April 17, 2009

[Mindless Dribble ~>Shem-Rah Boo(inc) ~> Mindless Dribble ~> Helicopters]

This section in particular is an "all boxes checked" situation in the kindest manner. From the terrific mastering and editing of the music through the quality...I mean it's a filet mignon the whole way through. They is no use to give value judgement here in terms of comparison but to say it truly is a patient, precise collaboration and intense conversations through the instruments that give this this section the "holy" stamp of musical dharma. Yes, that cheesy yet that good.

Conventional time stops(for me) when they get like this, and it's replaced with this hour+ divided into musical sections X times each emotion or breakthrough experienced. Limitless. All I can say is that IT is ALL herein. Perhaps someone, somewhere will pop on this show and get just enough inspiration to break-out of their mind's prison, chemical prison, heartbreak prison and know, at least for a while that the other side of the negative experience awaits you. No fables, no empty promises, no lies just honest growth.

This M.S.M.H. is on the wall of Biscuits lore to be certain. This is being "in the flow" Open your heart, perhaps even if all these sentiments is all synchromystical Mindless Dribble :)

If you have enough juice leftover in the tank, the 3rd set offers more magiK. In terms of this crazy, cleansing "CYCLONE" sandwiched in between the infamous "Spraypaint" ""Giant Bags of Mahli, wrapped in Curious Corn""

This section is celebratory. Talk about a good soul enema. Bottom line, this half-hour excursion is A+ fantastique. Peace to you.

“There is no way to tell if we are the pioneers of a visionary new age, whisking humanity into the high vibrations of an interdimensional love party, or post-modern Don Quixotes attacking techno-industrial windmills with our flimsy, rolled-up yoga mats.”

Voices begins the show with a middle jam. This is solid, even if it's firmly inside the box. Robots continues things with a long first jam. This starts as the typical Robots "funk," but around the 7:40 mark, Brownstein adds in this two-bar theme that is simple but effective. They build this into a fantastic peak. At the 10:20 mark, the music cuts for a moment and the quality of the soundboard decreases substantially. I seem to recall there was an issue with the official recording and they spliced in an AUD to fill the gap. Anyway, solid peak, good jam. The second jam begins with the usual DNB, and Magner has a hard sync lead which I think is always fitting in these kinds of jams. The soundboard kicks back in around the 18:50 mark. This is a great example of a DNB jam that I think actually really works for the band, and a big part of this is that they just get a little weird with it. Psychedelic, dark, and nasty. Allen, of course, kills it as always. I do think that the segue into Rockafella gets a little too extended. Just do it and move on. I am not a fan of Aquatic Ape. I think it's a bad song. Also not a huge fan of the band's DNB, so it's doubly annoying to see Ape on a setlist. This particular jam is just okay. I was close to noting this as a highlight because of the madness that plays out going back into the ending of Robots, which is chaotic and awesome. 

M80 is jamless. Caves has a jam coming out of the main "verse" theme. The jam initially doesn't have a lot going for it, and is mostly treading water. At the 7:30 mark, Magner comes up with a great 4-chord progression that sounds almost like Thriller. I really wish that Brownstein and Barber would have joined in with the chord progression (at minimum, Marc), rather than vamping with their current themes. I felt like this could have been much cooler than it was, despite the fact that it was very cool nonetheless. The Dribble first jam is absolutely fantastic. I have seen a lot of people compare this to the universally beloved 12/14/08 Vassillios. I understand the reason for the comparison, as they use a similar chord progression and Barber's play here is stylistically similar. Beyond that, however, the two jams are fairly different, with the most notable difference to me being that this theme just isn't as good as 12/14/08, and it also doesn't resolve into the joyous major key section that 12/14/08 does. That said, this is absolutely gorgeous on its own, and while I wish they'd have evolved this past the initial theme, there's no denying that this is absolutely breathtaking. This section ends around the 12:27 mark and they ditch the multi-chord theme. The next few minutes are a more straightforward dance theme, which is solid, but not nearly as cool as the theme preceding it. There is a SRB intro vamp that Brownstein does with the slap bass section, which includes a tiny, tiny tease of the middle section of Basis. The jam out of SRB is very cool. Dance party central. Barber has some simple-but-awesome riffs throughout this jam that interplay with Magner's textural stuff really nicely. As they get back into Dribble, they jam out the "apple butter toast" section more than they typically would. I note this as an actual jam, and I typically would not. The jam out of Dribble is solid, albeit safe. The jam in Helicopters features Marc jumping on the MIDI keyboard fairly quickly, and then Magner busts out the GATES OF HELL for, I believe, the first time in 2009. Awesome. His use of it is pretty restrained, though it does come back a little later in the jam. Overall, I thought this jam was a solid dance jam, capping of an absolutely fantastic second set.

There's a brief intro jam for Eulogy. This is fine, and features the band jamming in a Phrygian key for a bit. I don't dislike this, but it's mostly just noodling and only lasts a minute or so. Hope begins with a DNB jam that immediately gets into some very pretty riffs from Barber and nice chord progression from Brownstein and Magner. At the 7:45 mark, Magner has a swirling arp that surrounds the jam. Brownstein and Barber connect really well here, and this turns into a really solid jam. If this section lasted a little longer or evolved more before getting darker to return to Ape, this could have gotten incredibly good. Instead, the second half of this jam is just dark, monotonous DNB without the thematic work from this section that worked so well. Meh. The Spraypaint jam gets into a bit of a "repeater" jam with a three-note melody that Barber and Magner seem to find fascinating. I wasn't blown away by this. The beginning of the Cyclone track sounds like it's headed to Rock Candy rather than Cyclone for a long time, and sure enough, around the 1:45 mark, the band does a full-on fakeout of the RC ending. The entirety of the section after this fakeout is absolutely awesome. They build a peak with a really solid progression from Brownstein. If these last 3-4 minutes could have been a bigger part of the jam, this would have been better than it turned out to be. The jam out of Cyclone is really solid, and develops into a great duntzgeon jam almost immediately. Around the 10:30 mark, they switch it up into a breakbeat jam with lots of e-drums and effects from Magner and Allen, but quickly drop back into a dance beat and switch to a major key theme for the switch back to Spraypaint. Around the 13-minute mark, this develops into this psychedelic array of glassy synths ping-ponging off the walls with Barber's wahwah pedal washing over the music. This section is really, really cool, and shows that they can still play "out there" music in a Blissco theme. As they hit the Spraypaint theme, they get into a more straightforward major key theme that peaks really, really well. This and the Dribble jam are my two jams of the night. Great stuff.

Highlights: Robots (1, 2*), Caves*, Dribble (1**, 3), SRB, Helicopters, Hope, Cyclone**