Seeing Talkdemonic play at Mississippi Studios gave me my first chance to visit the venue, which has had a lot of buzz around it after making a move to a bigger space and revamping their image in the aftermath of a tough legal battle. Despite many past setbacks, this has got to be one of the best places in Portland to see live music.
The venue has a capacity of 300, a great improvement from its previous limit of 85 and it has a very warm, cozy feeling within its tidy walls. Clearly, the owners have put a lot of work into the space to make it look and feel as inviting as possible.
DEELAY CEELAY opened up the show with their traditional brand of ambient, upbeat electronics. Drummers Delaney Kelly and Chris Lael Larson provide their audience with a complete package of stunning visuals and overwhelmingly moving music, managing to pull off both without neglecting the balance that must be present for a good live show.
Their original music—ethereal electronics mixed with some of the most spot-on drumming in town—is toe-tappable and thought-provoking, mixed with a sense of urgency as they soar into heart-stopping crescendos and plummet down into heavy bass and drum beats. Their stage theatrics are just as riveting. Both Kelly and Larson look as though they’re in a trance as they throw their bodies around at their drums, and the non-verbal connection they seem to share as they play cannot be denied.
DEELAY CEELAY were followed by the much darker, more avant-garde sounding Church, who are hot on the heels of their recently released album, Song Force Crystal. That night, the band consisted of Cristof Hendrickson on keyboards, Brandon Laws on guitar and his brother Richard Laws hopping around the stage barefoot, playing a multitude of electronic instruments, with the brothers sharing vocal duties. The trio usually includes a forth member, drummer Lane Barrington, but he is currently on tour with his other band, Ocean Floor. For this reason, their percussion was left up to the nimble hands of Richard, who skillfully mixed it up and played around with a drum machine on stage. It sounded pretty good, but a live drummer would have given their show a much greater depth that seemed to be lacking.
Drumming issues aside, the group has an eerie and haunting sound, heavy on the distortion and just a tad bit messy in the best way possible. Their sound overall is deeply resonant and runs on the psychedelic side, complimenting the light and lilting vocals of the Laws brothers perfectly. At times, they err more on the side of folk but all of it blended well together, with songs weaving in and out throughout the performance.
Church provided a nice bridge into Talkdemonic, the last act of the night. I hear the term folktronic gets thrown around a lot, and I think these guys definitely fall into that category. The band is made up of violist Lisa Molinaro and drummer Kevin O’Connor, who layer their live performance with prerecorded synthesizers, electronics, and piano, creating a rich, full sound. They are both loud and delicate at the same time, and their music successfully permeated every crack of the venue as they played for an audience that seemed to stand silent in reverie.
Molinaro is a skilled violist, using the instrument’s depth and range to the fullest and bringing an orchestral quality into the mix. O’Connor kept pace beautifully with drums that never overwhelmed his partner, but still added an epic quality and a certain amount of weight to the performance that would have been lacking otherwise. Together, the duo functioned in perfect harmony, complimenting each other like a well-balanced marriage and ending the night beautifully.
