POP reviews- Mia Verko, Gyroscope, Darling Arms OCT4

Mia Verko- used to be Sadie Hawkins, and so I’d hear about them about town as something good to see every once in a while. Long draws on a violin or maybe viola in the way that can’t help but poke you’re achey inside sorrow places, with a sudden heart thump and complex sad clanging and then the drums find a rhythm that fans could let themselves go to by the hundreds with the sweet deepish voice and it reminds me of something I’d sing along to once I knew the words with my eyes closed, something familiar, maybe from recent sorrow ladden string enhanced sad man rock, or maybe from soemthing from the early ninties like dare I say it Counting Crows- But! then the keys sound like sirens and the language is French and its an inescablably new thing all its own. This thing that happens here where singers sing in multi languages can sound forced or it can sound like life here with two tongues, and two ways to make language into songlike things, and Mia Verko largely acheived the latter. They were good, my favorite of the night I think.

Gyroscope- Intense anticipatory soundscape that breaks with lyrics so quiet they’re like a record skip buried in sound, or like the edge of foam adding crackle and hiss to a smooth breaking wave and then they disapear. I may have imagined there were ever lyrics sung there at all. The wave of keys and organ slips down quiet behind a drum so intense the crowd is yelping in a semi full bar a 7:30 pm during the first song. A good sign.

Quiet jazz.. a slow dropping fall like rocks that quickly becomes a complex drum like circles of rhythm slipping together, kicking cross-referencing and building with intensity until it suddenly drops to quiet again, where the bass picks up the rhythm line like a good old friend offering a hand and then bell like keys.. and then space sounds like the whole room is heading to the future where everything is jazzier and cooler and suddenly it smells like popcorn. If Gyroscope plays my brain to the point of olfactory halucination, I salut them, and if they play some sort of scent machine like an instrument I’ll invest. Reminds me of old movie theatre drama, which I think should be reconsidered and meaningfully brought back by small inventive bands.

Actually – there are countless ways this does happen. The other day I saw no cars go and the singer sat on the floor with her back to us while performing and then while the song continued, but after she’d done her yelping chatter part, she turned around and smilingly handed us jujubes. That was a nice addition to the song, and not just bc everyone likes jujubes. Our smiling and small sounds of surprise and chew became part of the soundscape in a way, and it reminded you that you are an instrument too.

Gyroscope was good, intense and dream inducing. After a while though, I lost interest and felt like it got repetitive. Maybe this young band needs another card in their deck, to spin the sound and surprise the crrritics and draw the crowd back in, wide eyed, with the new tilt or layer. Maybe a pop corn popper? Just a suggestion.

Darling Arms- We ran into friends who came to see Darling Arms because one of them plays in a string quartet with the violinist in this string band. And maybe it’s the string quartet experience that gave her the ability to thread in and out of the group sound, never drawing attention away from notes that were crucial and dear in another performance but taking your breath away with what she made of her opportunities for independent flight.

The set opens with a beautiful sweet old violin story and then the stand up bass begins to wrap its tender many way around your broken heart, and the electric guitar adds an odd twang and the lyrics contain phrases that alternate between the uncanny everyday, which I enjoy, of things like “you’re taller then I thought you would be” and the overwrought pathetic girl rock copout’s like “I feel like dying” which I’m less a fan of. This band nearly won me over- I’m a girl, and I’m of the sort who often responds well to cheese. In moments where the cheezy sweet lyrics were sung with right tough longing ringing hollar that rings with the strings like it’s one of them, I was a fan. I love voices that know how to be played like instruments- yelling pure notes full throated with all that complex human pain stuff taken in stride. But this didn’t happen enough to distract me from some oddness in the guitar, and some uninventiveness in the lyrics.

We stayed for most of the set, and as we left we waved to friends and headed for the wind and rain, and the violin reached out high and lonely with something more interesting to say about people and women and what it’s like to be one then any of the lyrics had manged to convey so far; with the sound of a beasty wild thing that might rather be alone soaring in the rain then tangled up inside with other people’s ideas about music and life and I thought- man! I gotta check out that string quartet sometime…

….

We were at Divan Orange, we ate delicious soup and listened to three bands that all had their kernels of unique sweetness, and I took notes on the sounds humming through the beautifully lit orange, midst talk of gear and technicalities and the waving at of friends.. and that’s what you’ve read here.

Then I just stood quietly for a while and let it all soak in. The bands were great, and more- it’s great that people get together to try and make a certain sound together. And also. it’s freaking great that they give bloggers press passes now….cheers to that! Tonight: andre ethier, telefauna, mongrels, if i can swing it, and i’ll get you a review of whatever I do see by tommorrow mornin. Have a good day all.
Risa