Deep Time. Photo by Kaden Shallat.
Wednesday night at Farm 255 began with Athens band S H A D E, a trio consisting of guitar/vocals, bass and drums. The band has a very compelling frontwoman in Phelan Lavelle, who swayed and wobbled along with her stinging lead lines. They definitely brought it. Their style, which was definitely whimsical, was performed with enough intensity not to be considered a cutesy crutch.
I always appreciate a band that sweats liberally, and this band most certainly does that. Sweat is always a sign of humanity, and of effort and intention. Anything that involves dancing should also involve sweat. And music definitely involves dancing. Particularly, though, I think it’s necessary for she who aspires to warrior poet-ness to sweat—it’s proof that the singer is putting something at stake in the here and now. What’s really nice to see, though, is a band who’s clearly not phoning it in, and S H A D E were definitely not last night. And they’re not bland, either.
Deep Time. Photo by Kaden Shallat.
Deep Time also rose to the occasion—the group’s tight, jazz-inflected post-punk sound owned the air around them, and the crowd as well. You know a band is good when they can hook you immediately and keep you there, even when you have only given their material a cursory listen prior. This is what Deep Time was able to do to me. (Perhaps it’s just because I wish I could play guitar like Jennifer Moore.)
Deep Time’s songs waste very little musical space—each guitar line and vocal melody serves as a neat transition into the next, forming a series of what I like to call “urban†developments. “Urban†because of the machine-like quality of the music—the band keeps extremely good time, which probably has something to do with the fact that their bass lines are all pre-programmed—sort of like a more female-centric version of Big Black.
Moore had another guitar, in addition to the one she was holding, lying down in front of her like a lap steel. This guitar’s strings were all tuned to A, and when she played it—using a bottle of Tabasco Sauce as a slide, I immediately recognized it for what it was: the ostrich tuning. The ostrich slide didn’t so much contrast with Moore’s otherwise neat chords—rather, it expanded the sound, augmented it with a metallic touch. I left the show very musically satisfied.
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