at Fort Reno, 8/17/2006
Show was good. I've heard Garland of Hours several times. Consistently, there are technical problems with the sound equipment. Fort Reno is always a little sketchy in terms of buzz and interference, but somehow Amy Domingues brings the hum and buzz and unintentional noises to any venue. Fortunately, that doesn't seem to get in the way of the music. Amy opened her set with a couple of solo pieces, including a Lungfish song arranged for cello and voice, with some looping. Very nice. Her band this time out included Mary Timony (guitar) and Devin Ocampo (drums) plus a bass player who's name I don't know. The band was solid. Amy's strange mix of rock music oddly colored by early music came together in it's usual fragile way - which is a good thing.
Mary Timony played with a trio: herself on guitar/voice, Devin Ocampo, drums (this was the lineup for the last show I saw) but now they've added a bass player - Chad Molter, who also plays with Devin in the band "Medications." I prefer the trio over the duo lineup - especially with two-thirds of Medications included. They played mostly new material, I think... I only recognized one song from "Ex-Hex" - Backwards and Forwards, with a nifty new intro. The new material asks the question: is prog-rock cool again? And the answer is yes, with certain limitations. Seems like her live shows are sloppier than the records so it's hard to read too much into the new material beyond the obvious. It's following the trajectory of Ex-Hex - but (as you might expect with two-thirds of Medications) nifty shifting patterns bordering on "math rock" appear frequently and to great effect. The last tune, which was the last song of the summer at the park, ended the season with a psychedelic flavor, Chad played synth-organ, and the guitar part was fed through some kind of filter effect - providing a tasty swirly combination.
Photos by Flickr user furcafe.
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