January 27, 2013

The first few minutes of the Shimmy jam are fairly forgettable, but around the 12-minute mark, Magner hits on this really cool vocoder noise that I love. The band switches to a more major key jam. This is some great Blissco, even if just for a short time. The band changes after just a couple minutes to a much darker, dissonant jam. This is every bit as good as the major key section that preceded it. The first Orch Theme jam is another great Blissco jam. This is really cool too, and the entire band is communicating really well. Love it. I don’t care as much about the jam out of Orch Theme, although the segue into Bombs is very smooth. The jam out of Bombs is a breakbeat jam, and again there’s really solid communication. This is not all that interesting to me, but I always enjoy hearing the band working together nicely. This eventually develops into a solid Shimmy peak, complete with Allen on e-kick. The Spaga first jam is fine. Nothing too remarkable, but not bad. The peak is terrible, however (thanks Barber). The second jam is bland and boring. Token Dom Lalli sit-in. Meh.

Highwire has a decent jam to begin the set. Again, nothing too far outside of the box, but not overtly bad. I hate the “woos” in Vassillios. Vassillios is again not all that interesting, but they’re again really locked in and playing together. For a bit, they have a I-VII-VI-VII progression going, which is nice, but again it’s just not really drawing me in. The Gangster jam is marred by the same. I think Brownstein’s bass work here is generally nice, and he’s clearly trying to develop some theme. I think they sort of do, but mostly it feels like the whole band is playing more rhythmically than anything else. Magner sort of takes the lead for part of this, but not really in any meaningful way. Crickets, too, is the same. Not bad, just not remarkable. The Lunar jam has a really cool dub jam, featuring Magner on his pan flute patch. This is really neat. Neither AC2B jam never gets that far outside the box. The Nughuffer is also pretty well-worn territory – even the story doesn’t feel like Brownstein puts forth much effort. Mirrors encore is basically jamless.

Highlights: Shimmy*, Orch Theme (1*), Lunar*