Aural just reminded me that my life is not complete until I remember here the shows I saw last week. I had been looking forward to them for a while.

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE/GANG GANG DANCE/AIDS WOLF@ La Sala Rossa 11/10:
AIDS Wolf are a local spazzy art noize band that somehow seem to just exude good with very little effort. The same is true of their screenprinting talents as Serigraphe Populaire. Their set was really good.

Gang Gang Dance, who replaced Black Dice on this tour, were interesting. I'd never heard anything like that, I guess, but was certainly very familiar with the influences they've drawn in. It's very distinctly equal parts of dub, middle eastern, Medulla, hippie groove, and experimental electronics. I liked certain parts of their set, when they'd lock into some serious momentum. I thought the drummer was excellent, and the fluidity of the material to be endearing; the singer, however, while I appreciated the self-processing of her voice, kind of blanketed the whole thing in flat nonsense. And that was the bottom line of their set.

Animal Collective were really amazing the more I think about it: such an aweful collision of melody and dissonance, minimal arrangements and maximal sound. The band was Avey Tare, Panda Bear and two other dudes, one on guitar and the other processing some other sounds. The fluidity of the set and its ambience (both of the room and the music) made this an entirely enrapturing performance. Material from Sung Tongs was almost wholly avoided, but not at all to a fault. What they have accomplished in the studio, particularly with it, is nearly insurmountable, so to try and replicate it in any way onstage would be a labourious failure, I expect. That said, there were moments at which I questioned the performance like I would a laptop performance but ... the energy was there and it was beautiful and brutal.

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE/DEVENDRA BANHART @ La Sala Rossa 11/11:
I had been looking forward to Six Organs of Admittance since the summer, when I first started listening to him (Ben Chasny). I can almost conceive of nothing better than the idea of droney acoustic doom folk. It's so ... metal. His performance was technically as proficient as any great guitarist - comparable to Fahey or, almost, Kottke - but with an allowance of much more space for it to breathe, for ambience to creep in. Admittedly, his manner and speech on stage were affected - not so sincere - but I was no less mesmerized. Had the set been longer and thusly less constricted, Chasny could've done some serious damage. The acoustic feedback piece that he concluded with produced some of the most beautifully harsh tones I've heard.

Devendra Banhart and band showed some promise early on with somewhat fresh interpretations of Rejoice ... and other songs. Devendra's voice sounded incredible and his band provided some complimentary harmonization, and more or less generic instrumentation. The whole hippie vibe was almost believable, with the kisses and the hugs and the I love yous and the be kinds. But just because you're heady doesn't mean that you can play reggae and incite free-dancing. There was some seriously trite shit coming out of those guys, and while some of the crowd was really surrendering to the flow, it was very amusing to watch hippyphobic indie kids recoil in horror at their star venue being overcome by, shock, dancing. Devendra really ought to focus his performance on his own voice and playing, pare down the listless accompaniment, and be less of a wooky.

Do Make Say Think rule so hard.