Barred from using any concert hall — since Peabody shut up for the summer — a dedicated bunch of students just took over the Library for a night of musical hijinks more enjoyable than they were irreverent.  In case you’ve been missing CAGE (Conservatory Avant-Garde Ensemble), you’ll find your avant-garde fix in SONAR (not to be confused with the B-more venue). Here again, you’ll see the influence of violinist Courtney Orland, who oft turned CAGE into the worthiest offering on Peabody’s calendar. This time, she’s the inspiration, not its star player.

Headed up by artistic director Colin Sorgi (also a violinist), SONAR takes off where CAGE left off without missing a beat. Smart, quirky new music that takes risks and offers rich rewards, with surprisingly little audience effort.

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June 5: DDot Films and Aural States presents the Caverns Video Release Party w/ A Place To Bury Strangers, True Womanhood @ Rock from Greg Szeto on Vimeo.

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MP3: Mastodon – The Last Baron

It would seem that the negative stereotypes of prog are falling to the wayside, as artists from all genres are inching more and more into the no-fly zone of progressive.  The Decemberists jumped into the deep end with their latest, and metal-masters Mastodon further entrench themselves with their most proggish album yet.  On Crack the Skye, Mastodon presents itself as a full-on progressive metal entity, the echoes of early Metallica that resonated strongly on Leviathan are much more subdued.  You should expect as much, looking at the absolutely over-the-top album artwork (I hope the guys are as big fans of Big Trouble In Little China as their Lo Pan-ish imagery suggests).

To a large extent, this move farther towards the progressive was inevitable when considering Mastodon’s catalog and approach.  With a historian’s measure of exactitude and the flourish of a great novelist, they have always crafted epic tales, grander than most in the genre topically, and nearly all technically bombastic without overstaying its welcome.  Leviathan drawing no trivial amount of inspiration from Moby Dick, or the epic fantasy of Blood Mountain.  Crack the Skye edges towards decidedly more sci-fi fare, interdimensional and inter-temporal travel being lynchpins to the pseudo-plot.

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Photo by Bob Myaing

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MP3: Abiku – Novelty

Abiku. Not every sound they make is golden, but they are all enthralling.

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MP3: Radiant Dragon – Oysters

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MP3: Radiant Dragon – Cloud Seeding

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MP3: Girls – Lust for Life

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MP3: Girls – Hellhole Ratrace

Sarah: Uncharacteristically silent until now. Queen of Hoxton gave me the willies. The neighborhood, Shoreditch, was awash with trendiness + suits. Bad vibes were just oozing all over.

Queen of Hoxton ceiling art

A very frat boy/Wall Street vibe. Hostility everywhere. Thousands of disco balls making me seasick as I tried to cross the room.

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Double Dagger
Floristree
Baltimore, MD
May 22, 2009

Band:
Nolen Strals-vocals
Bruce Willen-bass, vocals
Denny Bowen-drums

Source: Peluso CEMC6/ck4(card)>PS-2>AD-20>NJB3
Transfer: NJB3>PC>SF-7>Wav>FLAC
Taper: Jeff Mewbourn (jm292@yahoo.com)

Photo credit: Greg Szeto

Air Waves’ set here

Video Hippos’ set here

Download the full set formatted as: MP3 or FLAC (Available after 11:45PM EST 5/23)

Stream and download individual MP3s after the jump.

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What a great vibe and great show this past Saturday Friday (thanks for noticing that, Jeff) at Floristree.  I walked in to a fully-ramped Videohippos set that had more than motivated the healthy-sized audience with some stellar, dance-ready hooks and decently complementary neon-colored projections.  The most noticeable thing was how few familiar faces I noticed scanning the throbbing throngs and bobbing heads.  The first show that felt like a summer show for me, and there were all kinds of fresh, young faces complete with the energy that accompanies such a blissful clean slate.

Double Dagger furthered their legend, delivering as intense and tight a set as I think I’ve seen from them, at least in recent memory.  The biggest change was probably how happy and refreshed they seemed to be,   It was also one of their most well-paced and constructed sets, opening with the building tumult of “Neon Gray” revving the anticipiation from the crowd like a finely tuned racecar, then ripping through a set list culled almost entirely (and appropriately) from the release in celebration, More.  ”No Allies” is as ferocious as ever, and is easily coming to rival long-time favorite “Luxury Condos for the Poor” for the most vigorous fan reaction.  The juxtaposition of the sublime intro in the follow-up song (“Vivre Sans Temp Mort”) worked, resonating remarkably well as a showcase of new emotions that Double Dagger can effectively pluck live.  More highlights included the obvious encore of “Luxury Condos” and a spectacular performance of More’s addictive lead single “The Lie / The Truth,” complete with high-energy cameo and backup vox from Sam Herring of Future Islands.  Despite a plethora of technical speedbumps, notably the loss of Bruce’s backup vocal mic, the set lost almost no momentum and raged right on til morning.

Check out the live audio here, and Double Dagger photos after the jump (Nolen-heavy given my poor vantage point, no slight intended Bruce & Denny).

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MP3: Abe Vigoda – Don’t Lie from Reviver EP (2009)

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MP3: Cats In Paris – Get Out Of Jail Free Card

Dave again. I’ll handle the account of our trip up to the Midlands since I spent a good many months nestled in Central England a few years ago. First off–our Saturday night support slot in Nottingham:

Wallpaper eating Nathan in Brighton

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MP3: Teeth Mountain – Ghost Science from Teeth Mountain (2007)

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MP3: Dan Deacon – Padding Ghost from Bromst (2009)

All Photos: the inimitable institution, Josh Sisk (full set here)

Dan Deacon is hitting up Sonar on June 13th, I suggest that you seek out tickets.

Editor’s note: Or you could enter to win tickets from Aural States.  Check back in just a few days.

Out in rural Carroll County where I reside, there’s a powerful stigma behind the idea of Baltimore. It brings up connotations of dimly lit streets, frightening murder-prone men behind every corner, and the Inner Harbor existing as an oasis of “real citydom” in the midst of it all. Needless to say, most of my country-bumpkin peers aren’t very familiar with the town. However, if they just so happened to have been at the 9:30 Club this past Sunday night, I’m sure their minds would have completely eliminated that sinister reputation, replacing it with one of ecstatic joy.

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MP3: Wye Oak – For Prayer from Live Set @ Aural States Fest 2009

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MP3: Pomegranates – Corriander from Everybody, Come Outside! (2009)

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MP3: Pomegranates – Beachcomber from Everybody, Come Outside! (2009)

Cakes of Light have a sound that lies somewhere along the desolate backroads of noise folk.  Their music unfurls with a weight and gravitas that feels mostly mesmerizing and entrancing, but at times overbearing and overwrought.  Never quite reaching the level of histrionics, but inching ever dangerously closer and closer to that edge.  Interesting, spacious music, but not a fan of the vocals…so I was a fan of the concept, but not the entire execution.

Pomegranates were positively explosive, their energy building and building until it boils over, the increasingly frantic music wriggling through and possessing each member’s body, emerging as anthemic shouts or abrupt outbursts of physicality (at one point, someone mounted the half-wall stage-right and catapulted themselves from it).  Their growth and elated release is not unlike that of Arcade Fire, down to the urgent vocal stylings that bear no small similarity to Win Butler’s.  The difference here is that you never once wonder if Pomegranates feel and believe every word and note, unlike the Arcade Fire, who are often found on the other side of the too-thespian boundary line (partially due to their big draw now putting them on the big theater stages, but I digress).

The sharp, staccato guitar and bass lines pluck their way finely through each song, as if a brightly-colored thread woven by a fine sewing needle, popping out from the compositions while somehow still stitching everything together.  They facilely switch modes from ambient, dreamweavers creating in broad and expansive textures not out of place in the gaziest of shoegaze, to propulsive and visceral passages that err on the side of angular and technical.  The energy level reached its peak as they closed the set (and their tour with Wye Oak) with the rollicking barnburner “Southern Ocean,” fitted with an immediate hook and a playful, warmly welcoming hoot-and-holler vocal breakdown that opens into the shout-along chorus anchored by the emphatic words “We’re not scared anymore.”  Backed by Jenn Wasner on backup vocals/tambourine, the Poms closed a great set in fantastic fashion.

Wye Oak just keep getting better and better.  Every time I see them, they raise the bar and blow the roof off the venue.  This time was no different.  After touring and recording The Knot, Jenn and Andy are remarkably comfortable in their skin and stage performance.  Gone are the jitters and anxious giddiness of performances past; in their place, they exude a strong self-assurance and a relaxed glee and joy.  They were clearly excited to be home.

Their forthcoming LP The Knot is a powerhouse of emotion and music, building on their debut If Children in all the right ways and places.  Their compositions for the new album show Jenn getting bolder with her guitar work and more dynamic with her vocals, and Andy getting more finessed and diverse with his texturing of all manner of sounds, from percussion to keyboards to drones to harmonium (and violin and pedal steel make notable, rich contributions as well).

The result is truly epic grandeur.

This treatment  gives new life and depth to their live set, yielding refreshing accents of old standards like “Family Glue,” while really soaring on newer tracks like “For Prayer” and “Take It In” that incorporated these elements from their genesis.  Combined with their building stage confidence and much tighter symbiosis, they take you on a truly affecting musical journey, replete with lofty peaks, chasmic valleys and all intermediate variations.

An absolutely crushing, down-tempo rendition of “Warning” closed their set.  Andy took a break from his multi-instrumental orgy to let Jenn start off the track and set the tempo: slow and spare, with only vocals and guitar.  Andy hopped up after a few verses and phased in a soul-shaking variant of the noisy squall found on the recorded version.  The more intense and textured drone was brought to the fore in this rendition, starting as a deep, soft baritone that grew to an immersive mass.  The re-imagined track was their second encore of the night, and it left everyone aching for more.

Wye Oak

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