February 21, 2017

R. Carlos Nakai Quartet at Mesa Arts Center

R. Carlos Nakai is my spirit animal
    “Get your arthritis out,” R. Carlos Nakai said, shaking out his arms, before his Quartet took the stage of the Piper Repertory Theater at the Mesa Arts Center last Sunday. “Some of this you can move to.” The R. Carlos Nakai Quartet played songs off their latest album, What Lies Beyond, released on Canyon Records in Arizona.
   Nakai is perhaps the greatest Native American flautist to ever walk the earth. Born in Flagstaff, Arizona to Navajo/Ute heritage, the musician has had a long career finding the rhythms of the wind. He has a number of solo releases and collaborations, but recently has been involved with the R. Carlos Nakai Quartet made up of Nakai, bassist Johnny Walker, drummer Will Clipman and instrumentalist AmoChip Dabney.
Dabney, Walker, Nakai and Clipman. Photo from MAC.
   For the opening number Clipman sat center stage holding a wide vase-shaped drum in his lap. He tapped on it with his fingers making a light hollowed-out beat while the band slid into the rhythm. “Eel Valley,” the next song, Nakai explained, was about the large birds of Hawaii where they spend their time when off tour. “On Sunlit Wings,” written by Walker during a trip to Egypt, was like the sun dawning over the Pyramids. Each note held an appreciation for life.
   Dabney, with long tumbling dreadlocks, took his place behind a two-keyboard setup. Throughout the performance he’d also pick up a saxophone or an acoustic guitar. Johnny Walker stood strong and steady on bass. In addition to a stacked drumset, Clipman also used a number of different drums, noisemakers and shakers.
   Nakai dressed in a green, red and purple patterned dress shirt stood to the right next to a table of flutes, all different lengths and widths. Around his neck hung a bird whistle. When Nakai plays his cheeks puff out and in like a little warbler bird. When he’s not playing the flute, Nakai lets loose in a hoppy swivel moving like a wet noodle hanging from the spaghetti bowl.
    To introduce “Kathmandu This” Clipman told a story of touring in Morocco and meeting indigenous drummers who played the traditional tar or bendir drum. The head of the drum Clipman had was about two feet in diameter and had an almost electric sound to it, a ringing reverberation and buzzing tones. The drum tumbled loudly with the bass like they were rolling in the mud. Together they created a drone that filled the auditorium. Then, Dabney dropped in on the saxophone and time bent in half. Each musician circled around each other like alternating wind currents trapped in a valley.
   “Fiddy Fo,’” Dabney explained, was written in honor of the great American jazz composer Dave Brubek and his 5/4 time signature. It featured great interplay between the sax and the flute. Each musician played in a different overlapping time signature with Clipman as the  constant barometer. “CafĂ© du Monde” was a piece of French Quarter funk that hit like a strong cup of coffee.
   On stage Nakai exhibits the spiritual calm that his music creates. During the final song he did the “wallaby dance,” a move he created during an improvisation session in Colorado. He bounced around with a goofy grin, his butt stuck out and the bird whistle swinging around his neck.
    The encore brought the party funk. Dabney got it going with the catchy refrain, “The party ain’t stopping ‘til the speaker’s blown,” and then tried his best to comply. After the band picked up speed he grabbed his sax and let loose on each wing of the stage. He ran over stage right to match the rhythm of a grey-haired lady who was dancing with her shoulders swinging left to right at the tip of the stage. Then, without showing fatigue, Dabney leapt back to his post to play the saxophone and the bassoon at the same time. His lungs created tones no average human could make and everyone was on their feet letting their applause show their joy.

source: http://imp

February 02, 2017

Code Orange / Youth Code / GATECREEPER at the Nile Theater

     The streets above ground were calm and quiet in downtown Mesa last Sunday night. Down below, though, beneath the pavement and piping, in the Nile Theater’s underground basement venue, the guttural rumble of GATECREEPER shook the upper level. The crowd was packed, pushed wall to wall by the mosh-pit void that had opened. The people moved around it like particles pulled by the gravity of a black hole.
     The metal band from Arizona started off the night with a sharp set of songs mostly from their debut album, Sonoran Depravationreleased last year on Relapse. Singer Chase H. Mason, with the black and white GATECREEPER flag behind him, stalked the stage, crutched by his microphone stand. Something jumps inside him and dies before a performance and the fumes of death rise up and spew from his esophagus. He was flanked by the rest of the band and their drone metal gnashing came like solar bursts to earth. Their last song, “Patriarchal Grip,” started with its spellbinding lull and ended with a hammer to the head.
Youth Code performing at the Nile Theater. Photos by Eli Jace.
     The second act, Youth Code, out of Los Angeles, arrived without guitar. Only a tabletop of pedals, controlled by Ryan George, were set up with Sara Taylor desecrating the mic. Their sound is a ferocious mix of Nine Inch Nails industrial scuzz and jacked up, panicked death metal. Commitment to Complication, their second full-length, was released last year.
     Their set started with a deep bass pulse and then Taylor took over. She explodes as a frontwoman. She tosses her body to the ground, her white hair whipping around. When the distortion gurgled to the surface in loud roars she’d bend down and throw a few fists to the floor.
     Apparently the teetering crowd was in a trance and didn’t know how to react. She kept shouting for everyone to dance or at least show some life. At one point during a mechanical breakdown, she thanked George for letting her scream about her problems. Whatever those problems are Youth Code make a good case for their audio equivalent.
     It was clear a majority in attendance were there for Code Orange. Even George couldn’t tamp down his excitement to see them when Taylor brought it up. The Pittsburgh group is one of the new growing warts of hardcore. Their sewer-scorching third album, Forever, was released last month on Roadrunner Records.
Code Orange performing at the Nile Theater. Photos by Eli Jace.
     Front and center I was ready for the beat down. The stage for the Nile Underground is about two feet high. Shin-level. A constant tripping hazard when the people behind you move like they’re on bath salts. Eric Balderose and Reba Meyers, on guitar, and drummer Jami Morgan all claim vocal duties, but it wasn’t always easy to tell where the carnal yells were coming from. Each lasting scream dissolved in the dark. In addition, two different vocalists jumped up from nowhere for a song each.
     Their set was stuffed with new songs. “The Mud” with its tar-melting interlude halfway through brought an eerie calm to the basement for a moment that did not last long. The slow-crushing brutality of the album’s title track sideswiped everyone.
     Joe Goldman, on bass, took up the middle of the stage looking like an outcast Street Fighter character. His presence was alarming. He threw hook-armed fists into the air, spin-kicked and left no distance between the front row. Before songs he’d lift servants up by the shirt collar and scream in their faces to get up. Miraculously I avoided the bent end of his guitar colliding with my head. 
     The Nile put on a great line-up this night. GATECREEPER, Youth Code and Code Orange, three ripening groups that each attack metal and hardcore from three different angles.

source: http://imp