At the Visual Arts Collective on Friday night, Churchmouse and Adam Nordell from Montana played acoustic, followed by A Seasonal Disguise’s clustered big band. It was a quiet show that invited its audience in, with two touring bands accomplishing a great deal with perfect minimalism and A Seasonal Disguise finishing the night in a swift bang.
Adam Nordell opened up the night with lyrically driven music. It was They Might Be Giants executed by John Denver, while adding a twinge of Americana with Appalachian arpeggios. Nordell’s simple rhythms on acoustic guitar were his platform for storytelling ballads. He put humor and a dash of playfulness in beautifully bashful tales sung in slight nasally delivery to make his tenor smoothness even more captivating. His voice rang out clearly so to overwhelm us with every word in rich folk tradition as he stomped cowboy boots in distinct horse-shoe-clipping dance-pattern. Nordell journeyed from political subject matter to memories of home and old loves long gone, sketching out his own ideal picture of America.
While Churchmouse uses a similar setup of voice and acoustic guitar, he took that in a completely different direction from Nordell. Reverb in the mic buzzed his verse to add disjointed, somber emotion instead of crisp clarity. He shone there onstage, glowing into deep, longing, gravelly vocals mixed with steady finger-picking, sounding ultimately like he came from the sea or a far-away land. The few words that were easy to grab onto were deep pinpricks into skin, “Death to me will always be in the setting sun.” Those verses harder to catch added to Churchmouse’s highly textured landscape and gorgeous, somber hum. With sharp skill, he wholly opened up everything he was, using small effects to resonate the power of one. Though some of us waited in anticipation for a build from low depth to peaked variation, his moonlight lullabies were forever enchanting.
The climactic variation made itself known in A Seasonal Disguise. The witty bunch of rag-tag artists grabbed at the stage cluttered with instruments. They are big and adorable in sound and energy, always reaching for more, while having obvious fun as they play. Ever a refreshing sight. Jokes between songs are by themselves a convincing draw to join these Parisian-style indie-punkers for an evening. Hearing exciting vocal arrangements in John Lennon pitch and seeing them move between accordions, chimes, bass, drums, guitars, keys, oboes and xylophones will keep you locked in. In Flamenco-clicking-patterned-sets of jumbled orchestration, A Seasonal Disguise is a constant delight.
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