caribou // neumo’s // 29 october 2007
(more caribou and born ruffians photos [flickr])

I wandered into Neumo’s last night thinking that maybe I’d close out the evening with some “fuzzy sixties-inspired gauzy pop”, primarily instrumental with cooing vocals, and with the distinct possibility of being too underwhelmed to stay out until 1 am on a Monday night. Those expectations were utterly destroyed from the moment that Caribou launched their double-drumming sonic assault. Holy! It is really loud to be standing just a few feet away from a pair of drum kits going at each other with a bottomless pit of intensity, bundled in layers of guitars, and illuminated by multicolor staticy projections. And by “loud” I mean “awesome”.

After the first song, a really drunk guy screams “You’re a god, David Snaith!” He repeats this after every single song and maybe he’s right, but maybe he made his point the first time and doesn’t need to insert the “whip it out” (huh?) or Silver Apples comparison, but I guess I see where the intoxicated fellow is coming from. Shoeless at his drum pedals, Snaith does work a certain kind of deitylike magic on his compositions, standing up to grab a guitar, sing and sample some lyrics, wail away at a jazz recorder, manipulate the sound, or hammer away at a xylophone. The night goes through a series of LOUD, a little less loud, building up to more LOUD rhythmic cacophonies, that, if you’re along for the ride, do terminate in the “bliss” that I paired with “pop” in my preconceptions of what I was going to hear. It was just an entirely different, and welcome, variety.

On the topic of the unexpected, I showed up early enough to catch most of Born Ruffians and was more than pleasantly surprised. They played a fast-paced, bouncy, tight, and catchy set and ended up pleading with the sound guy to stay onstage long enough to close with the two songs on their single. Particularly impressive since they haven’t even released an album yet (look for it next year from Warp). For now, check out their cute new video [stereogum] for “Hummingbird”, featuring the guys hanging out in a sparsely appointed party space goofing off while people in odd costume and animated birds hover around them to get a sense of the spirit of the band and their sound.