Show Review: Wye Oak with Callers and Height with Friends at the Echo (3/24/11)

By Kathryn Pinto
Photos by Jed

Last week I went into the Wye Oak show not exactly cold, but seeing a band I had heard more about than I had heard with my own ears. Everything I’d listened to sounded good. Plenty of people whose opinion I respect were saying laudatory things about them, but the night of the show I was listening to one of their earlier albums while getting spruced up for a night at the Echo and I’m thinking, “Maybe I’m in the mood for something peppier,” something with a couple more beats per minute.

With Video Jed as sidekick and begrudging photographer, I filed into the Echo. Height with Friends from Baltimore opened. The three-piece, front man, a laptop guy, and a tambourine gal/backup singer—you know, a rhythm section—were totally fine, just not really my taste in greatness. Is this is what the kids are listening to? When they played “Dreams Don’t Come True, Baby,” I scribbled “is this the future of music?” They bring to mind a bigger sounding, but not as charismatic, Baths. Get your little brother to explain this genre to you, and little brothers: do tell.

As Callers opened their set the front woman Sara Lucas brought forth a feeling of déjà vu that conjured memories of the other beguiling women who have taken the stage at the Echo, including Claire McKeown of Shadow Shadow Shade, Angela Correa, and Sarah Negahdari.

Backing Lucas’ dark, echoing haunting vocals, were Ryan Seaton on guitar, and Don Godwin on drums. Lucas has a great, commanding voice; she held the room. She sounds like Kate Bush most of all, but also a bit like more recent PJ Harvey, Portishead or even echoes of Stevie Nicks. But what is carefully modulated in Callers’ recorded music—phrasing that holds you and doesn’t let go, like an aunt’s hug that lasts a little too long—was heavy and murky, ill-amped live, resulting in a muddy sound. Are there songs? Is this a mood piece. The group’s cover of Wire’s “Heartbeat” was the highlight of the set. The steady percussion of the rhythm line playing against the singing was finally a match to the vocals.

All the hip kids came out for Wye Oak. In the audience during the opening acts, there was a lot of talking for a room that was nearly full. Wye Oak started to play and I joked, “Hey it’s No Age sans fun.” Jed rolled his eyes and said, “Mates of State minus Mr. Dude and the peppiness.” He likes the front woman’s haircut. Suddenly I became aware of the uncomfortable feeling that all of the guys in the room have a huge crush on her. Jenn Wasner’s voice is deep and expressive, the melancholic younger sister of Kathleen Edwards and Shannon McNally. As she was singing I felt my residual crankiness fade away. Jed, who usually maintains a chatty monologue throughout the set for all but his most favorite bands, had been quiet since the top of the second verse. “Noise folk duo,” I scribble into a notebook, then “maybe they really are like Randy and Dean.” “Noise soul?” The sound through the PA was still murky and muddling with reverb in the low end, but Wasner’s voice broke through with a clear soulful sound. This band was even better live than on record.

The set sometimes included songs that veered towards the kind of dirgeful, mopey indie rock that could be found in the Seth Cohen Starter Kit--a laconic lazy river of songs, but at its best the heavy folky sound opposes an urge toward noise pop. When the heartfelt vocals play off against noisy distorted and effects pedal guitar as well as Andy Stack’s percussion, the performance had a buoyant quality that could physically lift the mood of everyone in the audience. The duo play together so tightly you can feel three albums worth of touring and thousands of miles in a van in every song. After some tuning banter that ended in a fuck y’all,  (‘After the longest east coast winter I come to Los Angeles the one week it rains. But you call this weather cold? Fuck y’all!’) Wasner cut loose and looked like she was having fun up there on stage. I was won over.

Comments

[Davis]

More photos form that show...
http://creepingelm.blogspot.com/2011/03/wye-oak-echo-32411.html

[Kathryn]

Thanks for including the link. Great photos.