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November 13, 2007
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone/High Places, Live @ the Knitting Factory, NYC 11.07.07
photos by Devon Banks
Last Wednesday I managed to climb out of my pain cave long enough to catch a nice little double bill at a sparsely populated Knitting Factory. I'm not sure you need any more context that that, huh?
High Places
High Places continue to be one of New York's most charming new bands. But as their (always) short set began, the odd instrumental textures Rob Barber employs almost completely drowned out their more accessible aspects. It sounded alien and intriguing, sure, but missed the irresistibly propulsive thump, and mainly Mary Pearson's warped warmth. When she became more prominently featured, though, as in debut EP standouts "Head Spins" and "Golden," their hallucinatory children's songs have a joyous magic. This isn't to say that her contribution outweighs his. Especially live, Barber's drum patterns practically dominate. She just provides the humanity needed for his unidentifiable circuit box to emotionally connect.
The show was running a bit late, due to an unrelated early show at the venue, so the duo was forced to rush from track to track without even time for much of an audience reaction. Still, every unexpected cymbal rattle, every appropriate recorder toot, confirmed my unstoppable band crush. The best performance was saved for last, a previously unknown song called "New Grace," which married swirling ambience to an "Iko Iko" stomp. Mary told me it was named for the outer borough Chinese restaurant the duo happened to be sitting in when the Australian label whose compilation it's destined for finally demanded its christening. I joked that writers were likely to read much more into it then that. Upon reflection, we might have some cause. It's the balance between Rob's gut rumbling percussion and Mary's sing song melody that provides their songs grace. It's the amniotic noise that encompasses both that makes them sound almost entirely "new."
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
While impatiently waiting for one of the first LCD Soundsystem headlining sets at the Bowery Ballroom in 2004, Owen Ashworth's music actively annoyed me. I recall it being some unlistenable mess of brutally abrasive synth noises, and ear-bleeding dissonance. Now that I've lived with the man's records a bit, it seems impossible that I'm remembering it correctly. There are nits to be picked with Casiotone to be sure; an unchanging hung-over vocal tone and a claustrophobic, keyboard-only instrumental palette, to name two. But it's not like he's the next coming of Suicide or something.
All of Owen's songs show a knack for deadpan melody and affecting character study. He shied away from playing songs off of last year's chronically slept on Etiquette LP, so we were denied many of his most fully realized compositions. The show instead had a feel of a fan club show, with 7" b-sides and old self released tracks dominating. The excessive intimacy level would have been almost unbearable if not for the strangely compelling anti-charisma of Ashworth himself. He's a meek bear of a man, overdivulging information at every step, but with a nonchalant confidence that makes it seem brave rather than embarrassing.
The lack of variation was still slight problem, though maybe the more varied recent tunes just aren't possible as a one man band. When he went digging through some cardboard boxes at the back of the stage, only to produce several more tiny, obsolete keyboards, it seemed like a punchline. "Just to change things up a bit..." It was no surprise that the one Etiquette track played, the appealingly maudlin "Bobby Malone Moves Home," should be the set's high point. Its tones were rich and warm, its narrative of a mid-twenties loser forced to refill an empty nest was compassionate, instead of ironic or glorifying. Though I was continually entertained throughout the set, the superiority of this bright spot confirmed that my interest is more in where Ashworth is going than where he's been.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at November 13, 2007 01:10 PM
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