Med School:

My Baby, She Really Plays My Song On The Radio:

Specks:

River Bottom Nightmare Band:

During the first true spring rain of the season, an eclectic array of people—hipsters, the art crowd, older classical-music aficionados, season-ticket holders, and everyone in between—crammed themselves into the tiny seats at the Southern Theater, not quite sure what to expect from the Wordless Music Series‘ Minneapolis stopover. While the artists currently showcased in the series do happen to traffic in instrumental music, the “wordless” component of the name probably refers more to the eschewal of genre tags as outlined in the series’ mission statement: “The various boundaries and genre distinctions segregating music today … are in an artificial construction in need of dismantling.”

Perhaps in this spirit of thwarted expectations, the stage at the beginning of the evening looked like an avant-garde musician’s romper room: a smattering of laptops, amplifiers, guitars, keyboards, chamber instruments, and even a desk with paints on it. The first performer, Christopher Willits, used a guitar, samplers, and customized software to create improvised, loop-based compositions that synced up with the photography projected on the screen behind him. His sonic constructions were generally ambient—reminiscent of Kompakt artists like Klimek or Donnacha Costello—though they did have a pulse, especially one syncopated piece whose gamelan-like cadences resembled the eighties output of King Crimson or the Talking Heads. New York cellist Eric Jacobsen was next, accompanied by guitarist Kyle Sanna and visual artist Kevork Mourad, who used the aforementioned paints to sketch impressionistic tableaus that were subsequently projected onto the screen.

In near-literal adherence to the series’ name, the only words uttered onstage by Stars of the Lid’s Adam Wiltzie were “Hello Minnesota. Thank you for coming.” With that, he and partner Brian McBride—accompanied by a violinist, violist, and cellist—launched into their first piece. (Though “launched” really isn’t the best verb to describe the playing of a sustained organ note.)

If any of this generation’s avant-classical musicians deserve to inherit Brian Eno’s mantle and use it to send the Pitchfork set off into a blissful otherworld of drone-based soundscapes, it’s Stars of the Lid. The duo eschews beats and grooves completely, using guitars, samples, and orchestral instruments to generate infinite sonic loops and minutes-long notes and chords. Since forming in Austin fifteen years ago, they’ve cast a haunting millennial sheen over the genre Eno is generally credited with inventing, or at least overhauling, in the 1970s. Consider also their obvious affinity for Arvo Pärt and Henryk Górecki, along with Wordless founder Ronen Givony’s assertion during his introductory remarks that, “had these guys been around in another century, they’d be contemporaries of Schoenberg,” and you begin to get a sense of their expansive pedigree.

Take, for example, the Stars’ final piece, “December Hunting for Vegetarian Fuckface,” whose fifteen minutes were devoted almost entirely to a single sustained chord whose constituent parts were manipulated so that certain notes and frequencies swelled and ebbed, grew loud enough to shake the walls of the Southern before descending into a nearly subsonic growl, and then were gilded by the string players’ carefully placed legato figures. On Stars of the Lid’s recordings, the music is undoubtedly amorphous, and until last night it was difficult for me to conceive how it might be reproduced by a live ensemble. But onstage at the Southern, the musicians bent to their instruments at precise intervals; there was a method to the rapture. Wiltzie and McBride, their guitar tones rendered unrecognizable by effects processors, cued each other and the string players by swooping or lowering the necks of their axes.

Meanwhile, the onstage visuals completed the music’s overall effect of core-shaking, sky-splitting gandeur. Halfway through the gorgeous “Requiem for Dying Mothers,” when Wiltzie began the piece’s chilling four-note closing sequence, abstract galaxies bloomed and flowers supernovaed behind him. At one point, a saturated photo of the Minneapolis skyline even appeared. Meanwhile, the guitar necks and the violinist continued the seemingly impossible task of conducting an ambient music ensemble, somehow finding the beginnings and endings of notes whose attack and decay were nearly imperceptible, lost in the blissed-out sonic wash.

More here.

Also, here’s a video of Tad shotgunning a beer during “Killer Parties”. Please pardon the shitty audio quality.

I walked/jogged without an umbrella through the pouring rain to the bus stop, so by the time I got to the Varsity (aka the Twin Cities’ best concert venue) I was soaking wet. Inside, however, it was cozy, the room configured for an intimate show. It was like being in an enormous living room. As if on cue, Nick Drake’s “Poor Boy” started up on the house system.

I ordered some coffee, grabbed a chair, and added it to the ad hoc seating area right in front of the stage, effectively creating for myself a second-row center seat. The Varsity was looking about as different as it possibly could from the last time I saw a show here. Looking around at the audience members lounging on wicker chairs and ottomans, I came to some conclusions about the sorts of people that comprise Duncan Sheik’s core audience, and I’d like to share my findings with you here in the form of this Venn diagram:

“Poor Boy” was followed by some Josè Gonzalez, then Josh Rouse. Whoever was DJing sure knew Duncan Sheik’s cohort.

The show itself was about as far as possible to the other side of the spectrum from my last show in every possible way (except that they were both excellent, of course). Sheik was accompanied by a drummer and a string quartet, as well as opener Holly Brook on keyboards and backing vocals. His set was largely comprised of material from his latest release, White Limousine, and from Spring Awakening, the Broadway musical he co-wrote with Steven Sater. (I generally hate musicals but I may have to make an exception for this one. This one and Mama Mia.) Sheik’s between-song banter adhered to the Alan Sparhawk Theorem, which states that the more mellow and/or depressing an artist’s music is, the more hilarious his/her stage banter will be.

I don’t think the crowd was going to let him leave the building unharmed if he didn’t play “She Runs Away”, so it’s a good thing he encored with it. That song pretty much single-handedly informed the emotional tenor of my junior year in college (aka my Melancholy Year. It was the only Melancholy Year of my college experience, with the possible exception of my freshman, sophomore, and senior years).

Afterwards I lingered just long enough for Duncan Sheik to come out onto the floor and chat with people. I politely waited my turn, then shook his hand and thanked him, making sure to beat a hasty retreat before I said something retarded, which I generally do whenever I meet someone I admire, especially someone who’s been hugely influential, musically and artistically, for a third of my life.

As I left the building I noticed the house system was now playing Joni Mitchell. Of course.

The sweatband: +50 pts
The polyester track pants: +50 pts
The shirtlessness: +100 pts
The chains: +200 pts
The Juno and the Korg: +200 pts (each)
The Rickenbacker: +500 pts
The RotoToms: +1000 pts
The chains: +100 pts
The drum solo(s!): +500 pts (each)
Sebastian Thomson intentionally misstating the names of openers Zombi and Psychic Paramount as “The Zombies” and “Psychedelic Pyramid”: +100 pts
Not playing “Motr”: -1000 pts
Playing “Futureworld” and FUCKING KILLING IT: +1000000000000 pts