http://www.villageunderground.co.uk/eve ... eet-congos
I've not heard the album as yet but a friend is a big fan of it. Could be a good London gig.
Sun Araw/Congos
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Re: Sun Araw/Congos
I have that. It sounds roughly like you'd think it would but with more Sun Araw than Congos so big dub spaces and effects with some Jamaican vocals on occasion. Late at night totally-out-of-it stuff. There is also a fun DVD with it which has lots of footage of the guys bimbling around Jamaica smoking huge bongs and chilling out.
Typical that the only gig in sight is in London. It takes a lot to get me to that wretched place - which I detest more with every visit - and sadly this bill isn't enough.
Typical that the only gig in sight is in London. It takes a lot to get me to that wretched place - which I detest more with every visit - and sadly this bill isn't enough.
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Hofstadter
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Re: Sun Araw/Congos
I'm doing sound at a show tonight at Home Room (small art gallery/performance space here in Silverlake) that Sun Araw is playing at. It's pretty much all music from people associated with dublab. Will report back right here.
Last edited by Hofstadter on Mon Jul 16, 2012 9:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Hofstadter
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Sun Araw, Golden Hits, Jean-Paul Jenkins, Alessandro Cortini
It was a pretty rad night, featuring all sorts of... electronic minimalism/ambient music? I'm not good at classifying music.
First was Jean-Paul Jenkins - just him, a guitar, and a few (but really not that many) pedals. Pretty cool study in delays and looping as he just sat in a chair with all the lights off except for one he placed nears his feet, shining up at him. Two pieces, one about 15 minutes, the other 10.
Golden Hits - they had so much stuff going on they had their own mixer filled that then went into ours, and then stuff on ours as well! They are all doods from dublab, Frosty (Adventure Time, runs dublab), Jimmy Tamborello (Postal Service, DNTEL), Ben Knight (The Tyde), Katie Byron, and Mitchell Brown (LAFMS, Fancy Space People) - they just did one epic piece, maybe 30 minutes or so, bleepy-bloopy for lack of a better word. Extremely layered and full of depth as each synthesizer bled into the other, creating their own little sonic landscape. They were all sitting and crouching on the floor, enveloped in what they were doing. I believe it was loosely improv-d, I didn't ask though, because I don't really know how that could have been coordinated/replicated - it seemed more as if one person would layer something and then pass the lead on to the next.
Alessandro Cortini - He was just using a Buchla Music Easel (Don Buchla's son, Ezra Buchla, of the Mae Shi, has actually performed at Home Room a bunch), and whoa was that thing awesome!!! Sequencers, sliders, touch plate keyboard, all that awesome jazz in this orange and blue-ish briefcase thing. He was showing it to me, and we were both geekin' out, him in his vast knowledge of electronic instrumentation, and me in my minimal knowledge. He improv'd the whole 25 min or so for an incredibly airy, light piece. Reminded me a little bit of A Rainbow in Curved Air. Even when there were lower, rumbling pitches they served almost as a little base to stand on. He was a quiet, almost shy, nice guy, I really liked him a lot.
Sun Araw - it was just him (Cameron sometimes plays with a band), and he was doing everything through his amps so I could just sit back and relax and enjoy it. He had his keyboard, a guitar, about 15 pedals (okay maybe not that many), and one other thing which looked pretty cool, wish I had asked him about it when he was showing it to Frosty after the show. It was a pretty intense, beautiful show, balancing just at the edge of sonic chaos and perfect harmony. It was amazing the way each piece was crafted, rising out of arrhythmic loops that were layered on top of each other until all of a sudden boom! it all made perfect sense. It wasn't that the mind was just turning the noise into music because it wanted to (sort of the way your mind syncs up Dark Side of the Moon with the Wizard of Oz even though there's really nothing there) - this was stuff that actually worked together, that fit in really complex ways, and it just takes some complicated pattern recognition to hear it! My favorite was probably the second piece, which took on the feeling of a... dark trip? not a bad one, just a dark, brooding trip exploring some inner depth of the body/soul, if ya wanna go all mystical on it. He was also a super friendly, personable nice guy.
All around a nice night. Sorry for any grammar/spelling/clarity stuff, I typed this all at like 3 last night and fell asleep at the computer. Just woke up.
First was Jean-Paul Jenkins - just him, a guitar, and a few (but really not that many) pedals. Pretty cool study in delays and looping as he just sat in a chair with all the lights off except for one he placed nears his feet, shining up at him. Two pieces, one about 15 minutes, the other 10.
Golden Hits - they had so much stuff going on they had their own mixer filled that then went into ours, and then stuff on ours as well! They are all doods from dublab, Frosty (Adventure Time, runs dublab), Jimmy Tamborello (Postal Service, DNTEL), Ben Knight (The Tyde), Katie Byron, and Mitchell Brown (LAFMS, Fancy Space People) - they just did one epic piece, maybe 30 minutes or so, bleepy-bloopy for lack of a better word. Extremely layered and full of depth as each synthesizer bled into the other, creating their own little sonic landscape. They were all sitting and crouching on the floor, enveloped in what they were doing. I believe it was loosely improv-d, I didn't ask though, because I don't really know how that could have been coordinated/replicated - it seemed more as if one person would layer something and then pass the lead on to the next.
Alessandro Cortini - He was just using a Buchla Music Easel (Don Buchla's son, Ezra Buchla, of the Mae Shi, has actually performed at Home Room a bunch), and whoa was that thing awesome!!! Sequencers, sliders, touch plate keyboard, all that awesome jazz in this orange and blue-ish briefcase thing. He was showing it to me, and we were both geekin' out, him in his vast knowledge of electronic instrumentation, and me in my minimal knowledge. He improv'd the whole 25 min or so for an incredibly airy, light piece. Reminded me a little bit of A Rainbow in Curved Air. Even when there were lower, rumbling pitches they served almost as a little base to stand on. He was a quiet, almost shy, nice guy, I really liked him a lot.
Sun Araw - it was just him (Cameron sometimes plays with a band), and he was doing everything through his amps so I could just sit back and relax and enjoy it. He had his keyboard, a guitar, about 15 pedals (okay maybe not that many), and one other thing which looked pretty cool, wish I had asked him about it when he was showing it to Frosty after the show. It was a pretty intense, beautiful show, balancing just at the edge of sonic chaos and perfect harmony. It was amazing the way each piece was crafted, rising out of arrhythmic loops that were layered on top of each other until all of a sudden boom! it all made perfect sense. It wasn't that the mind was just turning the noise into music because it wanted to (sort of the way your mind syncs up Dark Side of the Moon with the Wizard of Oz even though there's really nothing there) - this was stuff that actually worked together, that fit in really complex ways, and it just takes some complicated pattern recognition to hear it! My favorite was probably the second piece, which took on the feeling of a... dark trip? not a bad one, just a dark, brooding trip exploring some inner depth of the body/soul, if ya wanna go all mystical on it. He was also a super friendly, personable nice guy.
All around a nice night. Sorry for any grammar/spelling/clarity stuff, I typed this all at like 3 last night and fell asleep at the computer. Just woke up.
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Hofstadter
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- Joined: Sun Mar 18, 2012 7:46 am
Sun Araw Band (IX?), Janka Nabay
Friday night I saw Sun Araw play for the third time in about a month - this time with a band - along with a Sierra Leonian refugee playing with some guys who just found him in New York or something. Just by chance I bumped into Cameron (Sun Araw) on the street on Thursday and got to talk to him for a while, which was cool going into the show on Friday. It might have been the best, most fun night/show I have had in quite a while.
It was at this warehouse/loft-ish thing in Artists' District/Warehouse District (I think that's what the area is called... right next to Little Tokyo - I extremely rarely venture this far downtown). DJ sets from various dublab people. Got there at around 10:30, had a slight worry because it looked like there was a bouncer and this was a fairly unofficial show, so I was afraid it might be 21+, but I got in no problem. People were dancing a little bit already, so that was a good sign.
Sun Araw Band (as Cameron calls it when he performs with more people) didn't even go on until 11:30 or so, and they were the first performers of the night, but... man, they blew my mind. It was absolutely fantastic. Spacey, but warm and rich summer... just jams I guess. The songs were at least a bit more traditionally structured (and way less dark - also much more guitar work) than when he played at Home Room. Still incredibly heavily based on repetition and looping - coming in at the middle of the song once everything has been layered on would give an incredibly different experience than listening from the beginning and hearing it all build up. Vocals were perfect - used very sparingly but to a super powerful affect. His guitar work was just so... textural? Really all of the performance I guess. There was just so much going on in each song that you could really just get absolutely lost in them. It was phenomenal... I know I keep saying that, I'm just not sure how to put it into words. It was a bit lighter than Ancient Romans and not as dub-y as Icon Give Thank (for obvious reasons) - just more fun I guess (still love those two albums. I don't know, easily into one of my top performances.
Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang - they were just a total blast. I had zero expectations going in as I knew nothing about them, but they were so energetic and exciting. Funky, but fast and dance-able - everybody was getting down to it. Between coming off the awesome set from Cameron and his guys, the slight buzz I still had at this point, and the fact that it was past 1 by the time he went on and everybody was still dancing and having good times, it would be pretty hard for a sort of afro-latin styled group not to be fun, but it was really something special. He had a great stage presence, funny little jokes, and this great crazed energy that would kick in as soon as he started singing. Haven't given their stuff a listen yet outside of what I heard on Friday, not sure how I would enjoy it outside of the environment I heard it in, don't intend to go listen and change my perception of it.
It was just an all around awesome, late night that had both a psychedelic mind-bender of a performance and an all out dance party. Didn't get home until around 3... parents were a tad mad, but hey, it was so worth it.
It was at this warehouse/loft-ish thing in Artists' District/Warehouse District (I think that's what the area is called... right next to Little Tokyo - I extremely rarely venture this far downtown). DJ sets from various dublab people. Got there at around 10:30, had a slight worry because it looked like there was a bouncer and this was a fairly unofficial show, so I was afraid it might be 21+, but I got in no problem. People were dancing a little bit already, so that was a good sign.
Sun Araw Band (as Cameron calls it when he performs with more people) didn't even go on until 11:30 or so, and they were the first performers of the night, but... man, they blew my mind. It was absolutely fantastic. Spacey, but warm and rich summer... just jams I guess. The songs were at least a bit more traditionally structured (and way less dark - also much more guitar work) than when he played at Home Room. Still incredibly heavily based on repetition and looping - coming in at the middle of the song once everything has been layered on would give an incredibly different experience than listening from the beginning and hearing it all build up. Vocals were perfect - used very sparingly but to a super powerful affect. His guitar work was just so... textural? Really all of the performance I guess. There was just so much going on in each song that you could really just get absolutely lost in them. It was phenomenal... I know I keep saying that, I'm just not sure how to put it into words. It was a bit lighter than Ancient Romans and not as dub-y as Icon Give Thank (for obvious reasons) - just more fun I guess (still love those two albums. I don't know, easily into one of my top performances.
Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang - they were just a total blast. I had zero expectations going in as I knew nothing about them, but they were so energetic and exciting. Funky, but fast and dance-able - everybody was getting down to it. Between coming off the awesome set from Cameron and his guys, the slight buzz I still had at this point, and the fact that it was past 1 by the time he went on and everybody was still dancing and having good times, it would be pretty hard for a sort of afro-latin styled group not to be fun, but it was really something special. He had a great stage presence, funny little jokes, and this great crazed energy that would kick in as soon as he started singing. Haven't given their stuff a listen yet outside of what I heard on Friday, not sure how I would enjoy it outside of the environment I heard it in, don't intend to go listen and change my perception of it.
It was just an all around awesome, late night that had both a psychedelic mind-bender of a performance and an all out dance party. Didn't get home until around 3... parents were a tad mad, but hey, it was so worth it.
Re: Sun Araw/Congos
As long as you weren't blatently drunk and/or high when you got home, I'm sure your parents will get over it. I really need to see Sun Araw live. Sounds like a great show. Thanks for the detailed write-up.