Visual Coercion
|
I saw Nina Persson and A Camp last night at Le Poisson Rouge. I’ll be writing a real review of the show, but before I do, I’d like to say this: The strength of Nina’s voice has only increased with the passage of years, and she is a genius at mixing a cocktail of wistful songwriting with a splash of joy- though only for color, barkeep. Occasionally a thing comes along that is so blisteringly, powerfully overdriven and flawlessly done that I sit bolt upright and feel like I’m going to shit bolts of lightning when I see it. Yes, this is pop, but it’s also so much more than the human sensory apparatus should be able to take that I’m not apologizing. Capsule. Jumper. A song whose lyrics I haven’t untangled, but which seems to suggest the mighty awesomeness of jumping. Jumping is pretty cool, I guess, but not nearly as cool as this video. This video just recycles all the old techno/trance video tropes around since the ’90s of computer animated 3-D objects flying through space tunnels to synthetic beats, but it does it while updating them with neat new hi-resolution effects niftily tied in with the EQ. Shit some lightning bolts! 
It was Friday the 13th, and I was ready for my long run of bad luck to be up. We trekked, a group of three, down the street to the place where the rock show was to be held, the while passing under scaffolds and crossed by cats. The crowd was intimate, the beer selection in the main organic (because, as good capitalists just having a good time we have to conflate our purchases with loftier causes, we have to feel that our money is doing the work we’re not doing 9 to 5 50+ hours a week), and the rock was well executed. Not having been a longtime fan of either Versus or +/- and never having seen either band live, I can only really speak to my impressions formed that night. I love the most recent +/- record, Xs on Your Eyes, and it stands head and shoulders above anything that band (and Versus) have done before. Therefore, I really wish that +/- had been headlining. Aside from the addition of a bassist who wasn’t playing with Versus and the removal of Versus’ indie-rock proto-chanteuse Fontaine Toups, the same people were on stage during the +/- set as during Versus anyway, and the updated, tight, and syncopated new +/- material would have felt a lot more appropriate in the headlining slot. Versus’ new material just lacked the shimmering movement that their older songs have. They were just a little too simple, boring, and straightforward. So, there you have it. My Friday night in the indie rock time machine at the shiny new Knitting Factory. |
|
|
Copyright © 2010 Coerce You - All Rights Reserved |
||
Recent Comments