LITTLE DRAGON at the Danforth Music Hall, Sunday, May 31. Rating: NNN
From the moment Yukimi Nagano stepped onstage – wearing black evening gloves and a patterned jacket adorned with origami-like appliqué – it was clear that she’s the star of electro band Little Dragon. And that’s no easy task. The Gothenburg foursome alternate between downtempo slow jams and full-out dance music, leaving vocalist Nagano to bridge both worlds.
For an hour and a half, she strutted around diamond sculptures that lit up in technicolour hues, dancing between keyboardist Håkan Wirenstrand, bassist Fredrik Källgren Wallin and drummer Erik Bodin. While they played a mix of songs from their most recent album, 2014’s Nabuma Rubberband, and older singles, she did her best to drive the packed Danforth into a frenzy.
Despite her cajoling, things never reached peak dance party, though they came closest during the poppy Ritual Union, which provoked a venue-wide singalong, and when Bodin climbed atop an amp some 10 feet high and smacked his drums on the way back down – one of the best concert tricks I’ve seen in a long time.
Although the instruments were mixed as loudly as Nagano’s vocals, her contribution is critical to the magical Little Dragon Effect. Whenever her sultry, husky voice was absent from the instrumental breakdowns and experimental forays, some of the magic disappeared.
CONSTANTINES and CHAD VANGAALEN at Massey Hall, Wednesday, May 27. Rating: NNNN
Constantines spent most of their career playing in smallish dark bars, but the Guelph indie rock five-piece’s music was made for big stages: it’s impassioned and dramatic, with choruses that encourage audience shout-alongs. So Massey Hall‘s grand, high-ceilinged stage gave Bry Webb, Steve Lambke and Dallas Wehrle plenty of room to whip their guitars above their heads.
Since the Cons’ heralded return in 2014, the venues have grown bigger and bigger, with Massey being the crowning glory (thus far) – so crowd adoration was no surprise. The hard-working musicians gave us polished, spunky versions of Young Offenders, Nighttime Anytime (It’s Alright), Insectivora and a euphoric Shine A Light, with Soon Enough as the perfect calm-down follow-up.
As Chad VanGaalen said in his profane but tender opening set, “The Constantines are one of those bands that never really sucked a dick,” and that lack of compromise nails why they’re so respected, and why their comeback has been so successful.
VanGaalen, set up as a one-man-band (kick drums, harmonica, a stick at the end of his guitar headstock for striking a cymbal) and accompanied by Julie Fader, shared other thoughts with us, too, between fragile death-focused tunes: about farting, Franken-sized dildos, how fishing with his daughters is more fun than playing shows, including this one. Then he ended with Shave My Pussy.
In other words, he was anything but reverential and awestruck about performing in the historic venue. And that was refreshing.
MUTEK at Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Thursday, May 28. Rating: NNNN
Many artists at Montreal’s Mutek paired electronic visuals with electronic music, but with very different approaches. On Thursday night, Dasha Rush‘s Antarctic Takt married icy-cold experimental electro with mangled video footage of actual cold stuff, while Takami Nakamoto and drummer Sebastien Benoits used a stageful of LED bars, projections and strobes for their post-rock-influenced assault on the senses.
Most effective A/V performance went to Atom™ & Robin Fox, who bombarded the audience with video projections, lasers, abrasive noise and blinding lights. While the set was often intense and not always musical, a playful undercurrent kept things from getting too oppressive.
Downstairs in the second room, Pheek‘s deep, dubby ambient techno made great use of processed field recordings and subtly modulating synthetic rhythms. You could dance to it, but it was so minimalist that most were content to sit on the floor and listen. That changed during Basic House‘s set, when his highly abstracted take on house settled into that familiar four-on-the-floor pounding and the seated crowd got up and let loose.
ANTI-VIBES, MARINE CORPSE, LIFESTYLE SUB and TAX HAVEN at D-Beatstro, Friday, May 29. Rating: NNN
Kitchener/Waterloo’s Lifestyle Sub continues the area’s reputation for incubating exciting young talent, starting their set amidst sounds of power tools at work in the café’s in-progress kitchen. With an incredible vocalist and raw sound, the four-piece carefully borrowed from noise rock and punk.
Having travelled further, Indiana’s Marine Corpse surprised the hell out of everyone in the room. With their guitarist plugged into a bass amp, they sounded like stoner rock with elements of thrash metal and hardcore vocals. They found their grooves effortlessly and were best when the drummer and vocalist sang call-and-response.
Local act Anti-Vibes embodied both punk’s urgency and its appetite for confrontation in a set of songs from a forthcoming record. Their rhythm section (joined by Cale Weir, who started the night off as Tax Haven) was exceptional, letting vocalist Claire Whatever and guitarist Sean Kennedy be more brazen. Though confidence seems to be a bit of an issue (they have a habit of announcing their mistakes), performing more often will hopefully find them more self-assured. After all, no one expects perfection from punk.
