Nudge + Lotus Plaza

It's a genuine coup for Pulse Data (one of the finest live promoters in the whole Triveneto area) to have hosted this show at La Mela di Newton, a newborn venue in the heart of downtown Padua, on Tuesday 17 November 2009. A double bill entirely on Kranky, split between Lotus Plaza, the project of Deerhunter guitarist Deerhunter, Lockett Pundt, and Nudge, reduced to the duo of Foote and Dickow (without Honey Owens).

Pundt opens the show with a free-form ambient improvisation on electric guitar, transfigured by electronic devices. Soft watercolors (well supported by the backdrop visuals), galactic Fahey-esque glissandos, visionary chords, gradually build into an overwhelming crescendo that shatters the barriers of perception. Without a break, Pundt slips in the joyful beat of "Quicksand", taken from his debut album as Lotus Plaza, "The Floodlight Collective", before mutating it into a stream of fantastical, unreleased variations. His personal brand of shoegaze-pop conjures the mischievous ambiguity of a Bacharach who's ended up orchestrating the wall-of-sound of Ride instead of Phil Spector's classic version.

The guitarist is also a craftsman of mixers, drum machines and electronic distortion units, a possibly more playful Panda Bear, engaged in deconstructions, sonic refractions, sixties-tinged harmonic accents and techno-dub beats. His drug, his psychedelia, carries the poetic charm of the suburban imagery of childlike monsters straight out of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Nudge's set, on the other hand, is a genuine exercise in research, modelling and ultradimensional transformation of sound, one of the most significant of recent years. Once placed in a live context, their sonic disorientation benefits from an even stronger sense of musical freedom. Through "Harmo", "Verdantique" (the peak of the evening), "Dawn Comes Light", all taken from their latest album "As Good As Gone", and reworkings of material from "Cached", the pair take on the role of researchers, sculptors, and even new high priests of sound.

But their sculptures materialize as if endowed with a life of their own, going beyond even the now-traditional multimedia performance, aided by electronic pads, sparse touches of dub, monastic chanting with indecipherable vocals reminiscent of Karl Hynde, but above all wrapped in a phenomenal mystical trance, irregular pulsations and cacophonous sheets of sound. In this way, even the traditional enjoyment of rock and listening-electronica genres and subgenres becomes a secondary matter, such is the cohesion of the blend, and so striking is the presentation of rhythmic embroidery and the spatial navigations of electromagnetic timbres.

A perfect snapshot, captured and framed in a single evening, of the state of avant-garde rock, viewed through the particular but more than emblematic lens of the ever-infallible Kranky, for under 5 euros. Excellent and encouraging turnout. The "Mela" venue is ideal for this: modest in size, but certainly sufficient, and perhaps necessary, to host live ecosystems of such crucial perception. One to remember.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google