nothin State House Moves In Sound Direction | New Haven Independent

State House Moves In Sound Direction

Allison Hadley Photos

Christensen.

It is rare that a concert takes so much time to meditate on its most fundamental element: sound. The triple billing of Stefan Christensen, Weeping Bong Band, and Nathan Bowles Trio all deliberately stayed beyond the paradigm of song and instead lingered in a prolonged meditation of sound itself, and how sound, when extended and distorted, can be all that one needs.

Friday at the State House was semi-packed with intrepid rain-bravers, bopping slightly to the impeccable international psych beats of DJ Reach, who took the room to many corners, keys, and time signatures of the world and did the work to open the door of examining our relationship with music and sound. Christensen took the stage next, sitting dead center in front of a small array of pedals and synthesizers and one monolithic tape deck, casually chewing gum as he started to perform. The room throbbed — each layer to his song was a wall of sound, arresting attention and requiring unpacking of its density to understand the elements at play. Laying frenetic snare and distorted guitar on top of this, Christensen seemed almost perplexed, as if the song were happening to him, as opposed to being an item of his creation. But who can know?

Weeping Bong Band.

After the solidity of Christensen’s set, the Weeping Bong Band — Anthony Pasquarosa, Clark Griffin, Wednesday Knudsen, and PG Six — let the room breathe, easing the room into an ethereal flute duet and into a delicate dialogue among the four musicians, all of whom changed instruments at some point during their single-song set. Listening felt like being on a far-off tropical island, with gentle waves of sound rolling in, never rushed, but never slowed either: the end of the musicians’ set felt like the last exhale of a collective breathing exercise, leaving the room refreshed. Delicate repetitive fingerpicked riffs spun a thin web across the room, alternately weaving a close harmony or creating a stable note for someone else to play with on stage; all four musicians were consumed by very mindful song building on stage, like a sonic soufflé, airy and delightful.

Bowles.

Finally, Nathan Bowles Trio — Bowles, Casey Toll, and Rex McMurry — took the stage, starting with Bowles sitting solo and playing a deeply meditative raga, finding, through repetition, a new sort of melody that kept the attention of the room with almost no effort. This final meditation on sound seemed to dialogue with the two prior acts, as Bowles’s wall of sound was composed of delicate, repetitive riffs and three distinct instrumental voices. Though playing a very beautiful looking, very traditional five string banjo, Bowles found new ways to interact with the instrument, at time drumming on the head or using a bow to tease new sounds from an instrument that signifies history to so many.

I’m never thinking how I’m going to balance tradition with whatever, because all the elements of music are traditional to me — because they’re all part of what I think of as folk culture,” said Bowles, musing on the intersection of tradition and innovation.

And he thinks of the banjo differently than most: I don’t have a guitar background — I didn’t approach playing from that way. I have years of piano background — I thought of the fretboard like a piano.” This interpretation of banjo from a nontraditional space resonated through: the addition of pulsing, intricate drums and warbling bass lines elevated the timbre of the banjo in a way rarely heard on the instrument, sometimes feeling strident and sometime feeling sweet in its repetitive yet alchemic riffs. The crowd pressed forward for the trio, drawn by the drums and the tight communication, each song ending with a slight uptick of Bowles’ foot. The trio was the only act to have definitive beginnings and ends to songs, but the sounds stretched far beyond any borders there might have been.

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