NEWS: Notes From The Underground

MUSIC: Notes From The Underground

Something is afoot in the dank D.I.Y. venues of New York. It seems like almost overnight, the stupid-happy, rainbow-colored, Sesame Street-themed, keyboard party punk thing is dying down and being replaced by its exact opposite. This new experimental stuff is tough to categorize, but much of it incorporates some kind of metal influence, either in sound or spirit. Metal at its best, as you know, is neither stupid, nor simple, nor happy, but dark, evil, and really tough to play. For this reason, it lacks the ironic delivery that's upped the obnoxious factor of many Brooklyn musicians; who in their right mind is going to practice their finger work ten hours a day to play music they consider a joke? Not this guy.



As Hunter from Liturgy points out in his blog, metal thrives on contradictions. Black metal has its roots in ancient pagan myth, but looks forward to the ultimate dismantling of society. Avant-garde metal adds an extra layer of modernism (or is it postmodernism?) with its indexical experiments in form; this music has essentially zero one-to-one correspondence with the world, but exists as self-reflexive thought: music about music about music. This hall of mirrors can be fucking scary to enter, but also rewarding, so crawl down the hole of my subjective memory and maybe you'll find something to love.



Thursday 6/12 @ Death by Audio



Liturgy







This one-man band is the solo project of Hunter Hunt-Hendrix of The Birthday Boyz. (Full disclosure: Hunter is my friend. Try not to confuse us for one another). You can read the theories behind the music in his philosophy blog, but basically, a liturgy can be any manner of ritualized public prayer, and Hunt-Hendrix takes that theme and runs with it. The songs are constructed from looped sounds that, taken separately, are simple enough, but quickly build into something dense enough to make your head spin. The music has range; he's trying out a new idea in each song. In one piece, he systematically piles one guitar line on top of another until the density reaches critical mass to tip a flood of barely-human screams from his vocal chords. Another juxtaposes time signatures against each other with mathematical precision. I tried to discern the underlying numbers, but after a while realized I was probably counting wrong anyway and just let it wash over me; the tension between these two ways of listening are issues that crop up often. In another song, Hunt-Hendrix puts the guitar away and bravely uses only his voice to create layers of chants that weave together until they're a deafening swarm, reminding me of the postmodern vocal tapestries of György Ligeti.



Liturgy is one of a small group of exciting metal deconstruction projects that have been doing all kinds of cool things lately, and it's a shame Ben Ratliff of The New York Times couldn't get to the last big show in time to include him in this feature and prevent some chick on a porn site from scooping him on the next transcendental black metal sensation.



Extra Life







This is great music for anyone who, like me, will always be a goth at heart, but whose tastes have broadened somewhat since she last laid on the floor of her parents' house crying to NIN (shut up). They draw from all over the musical map to create songs that fluctuate in a weird, clever way. A single song can sound simultaneously like an Elizabethan madrigal with its lilting vocals, free jazz with its syncopated crashes, and death rock with its relentless beat and ominous violin. The songs go from creepily quiet to frighteningly loud in a way reminiscent of Xiu Xiu, except vocalist Charlie Looker has more versatility and sweetness to his voice than Jamie Stewart, especially when obsessively repeating lines like "I can only sing one thing, one thing/every dream is the same dream, same dream." Each song creates an open-ended narrative for Looker's voice to wander through, traversing a bipolar spectrum of moods ranging from happy-ish, to pissed off, to stone-cold dispassionate, to utterly insane. Sometimes he sounds a bit like Maynard James Keenan, in a good way.



Little Women







This is some serious avant-garde shit. I wasn't sure I'd be into their "noise-jazz" but as soon as I heard them at a house show a couple weeks ago, I was hooked. Not because they're catchy, but because I needed to take some time with the music if I was going to try to wrap my feeble brain around it. This band combines instruments that don't normally go together, namely two blasting saxophones (Darius Jones and Travis Laplante), Jason Nazary's erratic drumming, and Ben Greenberg's sweet custom guitar, which spits out complicated melody lines with the distinctness and harsh timbre of speed metal. I saw folks attempting to nod along, but the most fitting movement you could probably do to it is that little kid spazz-dance where you move every body part haphazardly as if engaged in a seizure. Unfortunately, nobody did this.



All the reviews I've read of this group refer to them as "terrifying," "horrifically complex", "throttling" and many other synonyms for "unpleasant." I think what these folks are reacting to, more than the sheer force of noise, is the music's unfamiliarity. Like many modern composers, they've broken away from the practice of following the human body's natural rhythms and scales to create a visceral, almost uncanny discomfort in the listener that's different from the feelings inspired by equally raucous but simpler modes, like punk and hardcore. I'm reminded of a study Dr. Susan Wagner did on the effects of music on dogs, which found jazz and complex classical music created more disturbance in the animals than a simple, harmony-less, major piece in 4/4. The same thing is going on here, except we have worse hearing than dogs and are less likely to leak pee when distressed. To attempt to follow each note and be-bop/no wave sax bleat causes serious sensory overload.



Fortunately for Little Women, the human world is populated with a small number of weirdos who enjoy this experience. The fear is made manifest when their set ends with both saxophonists down on the ground conjuring otherworldly roars from their instruments that sound alternately like dying dinosaurs, sexually enraged monsters, and the unseen rumbling terror from Mark Danielewski's terrifying novel, House of Leaves. The first time I saw them, they turned out all the lights for this part, and I almost shat my onesie. Don't bring your kids.



Bloody Panda







The most straightforward metal act of the night. After all the craziness preceding them it was nice to get a little break from active listening, but I was exhausted by this point, and their normal time signatures, pounding drums and drony, stretched out riffs made me lean sleepily against the wall. They get extra points for spooky executioner costumes, a powerful female vocalist, and a name that describes them perfectly, preparing fans to experience the devil's music sung by an adorably insane Asian female. I'd like to see them again when I'm feeling more awake.



Friday 6/13 @ Death by Audio:



Best Fwends



This band stuck out like a sore thumb (ok, technically it was only half the band that night, but whatever). From the cutesy name to the electronic tracks with lyrics like "What're you doing in my car?/What're you doing in my car?" the whole thing made me feel like I'd eaten one too many Vegan Treats donuts. The kids were all jumping moistly up and down like they were at a Dan Deacon show, but it was way too hot for me to waste any of my precious fluids doing that. I still respect some folks in the genre, like Deacon, for their facility with sampled sound and getting crowds happy, but when something becomes a trend, most of its hangers-on inevitably suck, and this was made even more apparent when juxtaposed with Pterodactyl's epic greatness. I think I'd like Best Fwends better at outdoor venue McCarren Pool; the shows there are more about hanging out than listening to music, and if I get hot and bored, there's a water slide(!)



Pterodactyl





Photo by Nate Dorr



I should mention that this show was a zombie party in honor of Friday the 13th, and that's why everyone looked so scary. Pterodactyl seems to sound different each time I hear them, and Calamity agrees with me, so I must be right. Much like an actual pterodactyl, their tunes this time were heavy, carnivorous, and awesome. Some guy was running around squirting everyone with a water gun to cool them off, which was nice until I caught a blast straight to the face. Semi-blind from tears and melted makeup, I swayed back and forth and tried to fine-tune my listening in the absence of distracting visuals. The high pitched vocals and occasional harmonies make for more accessible noise rock, and by the end of the set everyone was thrashing around regardless of how sweaty and gross they already were (it was approximately one million degrees in there).





Photo by Nate Dorr



Saturday 6/14 @ Monkeytown:



Ocrilim



This dude's set took one aspect of metal, the almighty solo, and stretched it into a twenty minute finger workout. As impressed as I was with his endurance, virtuosity, and ability to remember so very many notes, I can't say I exactly enjoyed it. Luckily, Monkeytown is oddly comfortable for a place that throws shows like this, and I sank further into the couch as I enjoyed the AC, sipped a cool beverage, and munched some veggie paté on a baguette. Does this mean I'm getting old and bourgeois? Whatever, man. Someday, when I am frail and wealthy, I'll be extra glad there's at least one place where I can hear interesting music without endangering my physical happiness. And the paté was delicious, so fuck you. Added bonus: you can sit on the toilet seats!



Zs







I know most of these bands are hard to describe, but this one takes the cake. At present, it's a three-piece consisting of Sam Hillmer, Ian Antonio, and Ben Greenberg (the same Ben from Little Women). Out of all the bands I saw this past weekend, I think Zs is the most likely to end up in the curriculum of a Western music class; though they're a part of the Brooklyn rock scene, they have more in common with modernist composers like John Cage and Phillip Glass. Shifting time signatures, invented scales, and long, oddly structured pieces give them an academic feel, but I don't want to imply that they're at all stuffy. These are still dirty Brooklyn kids after all, and they attacked their composition with an energy not usually found in the halls of academia. Howard Stern just spent a week hating on them after somehow getting his dirty hands on their last album, so I expect that they're about to get a lot more famous. I think Robin secretly liked them, and I will not be surprised if she follows through on her joking promise to use Zs for the intro to her news segments.



So there you have it: all types of weird shit to blow your fucking mind. Move over, Matt and Kim. It's nothing personal. Your paper-thin party songs might beat cold, lifeless indie rock, but there's a little guy named scissors headed your way, and we all know what he's made of.

liturgy screamo? heavens no.

perhaps I was a mite harsh on Best Fwends...that genre just wasn't jiving with my mood that night.

Thanks! I'm not too metal either, but these guys appeal to the academic music nerd in me.

thanks!

I didn't say they were metal, I said many of them were influenced by metal. A band can be influenced by metal and free jazz at the same time.

You don't have to agree with me that Extra Life are way fucking good, but calling them oddballs is not a very effective attack, especially considering they're surprisingly normal looking!

that made me laugh a bit

i support this cause at least someone here talks about metalheads.
anyway that's not my only reason, this woman knows how to write. loved it.