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Art Of The Mix [live review]

Live review on ART OF THE MIX
Blake/e/e/e @ The Comet May 11, 2008

There can be a pleasure in sadness, in mourning some sweet moment that's passed, reveling in an elegiac nostalgia. If that's the headspace you seek, Blake/e/e/e make for a good soundtrack. Much of their music is about mood, a kind of incantation, a spell they cast to invoke a yesterday or a yesteryear. But they aren't a one trick pony; they've got a few spells to cast. .. This is evident on their debut CD, Border Radio. So many bands out there have just one timbre going on. Every song sounds the same. Not the case with Blake/e/e/e, who mix it up with aplomb. Check out "Time Machine," their creepiest song, which disrupts the bittersweetness that they evoke so well with rage. .. There's also the freak out jams, which wander and meander, complementing the structured verse/chorus songs. Blake/e/e/e pair an analog folk aesthetic alongside the synthetic.

At The Comet on Sunday, they opened with "New Millennium," their most anthemic tune. The harmonies between the singers drive the song, sending it up and out. They played "Time Machine" live and it was even creepier than on the record, as angst-ridden shouts were belted out. There were lots of novel instrumentation configurations during the show, between the banjo getting passed around, the bassist doing percussion, the drummer playing the cymbal with a bow, and plenty of electronic synth. They ended with "Holy Yes To The Sun", which morphed from the minimalist banjo melancholia into a full out jam.

Reading their influences listed on their MySpace page, there's no shockers: Akron/Family, Animal Collective, Low, Iron & Wine. ..They know that they are of a genre, freak folk as its dubbed. Their label is called, apropos, freefolk. But more than copping the emergent practices of this genre, they are contributing to its definition.

Check out this video from their tune "The Thing's Hollow", (another song which demonstrates the texture and variety this band has to offer).

photos by Adam Forslund


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