Sunday Night Sound

Posted by Luke Henley in Music, Santa Fe

“This is a really great way to put off your homework for Monday,” said Greg Bortnichak as he poised his fingers across the fretboard of his cello. Bortnichak makes up one half of Teach Me Equals along with Erin Murphy, a duo from Florida that brought their blend of classical instrumentation and modern experimental rock flourishes to the O’Shaughnessy Performance Space last Sunday, Oct. 5. Bortnichak’s quip hit home for most of the gathered crowd of students as laughter brought in the next song of squelching electronic loops and the roar of the band’s hypnotic, distorted tones.

Before his set, Bortnichak spoke enthusiastically about SFUAD’s music program facilities, claiming amazement at the students’ easy access to performance and practice spaces, as well as recording facilities. Testament to this point is the ability for students to put on shows on a Sunday night, and several students took advantage of that luxury. The space filled up quickly as openers Venus and the Lion took the stage, and it was quickly apparent that these students were there to move to the music, not simply stand as idle observers.

After releasing its debut EP Absinthe last February, the SFUAD-student band Venus and the Lion have been working on new material. These songs expand on a foundation of groovy, classic rock-tinged sound established on its freshman effort. These elements have been expanded into longer, more complex arrangements that still manage not to stray from the band’s ability to tap into a crowd’s lust for dance-ready rhythms. The audience was along for the band’s ride, taking in newer material with vocal enthusiasm, although there was a noticeable spike in cheers as the band tore into its best-known single “T. Rex,” whose bluesy stomp threw the crowd into a sudden blissed-out fervor.

Venus and the Lion members: Maggie Johnson, Daniel Mench-Thurlow, Nathan Smerage and Colton Liberatore

Teach Me Equals provided the audience a more stripped-down spectacle, its two members relying on layering the music live with minimal instrumentation including cello, violin and electric guitar, all cranked through distortion pedals and all other manner of cosmic digital effects. The result was a set that was in many ways less immediate than Venus and the Lion’s, but managed to induce a similarly trance-like effect as the crowd began to sway and bob along to the band’s furious, sludgy music. Not merely content with creating waves of noise, however, the band also showcased its signature flair for melody and harmony. The ultimate result was a pleasing mix of pop structure and crushing sonics, a complete catharsis that left the band and onlookers   similarly bedraggled, sweaty, and thrilled.

Luke Carr and Contemporary Music major Caitlin Brothers at a Storming the Beaches With Logos in Hand rehearsal. Photograph by Brandon Soder.

Closing out the night, fresh from a jaunt up to Colorado for a few shows, Luke Carr’s Storming the Beaches With Logos in Hand threw itself into a brainy mix of high-concept science fiction math rock and visceral, world-music-inflected grooves. A longtime local favorite, the night was especially remarkable with the recent release of the first single, “Up & Atom,” from the band’s upcoming album. Hungry and excited, even after two already electric and highly physical sets from the previous bands, Carr and his accompanying musicians stirred the room into a vibrant mosh of fevered dancing. The band’s ability to reach an audience on a cerebral as well as emotional level has always been one of their largest draws, and that was amplified by seeing the band in a more immediate and intimate space than some of the larger venues they have played in recent memory. It was a suitably high point to cap off a night already full of them. As the last notes rang out, the dissipating mass of students walked in a visible daze as the clock ticked forward into the earliest hours of a Monday morning.