School of Seven Bells
Not much time for this one, so let me see how much I can get down in 30 minutes or less. Go.
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Yeah, I really, really like School of Seven Bells. Thick, dreamy electropop at its finest if you ask me, with a definite MBV influence on a bunch of their songs. This was the third time I would be seeing the band live, with the first coming in December '07 at Mercury Lounge, opening for Setting Suns (before that band was forced to change its name to Magnetic Morning). At that show I was totally impressed by their songcraft and the trancelike intensity with which they performed, and it certainly ain't gonna hurt when you have two insanely hot chicks in the band. Very entertaining set, and had me looking forward to the next time I saw them, which was opening up for Blonde Redhead on a bill that also included The Raveonettes (at Terminal 5, in January '08). On that day School of Seven Bells' heavily-reverbed atmospherics didn't translate well to the larger room, although to be fair to the band, the Raveonettes sound was also mangled beyond enjoyability, so I had to just chalk that one up to technical incompetence on the part of the venue soundguy. Shoulda been a great show, but wasn't.
'08 also saw the release of School of Seven Bells (aka SVIIB)'s first long-player, the excellent Alpinisms (#9 on my year-end Best Albums list) which yielded several great songs, with my faves at year-end being "Half Asleep" and "Face to Face on High Places" (#s 30 and 54, respectively, on my year-end Best Songs list -- check out said list for some sweet live mp3s of those songs, btw), although after a couple more months of listening "Iamundernodisguise" and especially "My Cabal" shoulda been on that list, too. For whatever reason, I wound up not seeing the band live throughout the rest of 2008, so obviously I was pretty psyched to get the chance to see them again, especially in a sweet room like (le) poisson rouge.
Wound up not getting out of the apartment until nearly 9:30, and after taking the M to the F I wound up in front of the venue at 9:53... quick lap around the block (Thompson to Houston to Sullivan back to Bleecker) found me taxing the everloving fuck out of my trusty one-hitter. Show was practically sold out, and predictably security had no fucking clue how to deal with the mess, but once I got inside I wormed my way up to the front, fucking around with cell phone Tetris until the band took the stage at 11. (Again, I can't stress enough how stunningly insanely hot the Deheza sisters are, hoooo mama.)
There's a lot to love about this band. The melodies are fucking perfect, and the harmonies are amazing. The music manages to be both delicate yet substantial at the same time, with the obvious meticulousness not overwhelming playfulness, while the understated beats get you primed for some serious eyes-closed head-bobbing. This is some seriously beautiful, moving, well-executed stuff here. Many of the songs have a distinct Loveless-esque quality to them, which is tough to pull off without sounding totally cloying. My only complaint about these guys is that the music is just so thick and there's just so much going on that it's plainly obvious that a lot of it is canned/sequenced... makes me wonder just exactly how much of it is actually being performed and how much is piped in. But no matter, these guys are highly recommended.
Setlist went as follows, I think (remember, I was very stoned and probably forgot a song or two) and ran for about 42 minutes:
Face to Face on High Places
Iamundernodisguise
Wired
Chain
Half Asleep
My Cabal
Okay, gotta go, but a few words about the headliners, Fujiya and Miyagi. First song reminded me a lot of INXS, which is a good thing, although eventually the songs all started to run together as a maelstrom of krautrocky dancey stuff, similar to '90s ecstacy-accompanying music. Not bad, although by that point after several beers I preferred the idea of getting a coupla slices to shaking my ass.
Good shit, but I gotta go to "work." Tuddd ya later.
