Oneida has never been a band that fits neatly in any defined genre of music (which seems to have become a genre in itself), but for the few people out there that have become accustomed to their particular brand of somehow consistent mind-bending psycho-rock, this latest offering will come as something of surprise even to their more ardent fans. Don’t get me wrong, The Wedding still offers the same kind of intelligent garage freak outs as their previous success, Secret Wars, only this time with strings.
Before I had heard anything of The Wedding I was lucky enough to attend a more-or-less private performance of a few of the new songs with a string quartet, and afterwards I was dumbfounded, unable to comprehend how a band who on a recent album, hammered my brain to the point of explosion with a 15 minute song of nothing but the same chords being mashed over and over, were now sitting before me singing softly against short and melodic string compositions. But alas, it is true and it is wonderful.
The Wedding is adventurous in a way that only Oneida seems to be these days. It contains pretty string and voice sections on “The Eiger” , soaring guitar solos on “Did I Die” and perhaps the only Oneida song that could ever be likened to a Postal Service song, “High Life”, and yet it all works beautifully together in an experiment just creative and ambitious enough not to piss me off. While it does have its slow points, there’s hardly a moment of dullness. Whether or not you’re familiar with the rest of Oneida’s vast catalog, or even because you are, The Wedding will be one of those albums that isn’t just an interesting listen but a highly repeated listen as well.
by JORDAN CLIFFORD
Labels: Brah Records, Brooklyn, Enemy Hogs, Oneida, The Wedding
(stock picture, not from this show)Show Review:
Comets on Fire/Soldiers Of Fortune/Titan @ The Mighty Robot in Brooklyn
by JORDAN CLIFFORD
It has been my experience that the best rock shows come in a run down apartment-turned-music venue on a rooftop in Brooklyn, and this show was no exception. I arrived too early so I got the pleasure of spending a large part of the early evening laying out on a carpeted rooftop, wondering what the industrial factory across the street makes, as the crazy sounds of Titan started permeating the walls and coming through to the rooftop. I had to make the decision based on the muffled sounds I was hearing whether or not it was worth getting off my fully-reclined ass to check out this unheard of band. I did, and it was worth it. Titan is, to my limited cursory knowledge, an all instrumental rock band made of equal parts progressive musicianship and senseless space rock & roll. If you mix King Crimson and Hella with Tortoise then you’re somewhere in the area of Titan. I was thoroughly impressed, and after making such absurdly ambitious comparisons, that's saying a lot.
Next up was the band I traveled to see in the first place, an almost as unknown new act called Soldiers Of Fortune. This is an underground garage rock super group of sorts, which almost makes it something of an oxymoron, containing members of Oneida, Broke Revue, Oakley Hall and many others that I’m not even sure of. The first time I saw them play was at a late-late night show at Tonic in NYC where they pretty much just jammed their hearts out as an instrumental rock band... and they kicked MAJOR ass, ooh boy. Now they're a little bit older, a little bit wiser, probably more practiced, and prepared with lyrics and matching camouflage t-shirts to go with their “Soldier” style, which I had a good laugh at. They still rock just as hard, but I am partial to instrumental rock bands, as they are so rare. I talked briefly with drummer Kid Millions (also of Oneida) and he informed me that a lot of the songs were covers... all the same, keep your eye out for this amazing new rock monster because they will be recording on Oneida’s new Brah Records in the near future and I predict* they will be the new “it” band in the ever popular Brooklyn noise-rock scene, if you know what I mean.
Speaking of noise-rock, speaking of rock monster, speaking of amazing, on came Comets On Fire who had just played the night before at the more popular Bowery Ballroom in New York with ultra-noise band Sightings. While the sound and space might have been better suited in a larger more technologically advanced venue, the new Mighty Robot space was just fine for me, ears bleeding or not. I'm sure they had plenty of cotton swabs ready should anyone not want it dripping onto their shirt. Comets On Fire tore the place apart and you might even say the roof (that we were standing on) was on “Fire” (cause that’s their name too... get it?). I’m not fully versed with their entire canon, but you don’t really need to be because they put on a helluva show. All the songs melted into my head as one omelette of rock, and that’s all I really ask for out of a rock show or breakfast.
check out enemyhogs.com, brahrecords.com, or jagjaguwar.com, or at least links therein.
cometsonfire.com.
*my predictions have been notoriously wrong ("XFL will replace the NFL altogether").
Labels: Brah Records, Brooklyn, Comets On Fire, Jagjaguwar, Kid Millions, Oakley Hall, Oneida, Soldiers of Fortune, The Mighty Robot, Titan, Tonic NYC
