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It is the first week of Tristan Da Cunha's Thursdays-in-July residency at PA's Lounge. My favorite band has gathered a smorgasbord of excellent bands to play with them and planned a whole month of non-overlapping sets, and I could scarcely be more excited. Paper Thin Stages get the honor of starting the whole thing off. A three-piece, they work well here in PA's Lounge: everyone is occupying a fairly distinct part of the spectrum, so I can pretty much hear everything despite a less-than-stellar sound system. The vocals are pretty much lost, but, as I've said before, their vocals aren't really my favorite thing about this band. My favorite thing about this band, at least tonight, is the amazing interplay between the guitar and the bass. They intertwine their lines and switch off lead and rhythm almost like two really good guitarists would, but add the guitar incisiveness playing off bass richness for an extra level of complicated goodness. Also noticeably great tonight is the drummer's dynamic subtlety; his volume and intensity are exquisitely controlled and always appropriate.
Spheres, in sharp contrast, seem to do everything at 11. They have one song that's just what one might normally call "fast," and they point out that it's probably the slowest song they've ever written. The rest of it is blazing. The last time I saw them I thought I was hearing some weird rhythmic errors, but I begin to suspect that that was just incredibly frequent rhythm changes flying by too fast for my brain to catch them. Certainly they seem perfectly together, even when it sounds like it can't possibly be right. The guitar is a crunchy/noisy squall that will occasionally break into pealing cascades of dissonant beauty. The guitarist and bassist both scream, but only the guitarist's ultra-high-pitched shriek cuts through the wall of noise. This is powerful, demanding stuff.
Oh, and speaking of powerful, demanding stuff.... Yes, it's time for Tristan Da Cunha. I've reviewed this band dozens of times. Do I really have to tell you about the insanely complicated, turn-on-a-dime rhythms; the jagged, virtuosic guitar lines; the bizarrely catchy tunes; their endearingly weird manner onstage, whether they're playing to one person or a hundred; or the mind-blowing moment near the end of the set where guitarist and drummer switch instruments and prove equally inhumanly adept on those? Be assured that all are present in spades. Tonight's shortish set seems to be largely newer material. The standout song for me tonight is "Black Sky Above, Black Sea Below." This one is really growing on me, for the way its haunting slow parts and wildly danceable fast, hard section (with the killer bass line) fit together. And Steve (the drummer-turned-guitarist) is a crazed noise monster at the end, rolling around onstage, playing thrusting feedback solos, and scraping the guitar against pretty much everything that doesn't move out of his way quickly enough.
Shore Leave are the only four-piece on tonight's bill. (And at that, they're now a five-piece, but the new bassist is not here tonight.) So they deal with the small stage and challenging mixing issues by setting up in four different parts of the room. (None of them are on the stage.) The audience members (of which, I sadly note, there are not very many) are then free to wander among the musicians, observing their activities up close and generating their own mixes by proximity on the fly. I take Tom's cue and put a chair on stage, for the symmetry of it. This also gives me a great view of Nick's drum kit, so that I can see the magically complicated patterns that he traffics in. I'm closest to Mike's amp, so his guitar dominates my personal mix, but I can still hear the way the two guitars and keyboards twine together. Shore Leave's songs are complexly pretty. Of course, as soon as I write that I realize that there are shouty bits to keep it from getting too pretty, but pretty is still very much the impression that I get from their stuff. This impression is solidified by their set-closer, "Relapses Into Happiness," which has a big, warm, gorgeous ending that always leaves me whistling and joyful.
