Mystery Jets made their first New York appearance at the Mercury Lounge Friday and Saturday with Noisettes. Product Shop NYC was at the Saturday show. The band began the show offstage with a recording of them chanting "Zootime-Zootime-Zootime" to segue into their first song. I have no idea what this chant means but it played for about a minute as they made their way through the crowd. As it continued to play, the repetition flipped into "Timezoo-Timezoo-Timezoo" and then back. Thus, the phrase continued to recycle in you brain as you ask yourself "What am I really listening to?" This is also a question I'm sure many people ask themselves when they first hear Mystery Jets because the origin of their sound cannot be easily classified. You can try to attach a prefix like prog-, art-, kraut-, or pop- to their version of rock but one won't do. Nor would it help in describing their live show by pointing to their album Making Dens (currently only available as a UK import), where the songs are embellished with some weird noises and sounds then polished with studio magic.
Their live show strips and scuffs that studio shine so you hear Mystery Jets in a raw and immediate form, which is a sound closer to the rough-cut of their two EPs except the vocals have the improved since then. On many of their songs the band sings in unison. Live, the lead singer Blaine Harrison and the rest of the band were really able to harmonize well. Blaine also plays a multitude of instruments for the group. He wailed on a keyboard that was receiving life-support from a switchboard above, where he simultaneously punched buttons and twisted knobs to jolt the notes to life. Alternately and sometimes in the same song, Blaine banged on a scavenger's percussion kit using flat cowbells, a battered garbage lid, and other found things that go click or clack. This was in addition to Kapil Trivedi’s tight drumming that sometimes involved odd time signatures. Mystery Jets seem to customize or make a lot of their instruments, I even saw Blaine fashion a guitar pick out of duct tape and two tiny pieces of plastic (maybe a broken pick) at the beginning of a song when no one could produce one from the crowd. William Rees, the main guitarist has an unconventional multi-finger plucking style for an electric guitar, I guess that’s why he didn’t have a pick. Henry Harrison, Blaine's father, played a more backbone, straightforward keyboard and guitar. The bassist, Kai Fish, was the most animated of the band, thrashing all over the stage and jumping down into the crowd. Kai and William's microphones were taped together on the same mic stand so they endearingly leaned into one another when they sang on the hooks. The set was short and there was no encore but I really enjoyed the show.
Mystery Jets are what would happen if you sent some imaginative kids off to a secluded island to make music and instruments out of junk they discovered there. An island where they could do what ever the hell they wanted to under the guidance of an old sage with an immense record collection and knowledge of obscure music from the 60s and 70s. What? Wait a second? Product Shop NYC has an interview with Mystery Jets from Eel Pie Island coming later in the week. Stay tuned. (In the meantime, check out our interview with the Beastie Boys on last Tuesday.)
Set list:
Zoo Time / Purple Prose / The Boy Who Ran Away / You Can’t Fool Me Dennis / Horse Drawn Cart / Diamonds In The Dark / Alas Agnes
There US EP Flotsam and Jetsam comes out April 11th on StarTime.
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness played a sold-out show yesterday at the Mercury Lounge. The band started their first song by brooding a harmony of notes that slowly expanded into a vast dark cloud of sound. I could not tell on the album how they were making these tones. But at the show it was apparent they were using ebows to vibrate the strings on their guitars, sometimes two at once, which had an ominous effect. The lead singer Christian Goyer has a similar cadence in his voice to the atmospheric hums of the music. At the show, I felt like my mind was wondering through billowing clouds of smoke. On their best songs like "According To Plan," that effusive gray was cut with an unexpected funky bass line. However, not every tune had this dynamic, which at first seemed good because it brought drama and contrast into the set list but by the end of the show my attention was waning. Some of the songs were so introspective I think my head imploded. Still, given the choice between the band and darkness, I would probably choose the band.
