Isis with Dalek and Zombi - Avalon (New York) - Thursday, May 4, 2006

by Ari Abramowitz
8 May 2006

I like the way this show was set up: three bands playing three different kinds of music in three tweaked-out ways, with each band’s fans potentially overlapping just enough to make it cohere as an event—almost.

With that said, openers ZOMBI set the mood with a short, currently-unusual set of ‘70s/’80s-style prog-fusion horror-movie instrumentals (their name is taken from the Italian title of GEORGE ROMERO’s all-time genre classic, Dawn of the Dead from 1978). TANGERINE DREAM and KLAUS SCHULZ’s mid-late ‘70s stuff are clear touchstones, but the band’s admitted idols are GOBLIN, the Italian 1970s/80s prog-fusion horror-movie soundtrack instrumentalists. Their soundtrack to Zombi is considered one of their glories.

The music of Zombi, the band, is built largely upon synthesizers. One member might set up some undulating arpeggios in a high frequency on one synth, another some subharmonic bass, while a third contributes unseen swooshes of malevolent ephemerality haunting about. Think back to the soundtracks to Chariots of Fire, Beverly Hills Cop, and maybe Miami Vice, but in a minor-key, more moody and ominous—and with live drums. The effect is not so far from some of the more repetition-based ‘minimalist’ pieces of TERRY RILEY or PHILIP GLASS. Then the drums come in (bonus points for having a bunch of roto-toms in the kit. You don’t see those much any more). The result is propulsive and repetitive, but in a jazz-rock-funk-fusion sense more than in a techno-house sense. It’s a little groovier, a little trickier, a little sleazier, and has more fills. All in all, this is more than decent music, although it could have used a more engaging stage performance from the band. Perhaps something as simple as adding a full-time bass player would help. At 30-40 minutes, the set-time was just about perfect.

DALEK seemed to be an interesting prospect in the second slot. They’re a dark, weird, “ill” hip hop duo on FAITH NO MORE/MR. BUNGLE/FANTOMAS’ MIKE PATTON’s Ipecac label. Dalek’s sound: lots of uneasy space, lots of noise, and off-center. I was curious to see how the dementedness would play live, how the beats would slam in Avalon’s space, and what kind of atmosphere they would conjure. Dementedness: just regular two dudes (from Jersey, I think), even a little on the portly side. Beats: the abrasive aspects came through loud and clear from where I was standing, but less so the nuances of the drum programming and the dynamics. Atmosphere: again, it’s just two dudes, one holding onto a mic, one typing away on a sampler. Sadly, neither had much stage presence – in a word, underwhelming.

When you only have only two people on stage, with no visceral instruments, you gotta work extra hard or be extra weird to keep an audience engaged. PUBLIC ENEMY came up with its own frenetic floor show, a revelation, but also an exception. Heck, I saw the SUGAR HILL GANG keep a Texas crowd of 400-500 people on the dance floor for over an hour by simply busting their butts and getting everyone involved. Other successful performers have come up with their own things, whether it’s visual props or sheer force of personality. Some artists’ skills are more focused on creating interesting sounds. What I’m saying is, I like to hear risks and experimentation in hip hop music, but when it comes to performing live, you must find a way to engage the audience. Dalek did not, and their show suffered from it, despite their obvious prowess in the studio.

Which laid down the mat for ISIS. It seemed impossible when I arrived an hour-and-a-half earlier, but the event was sold out. By now, there was little question. Isis has as good of a claim as anyone to being the most influential band in the current, heavy-indie scene. They have not only reconceived hardcore as trance music, but they have also emphasized and articulated the metallic essence of much of indie-based post-rock. They pulled people together from the very heavy and very indie worlds in ways that even a superior band, such as NEUROSIS, or a more limited band, such as MOGWAI, had not done.

At their most powerful, Isis can simultaneously channel all of the strength and intensity of metal or hardcore with the sense of the openness and freedom of post-rock without really being either. Rather than offering up the spazzy or frenzied energy of much progressive metal-core, the abrasive or industrial oppression of certain heavy forerunners, or the amorphous diffuseness of much current post-rock, Isis generates a searingly focused, directed, concentrated column of power. When it works, the band exudes meltdown energy in a very simply-structured space. To watch three guitarists and a keyboardist surging and rising in place while standing stride-legged while the drummer smacks away on the riser is to see a sight and to experience a force. When it doesn’t work, the band inches a few shades too close to being a shoegaze band. The members begin to meander about the stage for a spell. Texture claims too much of the balance from structure, drive slows, direction becomes uncertain, melodies diffuse, rhythms dissipate, dynamics suffer, energy drops.

Unfortunately, this energy-drop happened more than a few times during the show. In my unscientific analysis, 80-85% of the show felt like it was played with purpose, with drive, with intensity. That leaves 15-20% of the show that felt like they weren’t feeling it.

In Isis’ music, space is not only welcome, it’s necessary. But it must remain relegated as only one element of a larger cosmic composition rather than be given its own stage. For Isis, and for most rock artists, space doesn’t work well as an end in and of itself. It works better as a device to set-up the next crescendo of tension. And that crescendo of tension, in turn, works best as a device to unleash the next big release, the rush, the catharsis. This is all about energy. It’s timeless. Building tension without release can be stimulating in certain settings but I usually find it to be irritating. In a similar way, space without tension can be relaxing in certain settings, but more often I would call it boring.

Fortunately, Isis is not yet boring. Not by a long shot. But it’s an occupational hazard that sits perched on the horizon. Its gaze first started peeking-in through their generally excellent last album, 2004’s Panopticon, and peered down intermittently during this show (TOOL and THE MARS VOLTA are courting similar demons in their most recent releases). Isis’ mature form has been clear since 2002’s stunning Oceanic , so maybe their moments of meandering are more of an expression of “what should we do for an encore now that we’ve said most of what we want to say?” The band clearly and understandably doesn’t want to paint itself into a metal cage. So they are emphasizing their post-rock elements and clean vocals. That’s fine. But if the next steps are into increasingly ambient spaces, it might be helpful to give those steps clear direction before they start to drift.

Filed under post-rock prog