Broadcast @ The Music Hall of Williamsburg, Wednesday 21^st October.

I arrived just as The Selmanaires were rapping their set up. Shame, as they sounded pretty good – thudding, purposeful dance-rock with some interesting harmonies. But it was Broadcast I came to see, a band who have been producing cerebral electronic, in various formations, since 1995.

It’s been a while since I’d heard anything from them. 2005’s Tender Buttons was the last full length they released, an album I listened to avidly, so I was curious to see what they’d been up to. They’re touring again to get some exposure for their latest LP, a collaborative mini-album called ‘Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age’.

I must say, I was apprehensive in coming to this; a friend of mine had been to the show they’d done the previous night, at Le Poisson Rouge, and had commented that a lot of the songs were very “experimental”, a polite way of saying, “unlistenable”. It’s frightfully un-indie of me, but I kind of like songs to contain something that can be at least vaguely discernible as a structure. Had Broadcast – purveyors of delicate, haunting electronica in the mode of Grizzly Bear or Beach House – descended into some kind of Merzbow-esque, blip and glitch, stuttering drum beat drone chaos?

In the changeover between the first and second bands a couple of techies started erecting a huge projection screen. Curious, I think. But Broadcast are a band who like to massage all the senses of the listener, meaning for the entirety of the set the band’s far out sound is accompanied by projections of stark, barren countryside, undulating, kaleidoscopic patterns as well as more bizarre imagery such as specimens of igneous rock and microscope slides of proteins and synapses.

Unfortunately, my fears about the band’s new musical bent were realised: the first 25 minutes of the set seem to merge into one obscure piece of noise; Keenan’s dulcet tones hardly feature while both musicians hunker down over their synths and macs, knocking out irregular drum beats and bass lines so heavy I feel nauseous. But suddenly, like the proverbial ray of sunshine, Broadcast break into a thundering, electronic waltz, and that surreal, dreamlike sound that they produce so well is recognizable again.

The rest of their set follows in this vein, which – for me at least – is a great relief. You can see the crowd immediately start to respond when Cargill and Keenan fire into ‘Corporeal’, from album Tender Buttons, swaying gently to the swirling sound emanating from the stage. Broadcast at their best have an ethereal quality, songs that – with Keenan’s wonderfully haunting, Niko-esque voice – sound like electronic lullabies. Their sound doesn’t seem to derive too far from 60s psychadelia, (one of their songs was featured on an Austin Powers soundtrack) with a touch of Victorian surrealism. The Cheshire Cat should have had Alice sing ‘Black Cat’, also from Tender Buttons, when she stumbled across him whilst venturing through Wonderland.

Overall, a quality set. I leave feeling as if I’ve just woken from a dream, startled to find myself in a music venue in Brooklyn; I look around, bleary eyed and suspicious, and see a man wearing a tabard with a haircut like a Norman conqueror. Another gentleman next to the bar is wearing a silver dress.

Curious indeed…

www.myspace.com/broadcastuk

I actually saw this band a few months ago playing at the Cake Shop in the Lower East. I remember me and a friend making our way down to the basement for the show and being met with a stench of sweat and damp so noxious I almost retched my delicious peanut butter Blondie all over the steps in front of me. I suppressed that reflex, however, so that I can now say that this was the first – and I dare say last – time I’ve ever enjoyed the curious combination of live independent music and baked goods.

When I went to get a beer I was surprised and alarmed when the barmaid offered to sell me earplugs. “Earplugs..?! Pah!” I dismissed her with a wave of the hand. I’m an experienced gigger – eardrums like hessian sacks. Besides, earplugs at a concert..?! Like, soooo un-indie. Anyway, it was a mere three seconds into Cymbals Eat Guitars’ set before I staggered back over to the bar, cake crumbs in my beard, hands clamped over my ears, pulling a face like a dismayed Chinese New Year parade dragon. Maybe it was because of the Cake Shop’s claustrophobic settings, or perhaps even the fragile hungover state I was in (standard Sunday evening fare), but this band were loud…

Why There Are Mountains

So I was curious to see how they would sound on CD. First impressions were contradictory to my initial thoughts; they have songs called ‘…and the Hazy Sea’, ‘Some Trees’ and ‘Cold Spring’, all more evocative of plaintive musings on Nature, and not the anarchic musical cannibalism their name – or my recollection of them – would suggest.

First track ‘…and the Hazy Sea’ confirms such a viewpoint. Over Joseph Ferocious’ yelping you hear a beautiful swirl of electric guitar and a delicate tinkling of the piano. But just as you’re lulled into this gentle ambience, Ferocious flies in with a scream, and the guitar nosedives into a cloud of feedback. This song demonstrates perfectly how Cymbals operate: sometimes structured, sometimes chaotic, quiet moments rudely interrupted by sudden frantic intrusions, allowing for immediate comparisons perhaps with At The Drive-In, but without the dark, pessimistic edge.

It’s not until a series of tracks starting from ‘Cold Spring’ that you really see what the band is musically capable of; in ‘Cold Spring’, Ferocious demonstrates a greater vocal diversity as he sings waveringly over a thoughtful violin and a methodical drum beat from drummer Matthew Miller. A rapid time-change does come in about half way through, but even then the song still retains some structure and uniformity, meaning that by the end of the track you’re not left wondering if somewhere along the line you accidently hit the skip forward button.

But it’s ‘Share’, plum in the middle of the album that is the standout track for me: immense, achingly beautiful, but also structured differently from any of the other songs. It starts gently, the lightly tapped piano eventually coming to a standstill. It’s here you expect Ferocious to careen in with a scream and a slamming of the guitar, but instead you’re met with a sudden, swirling deluge of feedback, straight out of the My Bloody Valentine school of Shoegaze. This intoxicating soundscape continues until a burst of trumpets and a screeching guitar herald a dramatic arrival into God Speed! country. Next song, ‘What Dogs See’, continues in this more experimental vein; the music is toned down and seems more of an undulating backdrop behind Ferocious’ furtive, half-whispered lyrics.

The album finishes much how it started; the penultimate song, ‘Living North’, is a great example of what the band does well – rapid, upbeat and jaunty guitar riffing accompanied by Joseph Ferocious’ quiet, then LOUD! frenzied vocalising. Listening to the album more than once, however, you can really appreciate the exceptional instrumentalism of the band and exactly how layered and textured the songs are. This eclecticism of sound affords them an air of eccentricity, so it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that next month’s tour of the UK will be supporting The Flaming Lips. If there can be one criticism, it is that it’s often hard to make out what it is Ferocious is saying; he seems to have that curious ability to say an awful lot without really saying anything. This really is a minor criticism – perhaps more a consequence of my stony determination to not wear earplugs at gigs – and shouldn’t deter anyone from what is an engaging and captivating listen.

Get hold of the latest album Why There Are Mountains here: http://www.amazon.com/Why-There-Are-Mountains/dp/B001RWY8HG

AND

Head over to their MySpace for tour dates: http://www.myspace.com/cymbalseatguitars

But stepping into the venue (‘pleasantries’ exchanged with the surly doorwoman) I saw that the Republic of Tigers – who were just firing into their set – were in fact a group of 5 indie kids from Kansas City, Missouri, not a despotic south east Asian military junta.

Republic of Tigers play sharp, well rehearsed and sincere indie pop, but such a description on its own would be a bit too dismissive. They have a good repertoire of songs and styles, from electro-dance numbers to the more ethereal, such as ‘Buildings & Mountains’, an achingly beautiful song. They also handle themselves with immense confidence and composure, suggesting that they’re a band who are by no means averse to playing in front of larger audiences – last year’s 12-week UK tour with Scottish indie stalwarts Travis will attest to this.

Yourself and the Air

The more abstractly monikered Yourself and the Air provide an entirely different proposition. They perhaps don’t have the suave assurance of their predecessors; lead singer Erick Crosby seems awkward and self-conscious between songs and at one point feels obliged to apologise for overdoing the ‘thank yous’ at each interlude, quietly slurring: “fuckingyouguysbunchaprimadonnasanshit …right?” sounding like the bloke from the Usual Suspects. Indeed, Erick.

In song though, Crosby’s voice hits a beautiful note of fragility, pleading to us over his adroit guitar work and James David’s uplifting bass lines. The striking thing about this band is how it seems each man has a turn to flaunt their instrument (oo-er!). This does mean that sometimes the songs can seem disjointed, several songs in one, as Crosby instigates a whiplash inducing time-change, or Jeff Pappendorff spirals off on a tangent on keys. This may not be the easiest music to dance to, but – coupled with the varied instrumentation by the group – it makes for an engrossing listen, something that seems to have been duly noted by the swelling numbers of people now standing on the dance floor. The band are currently independent, but with such an array of sound and ideas, shouldn’t struggle to find a label.

Clem Snide

If there’s one thing tonight’s headliners certainly don’t struggle with it’s commanding attention on stage. You certainly won’t find a more rag-tag bunch than Clem Snide; Singer and band founder Eef Barzelay slopes around the stage with gruff indifference and sings with eyes half closed and top lip curled into a snarl; Brendan Fitzpatrick on bass looks like an urbane Eddie Munster; drummer Ben Martin is, well, a bald man with a big beard and a head band.

The music is also far removed from anything on offer tonight. Their sound is described as “true American deadpan” on their MySpace and it seems a fitting description. Clem Snide are a essentially country band; their songs range from bluesy, drunken lullabies, to more modern stop/start alt rock, to the sleazy bar room funk of song ‘Something Beautiful’, all sang in Barzelay’s inimitable doleful drawl. They’ve got quite a following too – it’s only into the third song of the set that I turn around and realise the venue’s suddenly packed, the crowd hanging on Barzelay’s every word and witty between song patter.

Overall, all one could want of an evening: eclectic musical stylings and excellent banter, all without the prospect of a violent military coup.

Whether or not this philosophy played any part in the founding of The Wordless Music series, set up in 2007, the underlying theme in the first instalment of this year’s Autumn season is that the music itself is the medium by which the message should be put across.

This is quite apparent in tonight’s opening act – Charles Spearin’s ‘Happiness Project’. Spearin recorded the responses of neighbours and friends when posed with the question: “What is happiness?” Spearin then took the replies and composed musical pieces based on the natural rhythm and melodies of the human voice when talking about an emotive subject. Perhaps the most endearing result is the piece entitled “All of a Sudden Something Inside Me Begins to Move” which depicts the story of Spearin’s profoundly deaf friend who, after a receiving a cochlear implant, suddenly discovers a world awash with sound and music. When walking through the park with Spearin one day, she hears music; they look around for the source – a busker or a ghetto blaster maybe – only to discover that the whole time it is in fact the undulating rhythm of the traffic from the surrounding streets. Spearin’s ensemble of drums, guitars, brass and strings captures this swirling musical landscape as well as a sense of wonderment beautifully.

But it’s the self-confessed Canadian “space-rockers” Do Make Say Think, whom Spearin co-founded back in 1996, that are tonight’s main attraction. Do, make, say and think: four words that denote very basic human functions and drives. But there’s nothing basic about this band.

The set opens with a track from the upcoming album Other Truths, entitled simply ‘Do’. What immediately follows could almost be described as a conventional rock song: bass and drums plough a methodical path while a tuned down guitar chugs purposefully over it. The song oozes menace and intent and couldn’t have a more apt title. But as the song progresses, the music begins to writhe and diverge, occasionally snapping back to the trusted path, but ultimately sprinting into the wilderness either side in a crashing crescendo of cymbals, feedback and a jerky, flustered guitar.

This is Do Make Say Think – and other proponents of the so-called ‘post-rock’ genre – writ large: we see it again later in the set in ‘Fredericia’, the opening track on the album Winter Hymn, Country Hymn, Secret Hymn. The song is complex and enigmatic, flitting from quiet to loud, slow to fast, with no discernable rhyme or reason. At first we see (only) 6 members on stage, before the 3 members of the brass section meander into the action to bring the song to a rousing finish.

But it’s the penultimate song that displays perfectly what DMST are capable of. At the beginning of the set co-founding member and lead guitarist Justin Small expressed surprise when looking out at the Miller Theatre’s plush, cushioned seats and unassuming décor:

“Look at this – not quite the legendary shitholes we’re used to”

But this hushed auditorium provides the perfect backdrop. The song starts unassumingly – a violin is gently plucked, accompanied by a morose guitar. But this song is called The Universe!, from most recent album You, You’re a History in Rust, and it’s not long before it takes on stellar dimensions: Small crunches his guitar, Spearin follows wresting a few notes from his, and so this continues, as if the immense wrench and torque of a solar system forming is occurring before our very ears.

It’s a testament to the quality of the musicianship in DMST that such an intricacy of sound can be generated. And that’s just what this was all about – the power of sound in expressing an idea. The Universe! provided an excellent coda, so the short encore – a fragile and plaintive number – seemed a bit unnecessary – somebody should have had a word.