Rollerball + Ovo

Two seemingly unrelated bands, different genres, opposite sensations. Rollerball and OvO. The former lean toward a guitar-driven free jazz with electronic touches and psychedelic winks. The latter, an Italian duo devoted to a devastating noise-(industrial)-rock, with an out-of-the-ordinary sonic power. The catalogue also includes a collaboration (eagerly snapped up). On the surface, everything seems different, as if it were some kind of joke to see them play together. Yet gathered together to sell their records, they come across as a single, indivisible collective. Perfect.

OvO are two guys who seem, on the surface, calm, even pleasant and mild-mannered to anyone who doesn't know. But watching them reappear on stage gives the real sense of what they're capable of. Dressed in horror-movie garb: a torn purple dress and a mask like some nocturnal bogeyman for her, a brown friar's tunic and a flogger's mask for him. The duo merges as if the sound were coming from a single body. Hammering drum grooves, scraping, near-lacerating guitar chords. That guitar tortured, abused, destroyed, whipped with a violence you'd never expect from a girl. The oddly shaped pick (very large, triangular) is used every which way, edge-on, sideways, whatever it takes to draw out disturbing sounds. Her hair (absurdly long) becomes an instrument in itself, producing sounds that are alien, alienating, alienated. The drums surrender beneath his hands, the drumming is flawless, crystalline, thunderous, destructive. Throughout the whole show he prowls around the venue like an executioner stalking his prey, wielding his weapons. Spreading the rhythm everywhere. Beyond the reach of the senses. He moves, staggers, breaks the rhythm, stitches it back together, destroys it, reassembles it. He looks like an avenger before his sacrificial altar, ready to deliver the final blow to the chosen one (us). The voice. Singing? Hardly, that's stuff for cheap rock bands. She vomits, retches, screams, screeches, she doesn't sing. The "sounds" that come out of that mouth make love with everything else, walking arm in arm like two lovers.

The opening tracks lean toward a purely noise-(hardcore)-rock rhythm bent on breaking the sound barrier. The final ones come across as disturbing, almost unlistenable in their sheer noisiness. What can you say? Guitar battered by drumstick blows, with sonic regurgitation spreading through the whole room. Violin "played" and electronically treated to shatter our senses, carrying them off into the world of white noise, perfect, to be loved. The masks come off, and the same guys from before are back. OvO are not them. An explosive performance. Superb.

Next up are a band called Rollerball. From Portland. Vaguely heard a few years back. Cold impression.

A relatively "large" lineup. Five guys, a sea of instruments. Trumpet, two saxophones, drums, keyboards of various kinds, guitar, drums, electronics. Their music comes across as rougher and more solid live than on record (where it's rarefied and fragmented). Spasmodic horn bursts, guitar that's sometimes ethereal, sometimes disturbing, interwoven keyboards, glitch dust, assorted objects. A collective of excellent musicians. They move from an immediately gripping track, with the horns swelling the structure and a shifting 4/4 drumbeat, the surrounding details giving the first pieces a crystalline beauty. Experimental digressions toward the end of the set, drum machine struck with almost angelic delicacy, guitar barely grazed, divine trumpet undertones, keyboard(s) as light as a dry autumn leaf. The band's central figure remains the singer/trumpeter. Slight, tall, staring into the void, schizophrenia. He writhes, following the ghosts inside himself. Never stopping. His horn phrasing is worth remembering: grumbles, huffs, broken and shattered sounds. Enigmatic.

Music for lost souls seeking redemption, love, affection. Music for carefree beings, in need of something to believe in. The certainty that at the end of a concert like this you'll be happy. As I was, right after walking out.

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