Friday, August 8, 2008

Barn Owl @ Hokos w/ Aerosol Constellations, Orlando Magic, ahna & V. Vecker

Excellent night of West Coast drooooone took place at Hoko's earlier this week. If you missed it, here's a quick recap.

Aerosol Constellations
Aerosol Constellations is the space-dream-drone unit formed by the drummer of Shearing Pinx and the drummer from Stamina Mantis. Seems ironic that beatless music is what you get when you throw two drummers into a room and let 'em have it with an array of pedals and electronics. Great, short set of tense dronescapes from these Fake Jazz regulars. Buy some of their merch next time you see 'em, as they always have a ton of great looking/sounding CDRs fer sale.

Orlando Magic
Orlando Magic were a last minute add to the bill, and, admittedly, stuck out a bit on this all-drone bill. That being said, the kids came to crush. A ten-minute set of tightly wound no-wave instruMENTAL took the mostly laid back crowd back a bit, but sounded pretty darn good to these ears. Couple more shows under their belt, and these fellers oughta be on to something.


ahna
ahna, apparently, is a rotating cast of musicians all hell bent on drone-improv. The only member I recognized was the violinist from i/i, Anju. Their set was particularly satisfying, as their lean on drone tended to be a lot more grating than most of the acts on the bill, which I definitely dig. Don't get me wrong, I love me some transcendental drone, but my pain hungry ears appreciate the harsher side of things just a bit more. Anju's violin was an electrified grind on the ears and was the captivating force in ahna. I recommend checking 'em out soon...

V. Vecker
V. Vecker, whom I have written about numerous times in this here blog, played the highlight set of the night. Justin from Mutators/Emergency Room infamy seems to be a permanent addition to V. Vecker, and his presence is quite welcome. Keith, the guitarist (duh), brought out his two huge, loud Sunn stacks and began to pummel the room with his punk rock version of Sunn O))) riffage. Justin then ran a contact mic along his drums, which picked up the vibrations sent out from the amps and turned it into a harsh, static noise, that was then fired into the crowd. After an intense build up, Justin grabbed his sticks and pounded along with Keith. This is my fourth time seeing V.Vecker and I highly recommend them to anyone even vaguely interested in seeing one of the most innovative noise/drone/whatever bands in the city.

Barn Owl
Barn Owl came all the way up from San Francisco to drop some serious drone science on Vancouver. The two laid back fellers, complete with California Cool, were all business on stage, and set up a mesmerizing set of slowly shifting drone that washed over the crowd. Well, at least the part of the crowd paying attention. It seems that word got out that there was a show at Hoko's, and just before the band went on, some people who maybe thought Barn Owl were a rock band or something, showed up and filled the room with chatter, which became difficult to filter out during Barn Owl's quieter moments. So a special note/fuck you goes out to the kids making the scene that night: Maybe do a quick myspace listen before leaving the house, especially if your only intent is to go out to a loud rock show with some friends and get fucked up at Hoko's. Nonetheless, I'm sure that the promoter, Kris, appreciates your patronage. Hopefully, after losing a bit of money on the Grouper show, he recouped some cash. Got some extra copies of the Barn Owl LP on Not Not Fun for those that didn't cop one at the show.

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