Artist: Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid
Venue: Mercury Lounge, NYC, NY
Date: April 1, 2006
Considering the lackluster performance of Kieran (Four Tet) last year, I was a little bit nervous about seeing him again, albeit in a duo-performance with great jazz drummer Steve Reid. I didn’t even buy tickets beforehand, deciding to go only at the last moment. I’m glad now they didn’t sell out, because it was a fantastic show. All the little things that bothered me about Four Tet’s solo show (like how he just went apeshit with his analog controls, and played only songs from his newest (and shittiest) album) disappeared here due to the back-and-forth between Hebden and Reid. They were good foils for each other, Kieran somewhat restrained to not overwhelm Reid’s drumming, Reid being sure to allow Kieran his moments of analog craziness. As you can kind of make out in my blurry photos of him, Reid was one cool mother, and he was really into the show. Kieren looked like his own goofy self, and he was also clearly enjoying himself. They played tracks similar to the album, but where the album is kind of rough on the ears with its epic 15 minute tracks of clicks and clacks, seeing it performed live completely changed the experience. There was a very lively conversation happening between the two musicians, and the tightness of the venue (my first time at the Mercury Lounge to see a performance) made the audience feel like a part of it too. I in particular had a great time, because I met two others who were big fans of music in general, and electronic music in particular (one of them is something like ‘the media officer’ for an electronic music festival that’ll take place in Norway this summer, and she’s currently doing her degree in ‘ethnomusicology’ at Columbia).
BTW the openers were Koushik, who was just a DJ spinning some decent tracks, and a guy named Tyondai Braxton. I should probably say a few words about him. His music was basically just solid walls of distortion, with an occasionaly guitar riff in there. It was mildly interesting as a musical experiment, but utterly intolerable on the ears. Plus he had sort of a cocky-aura about him, which made the music that much more painful to listen to.
[…] to continue playing. Tyondai Braxton, who I’d seen before do some of his solo work (and been not particularly impressed by it), was in his element here, and I was shocked to find out that all the vocals on the album were not […]
Specious Logic » Blog Archive » Concert Review: Battles
February 10th, 2008