archenemy blog

Last night, almost a year after the last time I made it out to absorb some local culture, CK, JMD & I (no TJICisphereans expressed interest) wandered over to PA’s Lounge for the first “Uppercase Sound” event (since people actually attended, apparently there will be an Uppercase Sound #2). On the bill were Rise|Set|Twilight, Asher, & The Fun Years. Pardon my lack of review-writing skillz - this is mostly an excuse to post some photos.

Rise|Set|Twilight did a sort of sound collage thing that wasn’t melodic enough for me, but it was interesting. Listenable, and somewhat enjoyable, but not so much that I’d seek them out. At least, based on the one piece they played. The guy playing the mac reminded me of NZC a little.

Asher had this sort of layer of quietly crackling static going, like when an album has played out and the needle’s still on it, and snippets of barely audible conversations and operatic singing would rise up out of it and fall back in. Very quiet, very cool. I bought a CDR (haven’t listened to it yet), which I hope is as good as his performance.

During the show I was happy to see that we weren’t the oldest folks in the room - there was a guy who was five to ten years older than me, and a couple who were probably in their fifties. After a while it dawned on me that they were probably someone’s parents, whom I could imagine saying “Son, we support what you’re doing, even though we don’t quite understand it”. Just before Asher’s set, a bunch of people came in, including two young women with sleeping babies strapped to them. The emcee mentioned Asher was recently relocated to Somerville from Brooklyn (I think) and apparently his whole family had dropped in for the show. It was pretty cute - wish I’d snapped a picture, but it would’ve felt intrusive.

The Fun Years was more my thing. This bit from a Rare Frequency review:

[...] The Fun Years create a long, oneiric mix of melodic, crackle ‘n’ hum ‘n’ buzz-filled drones that flow leisurely one into the other. [...] The Fun Years are not about stylistic sea changes or harsh musical juxtaposition, preferring to explore the pleasures of slow evolution, repetition, and decay.

pretty much captures what I like about their music. I bought a new CDR from ‘em - the crippling paranoia of flourenscent quinine. It’s great.

By the time TFY was up, I had been screwing around with my camera enough to be able to take some photos with deliberate effect (earlier ones were just lucky):

I also took some pics wandering around Union Square in the rain after the show, which I’ll post seperately.