Fennesz, Burning Star Core, Noveller at The Middle East

Noveller: SWF old age ambient guitar loops, dusty tumbleweeds skipping across baked clay, hazy mirages, droplets in a well, muted sea glass shard kaleidoscope

Burning Star Core: solo rumpled silk violin drone, empty checkered floor kitchen freakout, Zorn farm animal smash, Patton porpoise whirlpool, high speed alien cartoon sputtering nonsense, Jupiter wind, scratchy atonal Burning Disco Core

Fennesz: it was fucking Fennesz, live, shiver inducing LOUD guitar drone perfection, a walking masterpiece, not enough words for that kind of beauty

More/bigger photos on Flickr.


Noveller



Burning Star Core



Fennesz

Lawrence English, Taylor Deupree, Xela at Art@12

Xela: black lazer echos in rusty warehouse, harmonic ghosts haunt drippy caves, tectonic plate shift, mouth of hell opens wide, crumbling apocalypse

Taylor Deupree: yellow leaf drone, gauzy uphill water, muffled papers shuffle, forest heartbeat, distant birds, suspended dust in a sunset lit attic

Lawrence English: eye of the tornado, glass bottles & cellar doors bash your skull, visceral static bliss, squawking puffins, waves crash, fucking loud as fuck

Xela


Taylor Deupree


Lawrence English

Tortoise, Keith Fullerton Whitman & Greg Davis & Ben Vida at The Paradise

The Paradise: newly renovated, wayyy more open & spacious, no more giant pillar in front of the stage, might actually think about going to more shows there

Keith Fullerton Whitman, Greg Davis, & Ben Vida: Arcade Ambiance style fire swamp, Jupiter basement discotheque, trans-warp glitter noise, FTL drive mechanics, dubbed out white hole, stutter static glory, massive junk rumbling sun drone, chaos bliss supreme

Tortoise: aging like Benjamin Button, getting smoother & tighter as time goes on, a band with a variety of different sounding albums that coalesce into a stupefying live experience, house lights be damned we cheered them out for a second encore, see them already, then see them again

Bigger photos on Flickr.

Keith Fullerton Whitman, Greg Davis, & Ben Vida

Weird Stalk, Too at Temple

Weird Stalk, Too. It was weird. Thanks Whitehaus. Here's hoping for Wired Stalk Tree.

More (and bigger) photos on Flickr. Especially Cave Bears because their set was utter insanity.


Forbes Graham


Double Awake


Kid Romance


Cave Bears



Many Mansions


Grey Skull


Ashcan Orchestra


Blevin Blectum


Preggy Peggy & The Lazy Babymakers

Metal Rouge, Sam Hamilton, Jane Austen, Rise Set Twilight at Starlab

Starlab: basement recording studio thing in the midst of Union Square junkyards, small, intimate, sweaty

Rise Set Twilight: husband/wife duo Michael T & Linda Aubry Bullock filling in for Animal Hospital at the last minute, homemade analog synth board + electric harp, underwater wind, ice cracking, mercury tones, FXed harp by way of distorted guitar

Jane Austen: blink and you missed it, elusive pop, quietest set in the history of live music, minimal plinking, electronics glitching, tape tweaking

Sam Hamilton: White Rainbow style beat drone sans third eye, deafening in comparison to previous Jane Austen set, guitar & electronics bloop & bliss, damn near danceable

Metal Rouge: wall of buzzing guitars stacked all the way up to heaven, rhythmic drums penetrated the walls, cultish chant moaning, as grandiose as that tiny room could handle, supreme drone psych euphoria

P.S. 4 out of 7 performers were female which is clearly some sort of record

More (and larger) photos on Flickr.

Rise Set Twilight




Jane Austen


Sam Hamilton



Metal Rouge

Prince Rama, CAVE, The Needy Visions, Jealousy, Lord Jeff, SKIMASK at The Temple

The Temple: New legit venue in JP, actual stage, real lighting, pretty big, sounds decent, easy parking/close-ish to T, booked mostly by Bodies Of Water, definitely a place to keep an eye on for weird shows

SKIMASK: Lightning Bolt trio except replace bass with fucked FXd vocals and add a dude rambling stream of consciousness shit sounding like Magic People

Lord Jeff: sloppy garage pop, low key jangly fun

Jealousy: 1 wacky dude from SF playin noisy looped post punk gaze with a crazy getup and strobe lights, actually pretty awesome

The Needy Visions: way better live than on record, tons of fun old school catchy '60s psych garage jams

CAVE: fucking killer new wave psych drone rock à la Oneida, riffage galore, so so amazing live

Prince Rama: Eastern space psych with crazy drums & electronics overload, vocals from another time, brought out the Indian dancing girl, ancient double 16mm projectors throwing bizarre visuals up on the wall

As always, more photos on Flickr.

SKIMASK


Lord Jeff


Jealousy


The Needy Visions


CAVE



Prince Rama

Sewer Goddess, Xiphoid Dementia, Vomit Arsonist at Fool's Mansion (Salem, MA)

A night of crusty disgusting black industrial harsh doom noise for free, hosted at Fool's Mansion right in my own downtown.

Vomit Arsonist




Xiphoid Dementia




Sewer Goddess

The Besnard Lakes At TT The Bear's

Grandiose dark psyche pop in love with The Beach Boys, The Besnard Lakes always get it right. They played all the good stuff (including "Light Up The Night") and closed with "Disaster."

Poor lighting on everyone except Jace (lead guitarist) and me standing dead center means he's the only one I took any pictures of. At least he was animated.

More photos on Flickr.