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It's a pretty decent crowd for Lady of Spain, and for 9:15 on a Monday it's amazing. They launch right into one of their fiercer (though not faster) numbers, with menacing low vocals rising to an occasional growl or scream. The mix is stellar, permitting us to hear all the vocals pretty clearly and still get lots of rich, dissonant guitar. Tonight, I'm really focused on Anna's guitar leads; she has these really slow, spare, surprising lines that she'll gradually drop over Tim's more driving arpeggios, and they just amaze me. She can tell a story in five notes. There is a great new song at the end, and we're treated to the discovery that Charles has a lovely, clear falsetto that sets off Tim's screaming beautifully.
Plumerai could hardly be more different. A lively frontwoman sings poppy little tunes over a sort of goth lounge combo. Lots of reverb on the guitar, and organ patches for the keyboard. There's some interesting pedal work from the guitarist, although all that reverb really washes out the attack, and a couple of the songs have very interesting bass lines. The drums have sort of a slinky quality: a little wussy, like jazz drumming can be sometimes, but it makes you want to move your hips. I feel that, to properly enjoy this band, I should be holding a cocktail. (Not a "drink," mind you.)
From goth lounge, we move into a bizarre sort of gypsy art-folk. This is the realm of the Turkish Queen, and it gets a bit stuffy in here sometimes. The cellist goes by "Mysteria." (No, she doesn't! I learned later that what she said was "Wysteriax," the name by which she plays out solo. I quite enjoyed her as Wysteriax. I regret the error.) They start out with cello, guitar, and a singer/flautist. The tunes are much more about key and mood than about hooks or, well, tunes. This slow, moody sparseness puts a blazing spotlight on the singing, and her pitch doesn't always lend itself to that kind of close scrutiny. But at her best, she finds her inner jazz singer, albeit in a Rom folk-y sort of way. The lineup is fluid, with a drummer joining them after a few songs and Mysteria leaving the stage shortly thereafter. It's all kind of slow and mellow and stylized, and it's really not bad, but I wasn't actually planning to go to Passim tonight.
I'm very glad that Clickers start with a fast one. Immediate spastic shouting, not at all melodic but highly frenetic, and then crunchy guitars and lots of rapidly changing rhythm. The second song actually starts with spacey, atmospheric guitars, with which I'm maybe sated, but then the drums and the bass kick in, hard. This is gripping, confrontational music; it kind of dares you to like it, but every time you think that maybe they're just shouting and banging, there's something to pull at you, whether it's an intricate rhythm, a pretty repeated riff, or a bit of actual singing. (The drummer's in particularly fine voice tonight.) There's a minor bass disaster, but Charles from Lady of Spain steps in with his system and restores the bottom end, and we get a weird little jam while we wait. The room stays fairly full through the end of their set--at midnight on Monday night! Tom likens the evening to an Oreo: dark and crunchy on the outside, soft and saccharine in the middle.
