We Barbarians + Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Ballantine Field, 9/15/2012

There were fireworks during this show. Which was sweet.

We Barbarians

Serenading’s a time-honored Vassar tradition wherein freshmen sing made-up songs to seniors and then get things thrown at them. It’s like consensual hazing. After everyone gets cleaned up, a couple of indie bands perform at the “Serenading Concert” and everyone gets their groove on. All in all, it’s a good day.

But even at bigger shows like this one, Vassar audiences are never punctual. I arrived a few minutes before 8:00, only to find a small group of people hanging around the merch table and a couple of others dispersed around the field. The crowd began fully materializing around 8:10, when We Barbarians took to their instruments to start off the night.

The Brooklyn trio brought a very fierce brand of indie rock to the stage, playing anthemic tune after anthemic tune with gritted teeth. The guitars were crunchy, the vocals were shouted, and the beats were heavily percussive. I was most impressed by bassist Derek Vanheule, as he was laying down some complicated-yet-pretty bass lines while occasionally throwing himself into guitarist David Quon. The set was a whole lot of fun, and these guys were bursting with an infectious energy that the crowd loved, but I ultimately wasn’t impressed by the music itself. Indie rock is infamous for its bottomless echo chamber of bands that sound similar, and I could unfortunately name a handful that these guys instantly reminded me of. It was a good way to kick off the concert, but I’m not going to be actively looking for their music.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra

After the fireworks, Unknown Mortal Orchestra came on. They started the set with an intense, bass-heavy drone that gave way to a bass-heavy jam. Something didn’t feel right, though; the bass was way, way, way too high in the mix and the guitar was practically inaudible. I predicted a couple of posts ago that some bros in the audience would assume UMO to be a dubstep act, and lo and behold, their first few songs dropped the bass. Har har. This problem plagued standout tracks like “Thought Ballune” and “Bicycle,” but it evened out as the set went on.

I thought that the rest of their set, consisting mostly of material from last year’s self-titled debut, was solid. There were periods in which they extended their psych-pop jams out, leading to some intense guitar solos and a persistent energy that felt like it would never die out. About halfway through, they broke into my personal favorite, “Nerve Damage.” It’s the most punk track out of their canon, so it naturally set the highly-responsive crowd into a frenzy. And then of course, there was “Ffunny Ffrends,” which these poor guys must be so exhausted of playing by now. But nevertheless, they got the audience clapping along and played through their biggest single with a whole lot of enthusiasm.

The group did seem genuinely happy to be joining us that evening. Frontman Ruban Nielson only had a few words to say in-between songs, but they spoke volumes. At one point, he said something to the effect of “I like it here. It’s beautiful, and you are all beautiful.” Near the end of the set, he added, “fireworks… Vassar College… UMO… y’know what I mean?” As drunken as these statements seemed, they echoed the celebratory mood of the evening and the good vibes that were churning out of the speakers.

It was a fun night.

Oneohtrix Point Never, FDF Quad – 9/14/12

When I recently took 2.5 hours out of my night to listen through Oneohtrix Point Never’s compilation Rifts, I lost track of time completely. Synth drone after synth drone washed over me until it was just my dorm room, the music, and myself. It was an immersive and claustrophobic experience that I’ve felt with few other albums. While the open environment of the quad and the relatively high attendance provided less-than-perfect conditions for this sort of escapism, OPN still put on a mesmerizing show last night at Vassar.

I arrived on the scene just as his set was starting, the gulping and gasping loop of “Nassau” providing a quasi-rhythm and provoking some of the audience to try and dance along. While patches of people were spread out all over the grass, some casually listening and others chatting, there was a faction near the front where everyone was intent on getting the full experience, and that’s where I positioned myself.

Lopatin combined his analog synth drones with the plunderphonic pulses from his latest record, and the two styles transitioned into each other seamlessly, only occasionally breaking stride for applause. Contrary to what I was expecting from this concert, the ambience was often immense and suffocating, at some points causing the speakers to briefly give out.

It was hard to tell how much of this massive sound was planned and how much was improvised, as most of his loops were inflected with random and often harsh frequencies. For instance, when “Sleep Dealer” first fell into the mix, it sounded almost identical to the version on Replica. But over time, the track became so warped and drowned in a wall of sound that it developed into an entirely different beast from the album version. The set turned out to be a mixture of familiar hiccuping loops and entirely unfamiliar drones, a combination that successfully tripped me out.

While the drones were beautiful and immersive, I wasn’t impressed by the visuals at first — the projection took up a small square on the side of the Drama and Film Center, and many of the lights were still on in the building. The setup seemed like an afterthought at first, but as the show progressed, my attention became affixed solely on the images. Melting, yellow globs of slime were superimposed on computer-generated geometric shapes, bits from the “Replica” video were chopped and screwed, banners in Russian went up the screen on a loop. It all added up to a hypnotic mess of reappropriated clips.

Manning the controls was a completely stone-faced Lopatin, who only broke eye contact with his computer to acknowledge the crowd’s applause. He only shook his head slightly when the music was playing, as though he sensed a rhythm beneath the seemingly arhythmic drones. Although his stage presence wasn’t particularly interesting, the sensory overload from his set distracted from his lack of energy.

So yeah. Barring some minor sound problems and a slightly disinterested crowd, I thought that this show was a spectacular way to start off the concert season at Vassar. Even if it was more low-key than some were bargaining for.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra Announce New Album, OPN 2NITE

Yesterday, Unknown Mortal Orchestra announced that they have a new album waiting in the wings. They’re coming to Vassar tomorrow, so this is pretty exciting shit – especially because it doesn’t seem like they’ve been premiering many new songs live (if a quick YouTube and Google search can prove anything). So what does this mean for tomorrow’s show down at Ballantine Field?

My predictions are as follows:

1) they’re testing out mostly new material tomorrow, but “Ffunny Friends” will inevitably make an appearance.
2) as it’s only been a year since their last album, their new material’s going to sound just like their old material — three cheers for continuity.
3) thinking that UMO is a dubstep group with some mad edgy initials, there will be no fewer than five bros at tomorrow’s show wondering where the dropz are at.

—
In other news, Oneohtrix Point Never w/ PEPEPIANO + Alex Iadarola – tonight at the FDF Quad(rangle) at 7. There will (probably) be fancy pictures taken at both shows, so get stoked for seizure-inducing pictures of OPN’s visual set.

OPN. UMO.

So many 3-letter abbreviations to keep straight.

That is all

About: Oneohtrix Point Never

My god. We’re being treated to an awesome weekend of concerts at Vassar. I already made a quick cursory post about the Unknown Mortal Orchestra concert coming up on Saturday, and now No-ViCE has just announced a show for the day prior. Oneohtrix Point Never is bringing his visually colorful/aurally ambient show to the quad outside of the Drama and Film Center. Opening for OPN is the psych-pop outfit PEPEPIANO and what seems to be a field recording/sound collage set from Alexander Iadarola, future grad of the class of ’14. Mr. Iadarola’s description includes this beautifully cryptic sentence: “The source material for the work largely consists of products of controlled experiments, as well as field recordings capturing utterly unique and irreplicable intersections of time.” WE’LL SEE WHAT THAT’S ALL ABOUT. I GUESS.

Oneohtrix Point Never released one of my favorite electronic albums last year, so it suffices to say that I’m pretty stoked to bliss out for his set. While I’ve only heard Replica, his sixth to drop in the last five years, I’ve been meaning to go backwards in his discography and see what else he has, and this concert will probably (finally) trigger me to do so. OPN (real name: Daniel Lopatin) makes experimental electronic music based on loops and sound collages that get frequently tagged as “drone” and “ambient.” While these genres usually aren’t my bag, the drone passages on Replica are interspersed with glitchy rhythmic passages that propel the album along. I keep coming back to the album due to this variation of style; there’s always some sort of new sound that I pick up on each time I listen.

This all said: pretty excited for this weekend. Love Oneohtrix Point Never. Like Unknown Mortal Orchestra. I should be in for two very different concert experiences on two consecutive days, which makes me the happiest dude alive.

REPORTS 2 C0ME

About: Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s coming to Vassar’s campus on Saturday, September 15th, to play with a group by the name of We Barbarians. UMO fuses hip-hop beats to 60s lo-fi psychedelia — a perfect storm for catchy indie rock that recalls acts such as of Montreal and Cults. Back in 2010, the band posted their first song to a Bandcamp page, and weren’t expecting much to come of it. Despite having a completely anonymous identity and no other music under their belt, “Ffunny Ffrends” was responsible for catapulting UMO to the top of the indie buzzsphere within a few days of its release. Two years later, the members have since revealed their identities as a New Zealander and two Americans, released a short album, and toured their heads off.

Stay tuned for the live report!

Introduction

I suppose that the best jumping off point for this thing would be to explain who I am and what I plan to accomplish here. So let’s get all that shit out of the way first:

My name’s Jay and I’m a sophomore at Vassar College. Don’t know what I’m doing with my life entirely, but a day will come for that. In the meantime, I’m busy immersing myself in the world of independent music — I’m an occasional contributor for the up-and-coming music website Beats Per Minute, music director for WVKR, and a person who really (read: really) enjoys going to concerts.

I suppose that I like concertgoing as much as I do because music is a very communal experience from my perspective; while I love studio recordings as much as the next guy, there’s something incredible about the togetherness in either spacing out or thrashing about while an act puts on an amazing live performance. And I feel like these moments go criminally undocumented in the discourse surrounding independent music. You can always go back to an album, but you can never completely relive a concert.

So why not write all about it afterwards, whether it was good, bad, or even just alright?

That’s what I’ll be doing here.

In the days leading up to each concert, I’ll be posting tracks and a few words about the acts. After I see the concert, I’ll post a review. If I get the ball rolling enough on this project, I’ll take pictures and maybe even do some interviews. For now, I’m starting off small.

Let’s see how this works out.

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Note: the name of this blog comes from where I’ll be seeing most of these performances, the bar-turned-DIY-venue on my school’s campus that many simply refer to as “The Mug.”