely
reminiscent of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. However,
it is usually easier to understand Hamilton’s lyrics,
which tend to be very cerebral. “Simple Gift
of Man” is one song that exemplifies the lyrical
depth of Brothers Past. Hamilton sings, “Tune
in and step right up/It’s a spectacle of man/A spectacle
of man, man/How long can one juggle with a gun/How long
can one juggle with a loaded gun/Before he gets a bullet
in the face/Before he gets a bullet in the face.”
There’s a plethora of metaphors and imagery to think
on, but the lyrics must be read for full aesthetic value.
They are beautiful, original, and seemingly dark.
The somber feel is fitting.
Brothers Past melds
the best elements of dance, jam, rock, indie, and digital
music. By using computers on stage, they add a malleable
and unpredictable element to their music. They produce
a wide range of sounds both on their album and live in
concert.
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This adds tremendously to their
appeal.They played a lot from their album, and their
charisma and stage presence brings their album to
life. I must say, I’m very excited for
the future of Brothers Past, which could be New Years
at the Bowery Ballroom. You should think about
it too.
Let’s move on.
The up-and-coming trio Pnuma brought
a crowd deep underground to the Knitting Factory’s
Old Office. Pnuma’s electronic tunes
can really get you moving, but a fog machine and nice
lighting setup can take it to the next level.
Pnuma is a young band from Memphis who had full reign
of the Old Office on Thursday, December 1st.
Pnuma is a trio consisting of Ben Hazelgrove (keyboards),
Alex Botwin (bass guitar), and Lane Shaw (drums).
Their music is high voltage and lots of fun for dancing,
particularly with the fog and four motorized lights…
they had more lights but that’s all they could
fit on the tiny stage.
This band’s style is as
techno as it is video game. When the night gets
drunker, the atmosphere seems to give off the rave
vibe like it’s 6am, and you’ve been clubbing
all night. Though mostly original, they did
a Funky Town Remix to close the show.
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While
both Hazelgrove and Botwin hold down the hummable melodies
and rhythms with surprising ease, Shaw is amazing to watch
on his drum set. He doesn’t use triggers, yet
still masters the dance-techno beat. He’s really
tight with the orchestrated and improvised breaks, rests,
and crescendos. Pnuma is not a very dynamic band,
but their style of music frequently begs them to drop down
to one instrument in jams such as to create musical peaks
and valleys. It usually works in their favor with
the atmosphere they create through carefully controlled
lighting. |
My biggest criticism is of their set
arrangement: For such high octane music, the pauses between
songs were too spacious, and I wanted breaks in between songs
to be smaller or nonexistent. There are no vocals in
this band, so playing a shorter song can seem awkward in a
set, especially right after a really long jam. Sometimes
you want to dance more than you want to applaud or scream.
Nevertheless, by the end of their set, I was dancing like
no one was watching. This is the type of band you see
if you just want to bounce around the dance floor.
Pnuma is similar to Particle on some level. They have
their own sound completely, but both are instrumental and
both tend to be keyboard heavy in the jams. Particle
is an instrumental quartet based around Steve Molitz, whose
keyboard playing has made this band quite a spectacle.
The band also recently teamed up with Grateful Dead drummer
Mickey Hart for a new project called Hydra. |
| Particle,
now a veteran jam act, has a penchant for keeping their audience
moving, and good lighting is a quintessential element of their
shows. Now, after five years and about seven hundred
shows, Particle’s guitarist Charlie Hitchcock will no
longer be playing in the band. Their website says, “We
found ourselves moving in different directions musically and
we felt it was necessary for everyone involved to make this
change.” What’s next for Particle and Hitchcock?
The future’s unsure. |
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I’d seen Particle three times: once at Irving
Plaza (two years ago), once at Bonnaroo2005
(late afternoon set w/ Fresh Oil Gospel Choir), and
once on a late night Rocks Off Concert Cruise
around Manhattan. The day time set at Bonnaroo
surely lost a bit of its edge without the effects
of good lighting like they had at Irving Plaza.
Particle is danceable and jammy, though I find it
more difficult to appreciate their music without the
eye candy to help. On the concert cruise, they
did not have a lighting rig, but the atmosphere on
a boat was enough to keep the energy (and the people)
very high.
Interestingly enough, my criticism for this band
had to do with their former guitarist. I felt
his rhythm to be lacking a little something recently,
and this is a criticism I did not have the first time
I saw them a few years back. The band was melodically
centered on Molitz, while Hitchcock would occasionally
step on his toes. So perhaps this band change
is for the best.
I feel compelled to compare the keyboardists from
Pnuma and Particle because their styles of music really
do overlap in many ways. All the keyboard heavy
jams blend together on first listen. However,
I find that Molitz of Particle really knows how to
guide a jam dynamically and melodically. Hazelgrove
is less dynamic, but has some serious chops, and he’s
younger. In fact, I’d go as far as to
say Pnuma has the potential for greatness with Hazelgrove’s
talent on the keyboards and synthesizer (not to mention
their nasty rhythm section). Pnuma needs to
extend their energized jams to connect, and their
improvisation must explore completely new realms.
I have some faith in them, because they put on a great
show.
The electronic and synthesized based jam bands are
really starting to flourish. The vibe is good,
the music is always upbeat, and people are always
dancing. It’s live dance music, and it’s
brilliant. So check out these bands, and get
your freak on!
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