After last year’s massive incarnation at the multi-room Viaduct Theater, the curators pared down the number of acts and found a smaller, more intensely intimate venue in The Empty Bottle. The constant projection of art videos on one wall, the pumping weird-dance DJ work (courtesy of a few notable names, including Tortoise/Sea and Cake member John McEntire), and ubiquitous wall-pasted prints of a cat’s head surrounding the building were just the beginning of the insanity. And while I’ve seen plenty of weird stuff at The Empty Bottle, Neon Marshmallow’s three nights of seriously oppressive noise, weird sounds, and eccentric personalities may have topped all of that.

Friday, June 10th

The first act of the weekend was Altered Zones favorite C V L T S, a duo (though I could only see one member on stage) that specializes in soaring, sea-worthy reverb and skyward looking drone. Kalimba tones and brain-buzzing synths foregrounded a video screen showing two people holding hands on beach chairs looking at a glowing triangle. Waves of melody emerged from the drone, but everything returned to murky, churning base. Spiral Joy Band, some of whose members have also worked in second day headliners Pelt, followed after, calming overtones mingling over the backyard drone produced by two violins, a bowed guitar, and a harmonium.

Zerang, Colligan, and Baker

The set from local free jazz mainstays Michael Zerang, Michael Colligan, and Jim Baker was the first curveball in the mix, their improvised mess of tones produced, respectively, by experimental snare drum, a block of dry ice, and a modular synth. Colligan heated forks and cans, scraping them across the dry ice as smoke billowed, squealing tones clipping throughout. That, combined with the squelching of Baker’s synth and the scraping produced by dragging styrofoam and the like across Zerang’s snare sounded like R2D2 being slowly and painfully shredded to pieces. This was easily one of the best sets of the weekend, all furious energy and howling insanity. Khanate member/drone master James Plotkin washed the room in rich, dark overtones and a heavy wall of guitar sound, and Brooklyn’s Mountains created lush, angelic soundscapes with synth sequencers and acoustic guitar.

Rene Hell

Rene Hell (AKA prolific collaborator Jeff Witscher) brought the dance back into the equation, his boxy synth churning out what sounded like NES police sirens and other accompanying video game destruction, all set to danceable rhythms. The set had a frenetic energy, Hell tapping his foot rapidly with a slight smirk. A few of the stagefront fans danced along kind of awkwardly, but nothing in comparison to the grooving that came with the next set. Adam Forkner (AKA White Rainbow, member of Rob Walmart, Purple & Green, We Like Cats, as well as collaborator with almost everyone, including YACHT, Dirty Projectors, and Jackie-O Motherfucker) may have produced the strangest set of the weekend by being the most normal. His funky compositions were pure dance frenzy, and his banter was hilarious. “Welcome to the festy, bitch,” he grinned before jumping into another pitch-bent synth solo over the smooth beats. After thanking everyone for “supporting all us fuckin’ freaks and weirdos,” Forkner jumped into “From Now On Let’s” off his album of the same title, leaping away from the pressure-sensitive synth to keep things short and sweet. Even Forkner was aware that he was an odd fit on the bill, though, mentioning that he was all about “good feeling,” even though “this is a noise show.” His energy propelled things, though, pushing the typically dense room into a breezy, West Coast party.

Lucky Dragons

Lucky Dragons‘ community-oriented, ethereal, beautiful ambiance is always impressive, no matter how many times you see it. Walking up into the semi-circle surrounding the seated Luke Fishbeck and Sarah Rara facing each other over the glowing kit of electronic gear felt like discovering an enchanted glade, the charming, twinkling tones escaping into the rest of the world. Kalimba tones and twirling synths provided the background for the duo’s newest experimental, communal tool, a blue light beam that controlled a sonorous synth tone. Fans were handed blank CDs that, when reflecting the light or breaking the beam (apparently), changed the tone dramatically, the CDs reflecting off of each other and producing rainbow halos around the room.

Saturday, June 11th

Guitar noisenik Leslie Keffer opened day two, walls of noise as prominent in her set as vaguely pop-inflected structures. Dylan Ettinger followed immediately after, sounding like one of Devo’s Mothersbaugh brothers doing his best Depeche Mode impression. The dark, chunky 80′s synth tones provided some danceable rhythms underneath the awkwardly endearing Ettinger’s insistent bark and lunging dance moves. “This song’s about falling in and out of love with someone in the same day,” he mumbled before jumping into another jam.

Sword Heaven

Sword Heaven provided one of the purely strangest sets of the weekend, which in turn received one of the biggest responses. Aaron Hibbs sat at the center of the chaos, the bespectabled, be-handlebar-mustachioed, shirtless dude with a contact mic taped to his neck. Hibbs had some resemblance to Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, but only if Lewis were doing an impression of what would be born from the marriage of a velociraptor and a demon. Hibbs grunted, growled, and howled, all as he thumped on a distorted drumkit. Synth, trumpet, scratches on a metal tube, and a giant sheet of metal provided the rest of the set’s insanity, something akin to Liar’s darker percussive material, but taken a few circles deeper into hell.

The swirling, over-loud, insistent synths of Outer Space sounded like an amped up soundtrack to every late ’80s, early ’90s educational documentary shown to grade schoolers. The oppression returned for Sickness, Chris Goudreau’s noise project. Goudreau also had a neck-affixed contact mic, and shook a couple of objects, but the only sounds that came out were insanely loud, rumbling doom. Flashes of crackling noise burst apart to find deafening silence (which were occasionally filled by a crowd member’s harmonica until Goudreau told him none too politely to “shut the fuck up, please”). The harsh noise was surprisingly subtle, its rhythms and shifting tones entrancing and brain-numbing.

The destruction that preceded it made Bill Orcutt‘s set that much more refreshing, then. The noise rock legend of Harry Pussy fame wandered onstage with a four-string acoustic guitar, his gray hair, loose black t-shirt, and flip-flops suggesting a break from the insanity. After a quick warm up, he shrieked out “Shut the fuck up!” before swimming in sliding acoustic mellowness. The set sounded, at first, like a more scattershot John Fahey, Delta tones all mashed up with furious patches of rapidly picked notes. Orcutt lolled his neck over the guitar’s body, “Grandpa’s lost it” moaning and yelping into the microphone aimed at the guitar’s mic. In the middle of a particularly physical, lush section, he stopped and howled out another “Fuuuuck!” before dropping straight back into the music. Orcutt so well embodies noise music that he can turn an acoustic guitar set into one of the most visceral of the weekend.

The one-two punch night-closing of Oneohtrix Point Never and Pelt was much anticipated, and eequally appreciated. The former’s sterling silver electronics may have been the most hotly awaited set of the night, and Daniel Lopatin delivered in his swirling, shifting mass of song snippets. While many left after he finished, the crowd that stuck around for Pelt’s buoyant, glittering drone were far from disappointed.

Sunday, June 12th

Sunday’s set of artists began with a trio of musicians soundtracking silent films and animations. Robert A.A. Lowe (AKA Lichens) may have turned in the best set of the three, in purely musical terms. While in the past he has focused on acoustic guitars, gongs, and looped vocals (among other things), recently Lowe has been using a modular synth. As circles of various colors warped within each other on the screen, he built a layered groove that sounded vaguely like an eerie “Hall of the Mountain King”, eventually adding multiple layers of vocals careening over the top into an angelic choir. The circles on the screen felt like a long, unending tube, then melting like runny eggs, then bubbling out like spores, then melting into each other altogether. Sam Prekop (a founding member of Sea and Cake), on the other hand, may have best fit the films to which his music was set, though. Robert Breer’s animation short films of rapidly interchanging images (flying fish, hammers floating across the screen, nude women drifting by, and more) were perfectly set to Prekop’s intricate modular synth work. His long, airy tones calmed the manic mood of the visuals, and the jumpy, chipper, video game adventure beeps fit their more exciting moments.

Sam Prekop

The drums/bass/saxophone trio of Mike Forbes, Andrew Scott Young, and Ben Billington (together known as Tiger Hatchery) may not be as experienced in the Chicago free jazz scene as Colligan, Zerang, and Baker, but their set proved to be just as powerful. Thumping drum rolls, furious tenor sax flutterings, and crushing bass rolled through the room like tidal waves.  Whether plaintive and wiry on upright, or eerie and jumpy on the electric, the bass set a serious tone for the rest of the group.  Another local, synth afficianado Beau Wanzer, took the stage next. Wanzer’s simple drum machine patterns were turned up, and his gut-loosening synths droned out pulsing patterns.

Heath Moerland goes by Sick Llama when pushing out massive, churning drones, which is exactly what Moerland did at Neon Marshmallow. His set sounded like a haunted house soundtrack with low winds howling and high synths clanking like heavy chains. Discordant tones from churning synthesizers and mournful clarinet warped their way over the top of everything, demanding attention. Mike Shiflet followed quickly after his drone somehow simultaneously bigger, and less ominous. Falling minor piano samples were washed over by white caps of white noise, all as footage of tree branches, a sepia voltometer, and close-up footage of someone’s palm laid out a calm background.

Telecult Powers made such a big impression in their 2010 Neon Marshmallow appearance that they were invited back for more. Suitcase oscillator synths and candles were scattered around the floor, and a sheet was taped along the venue’s side wall. An Encyclopedia Britannica film about photosynthesis was projected backwards onto the loose, wrinkled sheet as giant, spinning tones unfolded. One of the two musicians stood up halfway through the set, grabbed a nearby crowd member, shook a maracca around him, and covered his eyes after dipping his hand in water, a strange ritual baptism of sorts. The giant, distorted images of ’70s scientists and plant life somehow became creepy and ominous under the mess of oscillating tones.

Pulse Emitter

The huge, new age-y drones of Pulse Emitter sounded like a journey through space, full of glittering, bright synth stars, wobbly orbits, and spaceship hyperdrive punches. The melody-driven world would soon be left behind though, in favor of sheer, opressive harshness, thanks to The Rita. Sam McKinlay’s noise may have been the single loudest thing I’ve ever heard, so loud that it’d be difficult to pin down an adjective to describe exactly how loud it was. Troublingly may be the closest. The rumbling howl made the room seem like it was about to crumble to pieces, my whole body shaking from the mass of it. When individuals describe things as a “wall of sound”, this is exactly what they mean. The whole thing was impenetrable, unmoveable. Some people left the room as quickly as possible, a disgusted frown on their faces, while others eagerly moved as close to the stage as they could, fists pumping. At one point, McKinlay reached for a folding chair to sit in, but the aggressive destruction of the event made me assume he was going to start smashing it against his synthesizers and pedals.

Composer/electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick walked onstage, offering McKinlay a cheery handshake before beginning his setup. 1967′s legendary Silver Apples of the Moon set a new tone for electronic music, combining the experimentality of his contemporaries with an intense focus on rhythm and structure. Subotnick deserved to headline the whole shabang, and the crowd that massed to the stage included many of the weekend’s performers. A low, unidentifiable humming sound caused an over-long sound check, Subotnick holding up his hands and apologizing, asking for just three minutes. The crowd may have been hungering for the rare treat of a Subotnick live set, but they were more than willing to accommodate his request. His set was fluid and pulsing, composed of a handful of separate segments that melted into each other wonderfully. A charming, playful segment at the beginning sounded like a mouse was running along the top of a synthesizer, tripping over whichever key happened to get in his way. Subotnick’s fingers fluttered over his setup, tapping out rhythms and tones across the table as the audience smiled on in wonder.

Morton Subotnick

While other sets subtly used the room’s dimensions, Subotnick charged everything with an intense control, buzzsaw synths spinning from the left of the room around in a circle.  A busy melodic section sounded like it could be played against a ’50s cartoon about busy city life, until sputtering spaceship engine sounds forced things into the Jetsons. Roaring whirs and stomping clacks pounded their way in, adding some atonality to the mix, before heavily percussive melodic lines closed everything out. The warm, glowing applause and smiling faces that looked on as Subotnick stood and bowed were just right, the at times cold and oppressive room suddenly a cheery place. The legend that made room for most, if not all, of the other acts on the bill stood happily, clasped his hands together, and smiled as he looked around at the thoroughly pleased crowd, closing out one weird weekend of music on a conventional note.

Anyhow, in support of the September 28th release of their new album, the LA-based indie duo has announced plans for a lengthy fall tour. The North American joint is divided up into two parts: a previously announced series of dates opening for Pavement in September and then a headlining tour with Lucky Dragons in November and early December. In between, they’ll tour the UK and Europe. Find all the necessary information below.

Along with the tour announcement, No Age has dropped another taste of Everything in Between. You can watch a video teaser for the track “Life Prowler” below.

No Age 2010 Tour Dates:
09/11 – Raleigh, NC @ Hopscotch Festival
09/12 – St. Paul, MN @ Roy Wilkins Auditorium #
09/13 – Chicago, IL @ Jay Pritzker Pavilion #
09/14 – Milwaukee, WI @ Pabst Theatre #
09/15 – Bloomington, IN @ Rhinos Youth Center
09/16 – Columbus, OH @ The LC Pavilion #
09/17 – Washington, DC @ The Black Cat *
09/18 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall Of Williamsburg
09/20 – Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
09/30 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl #
10/04 – Sussex, UK @ Audio
10/05 – Cardiff, UK @ Barfly
10/06 – Norwich, UK @ Art Centre
10/07 – Newcastle, UK @ The Cluny
10/08 – Sheffield, UK @ Rollerpalooza
10/09 – Glasgow, UK @ Stereo
10/10 – Dublin, IE @ Whelans
10/12 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
10/13 – Manchester, UK @ Night And Day
10/14 – London, UK @ XOYO
10/15 – Amsterdam, NL @ Trouw Amsterdam
10/16 – Paris, FR @ Point Ephemere
10/18 – Antwerp, BE @ Trix
10/19 – Kortrijk, BE @ De Kreun
10/23 – Prague, CZ @ Meet Factory
10/25 – Lasaunne, CH @ Le Romandie
10/29 – Turin, IT @ Spazio 211
10/30 – Bologna, IT @ Covo Club
10/31 – Winterthur, CH @ Salzhaus
11/04 – Copenhagen, DK @ Loppen
11/05 – Stockholm, SE @ Debaser
11/06 – Oslo, NO @ Garage
11/07 – ?Aarhus, DK @ Voxhall
11/16 – Cambridge, MA @ Middle East ^
11/17 – Montreal, QC @ La Sala Rossa ^
11/18 – Toronto, ON @ Polish Combatants Hall ^
11/19 – Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick ^
11/20 – Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop ^
11/22 – Madison, WI @ Majestic Theatre ^
11/23 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry ^
11/26 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
11/27 – Vancouver, BC @ The Rickshaw Theatre
11/28 – Portland, OR @ Holocene ^
11/29 – Nampa, ID @ Flying M Coffee ^
11/30 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court ^
12/01 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater ^
12/02 – Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad ^
12/03 – Tempe, AZ @ The Clubhouse ^

# = w/ Pavement
* = w/ Holy Fuck
^ = w/ Lucky Dragons

Now, that’s certainly not to say that I didn’t enjoy my four days at one of Chicago’s best venues; it didn’t help that I was sick, and couldn’t make it out of the house for one of the five shows. But, the array of noise, improv, under-the-radar, generally weird and generally amazing acts covering those five days made my sore throat not feel too bad.

Wednesday, September 9th

Anyway, I arrived at the Empty Bottle on Wednesday sure that it would be an interesting night. Of the four acts, I knew two fairly well, had cursory knowledge of another and had never heard of the fourth (which seemed to be a general pattern for every show). After grabbing a beverage, I trudged over to the stage as cursory-knowledge-act and local electronic noise trio Haptic (which means pertaining to the sense of touch) began their set. The trio of Steven Hess, Joseph Clayton Mills, and Adam Sonderberg lived up to their name, producing heavily layered, dense, textured drones that hung heavily throughout the room. Whether it was pairing cymbal washes with low, rumbling thunder-like sounds or an incredibly long snare roll with a staccato bass that sounded like some far-off, unknown rap beat from a car down the street, the trio were intensely connected and inventive.

As metal statesman Joe Preston took the stage, the many beards and black shirts suddenly seemed about right. Preston’s history seems to call such fashion forward, as he’s a former member of legendary groups including The Melvins, Earth, and High on Fire. (He’s also played with SunnO))) and recorded with Harvey Milk.) With a distinguished gray beard, long black hair surrounding a bald spot, and all black clothes, Preston stood alone with his bass, a laptop sitting on a chair playing all the drum and other parts from his recordings. It was kind of silly to see Preston alone up there, growling and grunting along to pre-recorded instrumentation. And silly, to be sure, isn’t the most desired adjective for metal. Occasionally throwing his vocals through a vocoder, Preston’s impressive chording and shredding sounded and felt a lot like a guitarist but in an ass-kicking low rumble. But, still, the set was definitely weakened by the absence of live drumming. Multiple times the recorded drumming would tear off into an impressive peal of destruction, but it seemed crazy to leave that to a laptop.

Improv/experimental drummer Chris Corsano graced the stage next. Corsano’s pedigree, which includes collaborations with Jandek, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rourke, Paul Flaherty, and C. Spencer Yeh (who would be performing as Burning Star Core a few days later) among many others, is startling. Even more startling is this year’s Another Dull Dawn, an impressive solo release. Yet more startling was Corsano’s solo set. His use of the drum kit is imaginative and inventive; he used a pair of gongs to hit his cymbals, he scraped rubber mallets over the drum. But the most interesting point of the set came later. Corsano held a melodica in one hand, droning one note as he used a violin bow on the rim of his snare drum, matching the tone. He then added harmonizing notes on the melodica, producing an ethereal, warbling chord.

After Corsano finished, blacklights started getting plugged in around the stage. The neon orange, yellow and green posters covering the stage quickly illuminated with an eerie glow. I’d never heard of CAROLINER, but apparently the self-proclaimed “tribute band to the singing bull of the 1800s who had the same name” have been around making their noise-pop-bluegrass fusion for over 25 years. But, nothing could have prepared me for what came walking through the crowd to the stage. Clad in day-glo Aztec-from-the-future costumes, the group could best be described as “really f**king creepy.”  Or maybe “surreal” or both.

One bassist had a helmet that looked like a broken mirror covering a box, while the other looked like a giant insect. The drummer looked like he was wearing a broken lion skull over his head. The synth-player was a giant-headed creepy cowboy and the trumpeteer a strange combination of ram and squid. They looked like Gwar on mushrooms, while the music could best be described as a folksy carnival stuck somewhere between outer space and hell.

Thursday, September 10th

After day one, I was ready for anything. But, day two opener Sharon Van Etten‘s set rolled over the Empty Bottle like a breath of fresh air. Her lush, warm voice, serene guitar work and strong song-writing sounded perfect for a melancholy rainy day. The Brooklynite sounded and looked a lot like Dirty Projectors’ member Angel Deradoorian, but her intensely familiar music was much more straight-forward than Deradoorian’s solo material (Mirah or Cat Power might be more comparable, but Van Etten‘s music was too insular for Mirah). Lines like “The moral of the story is don’t lie to me again” and “Dreams that might come true with you” were just dark enough to keep things from being too saccharine. The excellent “I Fold”, about trying to deal with moving back in with your parents in your 20s, was smart and tightly composed.

Lucky Dragons‘ set was next, and, I have to admit, this was the one I was most looking forward to. After a last-minute decision this winter to drop into the Heaven Gallery for a Lichens/Joe Grimm/Lucky Dragons set, I would have to say my life was changed. Artists Luke Fishbeck and Sarah Rara (who was sadly missing in action this evening) produce world music-inspired, glitch-friendly drones on album, but their live shows are transcendental, one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. Their most notable composition is the sublime Make A Baby, which incorporates instrumentation that had to have sprung from the mind of a genius or two. On this night, it began with Fishbeck at a laptop on the venue‘s floor, manipulating samples into a beautiful, haunting loop. He then grabbed a series of wires with shakers on the end, handing them to audience members. The rattles, when shaken, were put through delay and sounded like rattlesnakes. The echoing shakes paired beautifully with the chiming samples, but Fishbeck’s next two tricks really were the icing on the cake. He began handing rocks to audience members, and showing them how moving them nearer and farther from a strange box he had connected to his laptop would produce fluttering, spacy, changing synth tones. After a while of this, he attached wires to the box, each wrapped in a conductive fabric and ending in a metal prong.

Audience members were chosen to hold each of the wires, and then shown that direct skin contact between the newly-inducted-performers would produce similar spacy sounds. Anyone could come up, place one hand on one performer’s arm and the other on someone else and make a new connection, a new change to the music. And this was all happening while Fishbeck’s samples continued to trill out in beautiful loops. Fishbeck also handed out some small gongs and mallets, before he finally picked up a reverb’ed kalimba and a wired flute, acting like the pied piper of the future of music. This interactive, entrancing music involved the crowd directly and perfectly. Everyone in the room was making this wonderful music together, without any prior experience necessary, without necessarily knowing any of their bandmates. This truly was one of the best performances I’d ever seen.

After a quick set by Norwegian eclectic 90′s devotee Hanne Hukkelberg and another by Andy Moor (guitarist of legendary anarcho-punk-jazz group The Ex) and DJ Rupture, night two was also in the books, and I was ready for another night of wonder and amazement.

Friday, September 11th

Night three began as I walked into the venue to a dark drone from Ju Suk Reet Meat (from the more than 30-year-tenured Portland-via-California noise group Smegma) and Oblivia (a frequent member/collaborator with Smegma). The duo were making a heck of a racket with a sliding guitar-like instrument and a table of noise-making gadgets.

The following act, C. Spencer Yeh (tonight performing solo as Burning Star Core) should be a familiar name to anyone who has filtered through the “experimental/noise” section of their local record store. The Cincinnati noise artist and founder of DroneDisco Records (which releases his own material, but also excellent material from the likes of Hototogisu and Hair Police), Yeh’s masterful violin and noise work swept over the small crowd. The music ranged from droning jazz (with Yeh playing the role that Ron Carter’s cello did) to blissful ambient noise experimentation. The final piece of Yeh’s set started with an unusually normal drum ‘n bass loop with an eventual crescendoing wall of violin drone. Once the loop faded away, the glittering wall remained, haunting and chilled.

After a short, dark and droney set from Montreal experimental metal duo Menace Ruine, the crowd near the stage tripled. No longer was it a place for weird, bearded men and a few ladies; the crowd had suddenly become an exciting, dance-party-ready crowd of well-dressed people. That meant it was time for the eternally serious YACHT to bring their eternally serious party jams. Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans jumped onstage (Bechtolt in a white suit reminiscent of an Evangelical preacher) and immediately commanded the audience’s full attention.

Their set, complete with a powerpoint presentation about where they come from, was full of interesting twists (including a Google Street View of their apartment). The intense “I’m In Love With A Ripper” found Bechtolt swinging his white microphone cord around and dancing like David Byrne fronting the Black Eyed Peas. During a question-and-answer session, someone asked why he wasn’t in The Blow anymore. Bechtolt responded with a politely scathing remark about former bandmate Mikhaela Yvonne Maricich (“the other person in the band isn’t a good person”). They also led the crowd in a sort of YACHT pledge, which ended with a line about not repeating after others, which the crowd wisely didn’t repeat after Bechtolt.

“You guys are a lot smarter than Yeah Yeah Yeahs fans” Bechtolt added, referring to the duo’s current tour with Karen O and company. They played a new song that included the line “blow out your brain, do the Kurt Cobain”. The song that concluded the set, though, garnered a full audience sing-along and the dancing shook the floor more than I’d ever seen at the Empty Bottle. “Psychich City (Voodoo City)”s brilliant wordless chorus and Claire Evans’ confident, strong vocals was easily one of the best moments of the week.

Saturday, September 12th

Saturday evening was the show that I missed. This meant I missed electro-folk group Mountains, psych-garagesters Ty Segall, the self-proclaimed black metal/swing/classical duo OvO, and world folk duo A Hawk and a Hacksaw, which I’m sure I’ll hear later was easily the best night of the five.

Sunday, September 13th

Finally, it was night five. Current “it” band from current “it” label Woodsist, Woods kicked off the night with a generally strong set. The group opened with a long, droney instrumental piece that sounded a lot like a mixture of Tortoise’s tight instrumentation and Pocahaunted’s freak folk aesthetic. The piece had a great, dark forest mysticism to it that carried through most of the set, vocalist/tape and pedal manipulator G. Lucas Crane rocking around on the floor with his trademark headphone-microphone angled over his face. After a while, though, it seemed like they had gotten that piece out of the way so they could get to the songs. Once guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Earl began singing in his falsetto, it sounded more like California psych-rock group Ducktails with a strong Neil Young influence.

Subarachnoid Space came next, their experi-metal noodling filling the room with some of the loudest drumming I’ve ever heard. Wisconsin-via-Phoenix (weirdest band locator ever) singer-songwriter Nika Roza Danilova, aka Zola Jesus, and her gothy, noisy experimental pop played third. By this point, my brain was aching and I needed to go to sleep. I needed to get out of the Empty Bottle and never go back. I needed to go home, take some cold medicine and wrap myself in a blanket. But, as I exited the place, I thanked the lord that the Empty Bottle had stamped my hand with a bunny stamp on the way in. There stood Tortoise member Doug McCombs amongst a group of others eagerly waiting for Zola Jesus’ set to end so they could get a glimpse of Phantom Orchard, the much-admired collaboration between electronic artist Ikue Mori and harpist Zeena Perkins. This convinced me that it was worth another hour. And I’m glad it did; the swirling, beautiful combination of prepared harp (staccato and quick) with Mori’s burbling laptop sounds moved into a lush, stuttering harp movement complete with wonderfully glitch-and-pop electronics.

Photos by Katie Schuering (except Lucky Dragons photos by Ashish Patel)

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