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Bong Wish, Head Room Deep Thoughts, Jamaica Plain, MA Fur Purse The Midway, Jamaica Plain, MA January 6, 2018
Winter has a dominant personality. It’s narcissistic, egotistical and sociopathic in its disregard for your comfort. You can’t let it win. You have to head into the cold. You have to put your translucent white feet in to wonder bread bags, stick them into your galoshes and head out into the night. The first stop was Deep Thoughts - a way cool record store cum way cool - chilly - music space. Underground in every sense of the word. The used record store upstairs will spin your ears around. The small, muraled music space feels like a great house party even if the much-anticipated headliner, Tyvek, missed the email on New England weather in January. Suffice to say there is a debt to pay when they return to make amends.
Bong Wish swirl slow and easy. Keys and pedals push open the pastoral cosmic door. The occasionally alternating and backup vocals of the keyboard player with leader Mariam Saleh fill out the lite psych modal grooves. Bong Wish is a soundtrack for the weird dreams you have when you do three glugs of Nyquil rather than two, and they move from almost familiar and pleasant to something vaguely sinister. Bong Wish has an eponymous EP on Bandcamp. It allows the band to stretch beyond their more stripped down live sound. The tune "Saturn Spells" gets a kick from the expanded guest list - the flute in particular.
Headroom from Connecticut travel the same spaceways but with an eye toward bringing the noise to the heart of the sun. Kryssi Battalene is captain of the rocket. It’s a bucket of bolts, but at lightspeed, it makes a glorious noise. Freshly minted EP Head In The Clouds on Bandcamp. Wish I could have stayed.
I arrive at the Midway just in time to find MC Vice V'Ersatile chatting up the crowd while Fur Purse set up. It’s a record release party for their new disk Pur Furse, and the LGBTMNOP crowd is in their corner and ready to go. The band jumps right in with drummer Claire’s big pound on the toms, in a fractured 6/4 on a tune that may have been titled White. Claire is a powerhouse all night. She lays down a beat that integrates Fur Purse's art-rock trio.
Tyson on guitar plays push-me pull-me with the drums. She kicks in sync or lays her beautifully nasty clipped scrapes and scratches down to further her singular sense of groove. And groove it does. Not just punk or metal or nufunk. A bit Riot Grrrl by way of Sleater Kinney. But Tyson has her own take on a shot to the hips, knees, and head. That the crowd twitched, but never quite erupted into an angular mad dance party, remains a mystery. Not that they lacked for participation. People knew the words. The vibe in the room was big and warm. There was a short, fun, successful clap-along. Not an easy feat to pull off
Eve on keys, vocals and a squawk of alto sax kept the band from both flying apart into avant squall and led some of its most free-flying acrobatics. She moved between purr and bark, howl and whisper “everything, everything, everything” from Check This. Ella Boissonnault from Lady Pills sat in for a good third of the set. Eve didn’t need the help, but the interplay hit a sweet spot, added gasoline to the fire and gave Boissonnault an opportunity to kick up the vocal grit. Fur Purse’s new disk is on Soundcloud. Made loud to play loud.
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